Terence MacManus

Terence MacManus was born about 1811 (or 1823)[1] in Tempo, County Fermanagh, Ireland. He was educated in parochial schools.

As a young man he moved to Liverpool, a major port, where he became a successful shipping agent. In 1848 he returned to Ireland, where he became active in the Repeal Association, which sought to overturn the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. After joining the Irish Confederation, he was among those who took part with William Smith O'Brien and John Blake Dillon in the July 1848 Young Irelander Rebellion in Ballingarry, County Tipperary. MacManus and the other leaders were charged and convicted of treason, and sentenced to death for their actions.[1]

Due to public support for clemency, the men's sentences were commuted to deportation for life. MacManus was transported to Van Diemen's Land in Tasmania, Australia in 1849 on the Swift, together with O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher and Patrick O'Donoghue. They were assigned to different settlements to reduce their collaboration in the new land. However, the Irish men continued to meet secretly.[2]

In 1852 MacManus and Meagher escaped from Australia and made their way to San Francisco, California, where MacManus settled. (Meagher went on to New York City.) Like other immigrants, the Irish revolutionaries carried their issues to the United States. Ellis, captain of a ship that was supposed to carry O'Brien to freedom, also emigrated to San Francisco. MacManus held a lynch court of Ellis among Irish emigrants for his betrayal of O'Brien in his escape attempt from Van Diemen's Land. The court martial acquitted Ellis for lack of evidence.

Failing to re-establish his career as a shipping agent, MacManus died in poverty around the age of 50. His body was returned to Ireland, here he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on 10 November 1861. Fenians organized a huge funeral and nationalist demonstration to honor MacManus.

From the dock before sentencing, 24 October 1848:[3]

... "I say, whatever part I may have taken in the struggle for my country's independence, whatever part I may have acted in my short career, I stand before you, my lords, with a free heart and a light conscience, to abide the issue of your sentence. And now, my lords, this is, perhaps, the fittest time to put a sentence upon record, which is this - that standing in this dock, and called to ascend the scaffold - it may be to-morrow - it may be now - it may be never - whatever the result may be, I wish to put this on record, that in the part I have taken I was not actuated by enmity towards Englishmen - for among them I have passed some of the happiest days of my life, and the most prosperous; and in no part which I have taken was I actuated by enmity towards Englishmen individually, whatever I may have felt of the injustice of English rule in this island; I therefore say, that it is not because I loved England less, but because I loved Ireland more, that I now stand before you".

• List of convicts transported to Australia

• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1893). "Macmanus, Terence Bellew" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Further reading

• Malcolm Brown, The Politics of Irish Literature: from Thomas Davis to W.B. Yeats, Allen & Unwin, 1973.
• John Mitchel, A Cause Too Many, Aidan Hegarty, Camlane Press.
• Thomas Davis, The Thinker and Teacher, Arthur Griffith, M.H. Gill & Son 1922.
• Capt. W. F. Lyons, Brigadier-General Thomas Francis Meagher: His Political and Military Career, Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, 1869
• Dennis Gwynn, Young Ireland and 1848, Cork University Press, 1949.
• Daniel O'Connell The Irish Liberator, Dennis Gwynn, Hutchinson & Co, Ltd.
• O'Connell Davis and the Colleges Bill, Dennis Gwynn, Cork University Press 1948.
• Dennis Gwynn Smith, O’Brien And The "Secession", Cork University Press
• Meagher of The Sword, Ed, Arthur Griffith, M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd., 1916.
• Young Irelander Abroad: The Diary of Charles Hart, Ed. Brendan O'Cathaoir, University Press.
• John Mitchel: First Felon for Ireland, Ed. Brian O'Higgins, Brian O'Higgins 1947.
• Rossa's Recollections 1838 to 1898, The Lyons Press, 2004.
• James Connolly, Labour in Ireland, Fleet Street, 1910.
• James Connolly, The Re-Conquest of Ireland, Fleet Street, 1915.
• Louis J. Walsh, John Mitchel Noted Irish Lives, The Talbot Press Ltd., 1934.
• Thomas Davis: Essays and Poems, Centenary Memoir, M. H Gill, M.H. Gill & Son, Ltd MCMXLV.
• Life of John Martin, P. A. Sillard, James Duffy & Co., Ltd 1901.
• P. A. Sillard, Life of John Mitchel, James Duffy and Co., Ltd., 1908.
• P. S. O'Hegarty, John Mitchel, Maunsel & Company, Ltd., 1917.
• R. V. Comerford,The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics & Society 1848–82, Wolfhound Press 1998
• Robert Sloan, William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848, Four Courts Press, 2000
• Seamus MacCall, Irish Mitchel, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1938.
• T. A. Jackson, Ireland Her Own, Lawrence & Wishart Ltd., 1976.
• T. C. Luby, Life and Times of Daniel O'Connell, Cameron & Ferguson.
• T. F. O'Sullivan, Young Ireland, The Kerryman Ltd., 1945.
• Terry Golway, Irish Rebel John Devoy and America's Fight for Irish Freedom, St. Martin's Griffin, 1998.
• Thomas Gallagher, Paddy's Lament Ireland 1846–1847: Prelude to Hatred, Poolbeg, 1994.
• Thomas Keneally, The Great Shame, Anchor Books, 1999.
• Thomas, P. O'Neill, James Fintan Lalor, Golden Publications, 2003.
• Charles Gavan Duffy, Conversations With Carlyle (1892), Belfast: Athol Books, ISBN 0-85034-114-0.
• Brendan Clifford and Julianne Herlihy, Envoi, Taking Leave of Roy Foster, Cork: Aubane Historical Society, Cork.
• M. W. Savage, The Falcon Family, or, Young Ireland, London, 1845. (An Gorta Mor) Quinnipiac University