Manchester Martyrs - Investigation

Investigation

The police suspected that Kelly and Deasy had been taken by their rescuers to Ancoats, considered at that time to be a Fenian area of Manchester. Anonymous letters alleged that the pair were being sheltered in a house on Every Street, but the 50 armed police who raided the premises found no signs of the fugitives. Despite a reward of £300 (£19,000 as of 2012) offered by the authorities, neither Kelly nor Deasy were recaptured. An article published in the 14 November edition of The Times newspaper reported that they had made their way to Liverpool, from where they had taken passage on a ship bound for New York.

The police raided Manchester's Irish quarters and brought "dozens of suspects, selected almost at random", before local magistrates; the raids have been described as a "reign of terror" for the Irish in Manchester. Amongst those arrested was Thomas Maguire, a young Royal Marine on leave, who unfortunately for him had been in the vicinity of the attack on the police van and was Irish. Such was the zeal of the police that one man with a strong Irish accent surrendered himself to the magistrates "as the only means I have of saving myself from being arrested over and over again wherever I go, as a Fenian".