The Fenian  The Instrument Maker  James Stephens Escape  The Presentation  Commemoration

James Stephens Arrest and Escape LEFT: Offices of The Irish People Newspaper, Parliment Street, Dublin. RIGHT: James Stephens In 1863 James Stephens established a weekly republican newspaper called "The Irish People" and among its staff were fellow Fenians John O'Leary, O'Donovan Rossa, Thomas Clarke Luby and Charles J. Kickham.The paper was sold on a subscription basis and it ran for almost two years.It was seized by the british government on the 15th of september 1865 and all the staff on the premises at the time were arrested and imprisoned. James Stephens was not at the offices at the time of the raid but was arrested three weeks later at his home Fairfield House in Sandymount. Col. Thomas Kelly took control of the Fenians and immediately started planning the rescue of Stephens. Kelly made contact with two men that worked in Richmond Prison where Stephens was held,John J.Breslin was a hospital warder and Daniel Byrne an ordinary warder,the two men were sworn I.R.B. members and willing to help. At great risk Breslin managed to take wax impressions of the two keys he needed, one for Stephens cell which was held in the Governors office and another for one of the outer doors. The impressions were given to Michael Lambert and he set about making duplicates and gave them to John Breslin as soon as they were made. The date chosen for the rescue was November 24th 1865 and there were a number of men chosen to act as guard outside the prison. The men involved on the outside were Colonel Thomas Kelly, John Ryan, Michael Lambert, John Devoy, Paddy Kearney, Michael Cody, John Harrison, Denis Duggan, Jack Mullen, Matthew O'Neill, Jack Lawler, William Brophy, and Pat Flood. On the inside John Breslin and Daniel Byrne waited until 1a.m. to make their move. Breslin went to the corridor where Stephens was held and he had to open two doors before he got there, he did this as quietly as possible as there was a policeman outside the door at the other end of Stephens corridor and there was a civilian prisoner by the name of McLeod in the cell beside him, McLeod had a gong in his cell but decided not to use it. Stephens was waiting in his cell fully dressed, Breslin opened the cell door and the two walked along the corridor and down the stairs and out into the prison yard. Daniel Byrne was waiting in the yard and helped them carry out some tables and a ladder for Stephens to climb over the prison wall. Once over the wall he was received by Colonel Thomas J. Kelly and the rest of the men. Kelly then took Stephens to a safe house and he remained in Dublin for a couple of months before leaving for Paris in February 1866. He went to the USA in April 1866 to raise funds for the much anticipated rising in Ireland but he was opposed as leader of the Fenians later that year. He remained in exile until 1891 living mostly in Paris and for a while in Switzerland. James Stephens arriving at Jones's Wood, New York in April 1866. A reported 15,000 people turned out to see him and paid 50 cents each admission fee.