Manchester Martyrs - Execution

Execution

A crowd estimated at 8,000–10,000 gathered outside the walls of Salford Jail on the evening of 22 November 1867 to witness the public execution of the three convicted men the following morning. A platform had been built about 30 feet (9.1 m) above ground, through the outside wall of the jail facing New Bailey Street, to support the gallows. The spectators were "well supplied by the gin palaces of Deansgate and the portable beer and coffee stalls". According to Father Gadd, one of the three Catholic priests who attended to the men:

A crowd of inhuman ghouls from the purlieus of Deansgate and the slums of the City ... made the night and early morning hideous with the raucous bacchanalian strains of "Champagne Charlie", "John Brown", and "Rule Britannia". No Irish mingled with the throng ... They had obeyed the instructions of their Clergy. Throughout Manchester and Salford, silent congregations with tear-stained faces ... assembled for a celebration of early Mass for the eternal welfare of the young Irishmen doomed to die a dreadful death that morning.

The authorities took considerable pains to discourage any rescue attempt. Over 2,500 regular and special police were deployed in and around the prison, augmented by a military presence which included a detachment of the 72nd Highlanders and a squadron of the Eighth Hussars. All traffic in and out of the city was stopped. The Times newspaper reported that by the time the hangings took place, shortly after 8:00 am, "the mob were quiet and orderly", in contrast to the previous night and early morning.

The executioner, William Calcraft, was the most famous of the 19th century, but was reportedly nervous of executing Fenians, because of threats he had received. He was also "particularly incompetent", and was "notoriously unable to calculate the correct length of rope required for each individual hanging; he frequently had to rush below the scaffold to pull on his victim's legs to hasten death". Most accounts claim that Allen died almost instantaneously from a broken neck, but Larkin and O'Brien were not so fortunate. Father Gadd, reported that:

The other two ropes, stretched taut and tense by their breathing twitching burdens, were in ominous and distracting movement. The hangman had bungled! ... Calcraft then descended into the pit and there finished what he could not accomplish from above. He killed Larkin.

Father Gadd refused to allow Calcraft to dispatch O'Brien in the same way, and so "for three-quarters of an hour the good priest knelt, holding the dying man's hands within his own, reciting the prayers for the dying. Then the long drawn out agony ended."