A TRUE FENIAN
JOHN CURTIN KENT 1849-1931
John Kent, born April 21 1849, was the son of David Kent and Ellen Curtin of Loughnahilly, Ballyhindon. Evicted in the 1850s, the family moved to Fermoy where they ran a pub on Abbey Street. David was a grandson of David Kent and Margaret Fitzgerald of Ballyhampshire, Castlelyons, and was, like his cousins, well known to the RIC for being a land agitator.
In 1867, John, aged seventeen, took the Fenian oath with his father in Fermoy, and adopted the pseudonym Curtin, his mother’s maiden name. In 1873, he emigrated to the mining town of Falls of Schuylkill in Philadelphia, transferring to the American faction of the Brotherhood. He joined the Pennsylvania National Guard from 1874 to 1876 but saw no active service. In 1875, he presented to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia to declare his intention to become an American citizen. An action, it transpired, that would later save him.
By 1878, he was the treasurer of the John O’Mahony circle of the Fenian Brotherhood - Regiment 102. However, the Brotherhood was infiltrated with British spies, one of whom was Thomas Beech, who disguised himself as a Frenchman named Henri Le Caron. When the Brotherhood declined, he, like John Kent, who was now living in New York, transferred to the more secretive organisation, Clan na Gael. Beech had befriended one of the Clan’s most controversial senior figures, Alexander O’Sullivan.
In 1882, O’Sullivan boasted the details of a secret clan bombing offensive to be led by American born, Dr Thomas Gallagher, in England. He inferred that the selected recruits would receive special training in the use of explosives and the attack would be unlike any other ever witnessed.
The plan was to blow up various locations in London using clan manufactured explosives. The recruits for the operation were: James Murphy, alias Alfred Whitehead, a chemist adept in the manufacture of explosives; Engineer, John Kent, alias John Curtin; William Lynch, alias William Norman, graduate of the Brooklyn Dynamite school; Teacher, Thomas Clarke, alias Henry Hammond Wilson, later executed for leading the 1916 Easter Rising; Bernard Gallagher, alias Galer, brother of Dr Gallagher and William Ansburgh, alias James Campbell.
James Murphy opened a paint shop on Ledsam Street in Birmingham, which operated as a front for a bomb making factory. The ingredients for paint and nitro-glycerine were similar, and the quantities he would order went unnoticed for many months until a shop assistant observed his chemically burned hands and sore eyes. Suspecting that he was producing nitro-glycerine, they notified the authorities, who commenced surveillance.
Those witnessed going to and from the shop were Dr Gallagher, William Lynch and Thomas Clarke. Each man was followed, searched and arrested. A letter from John Kent which contained the address of his lodgings was found in Gallagher’s possession, he had been unknown to police until then.
TRIAL
Kerry native, Sergeant William Melville, rented the room next to John, posing as an Irish tourist in a bid to engage him but failed. The police continued to monitor John’s movements and after a substantial wait outside Gallagher’s Charing Cross Hotel, John, possibly realising that something had happened, hurried to Euston train station. He was apprehended there on 7th April, 1883, searched and taken to Clerkenwell prison, London, while awaiting trial.
He gave his name as John Curtin and after being identified as John Kent by a Fermoy RIC officer at his trial, claimed that he used Curtin to distinguish himself from his relatives of the same name.
Their trial was held at the Old Bailey in London between 28 May and 28 June, 1883. They were accused of feloniously planning to depose the Queen from the Imperial crown of Great Britain and Ireland, the worst crime known under The Treason Felony Act 1848. Lynch portrayed himself as a duped man and made a deal with the police to testify against the others in exchange for his freedom. Bernard Gallagher claimed that John Kent was the leader. He and William Ansburgh were later acquitted.
Dr Gallagher, James Murphy, Thomas Clarke and John Kent were charged with treason and sentenced to penal servitude for life. It was reported that upon his conviction, John shouted ‘God save Ireland’.
After trial, John was transferred to Millbank Prison in Westminster, then moved to Chatham in August 1883, reputedly the worst of all Victorian prisons. Thomas Clarke famously said after his own release: ‘had anyone told me before the prison doors closed upon me that it was possible for any human being to endure what Irish prisoners endured in Chatham prison, and come out of it alive and sane, I would not have believed them.’
ILL HEALTH
Senator O’Sullivan of New York, pleaded with the relevant authorities on John’s behalf to investigate his case, after receiving numerous letters from John’s family and friends. He stated that John was an American citizen, incarcerated in an English prison as an Irish political prisoner and that he did not receive a fair trial. English lawyer, Hugh J. Carroll, secretary of the Democratic State Committee, Pawtucket Rhode Island, who investigated his case, concluded that Kent’s sentence was based upon an illogical statement made by Bernard Gallagher.
Consul-General Waller, the United States Consulate General in London, also made inquiries about his trial and conviction. He was permitted to visit Chatham to take John’s statement. The report which was presented in July 1888, contained affidavits from Irish, English and American citizens describing John’s character, his naturalization certificate, and an excerpt from John’s statement.
In 1892, while in Portland Prison, John’s health began to deteriorate. John Redmond M.P. who was also pleading John’s case in the British Parliament, took advantage of the severity of his illness and successfully secured his pardon in June 1895.
Further investigations by the committee revealed that the legislation in Britain stated that an explosion had to occur in order to be sentenced to penal servitude. It was this loophole which freed John and other Irish political prisoners of the time.
After his release, he went to stay with his sister Mary, and her husband, English soldier and recruiter for the twenty-eighth Gloucestershire Regiment, George Cooke, at their home in Horfield Barracks, Bristol. For this reason, John’s presence there had to be kept secret. In July 1895, George paid for John’s passage to Queenstown aboard a ship captained by a friend of his. News of his arrival to his sister Bridget’s home on East Barrack Street travelled fast.
On the evening of 17 July, 1895, a reception was held in his honour. The Barrack Hill Brass Band played national airs as they marched in a parade through the town. In an address to the townspeople, John thanked all who helped in securing his and his comrades’ freedom.
In August 1895, he returned to New York and stayed with his brother Pierce to convalesce, before continuing his work in Irish politics.
For his crimes, he had spent twelve years in solitary confinement in the dark. This had many physical effects on his body, but unlike some of his comrades who suffered severe psychological problems, his mind remained unconquered of will. He married Castlelyons native, Margaret O’Sullivan in Manhattan in 1899 and lived in New York until some years after her death in 1922.
BURIED IN KILCRUMPER
In 1929, it was reported that members of Fermoy UDC unanimously co-opted him onto the council to fill the vacancy caused by the disqualification of Mr C.S. Maye. He graciously declined the proposal in a letter due to his elderly age and ill health.
Prior to his death, he gave an interview to The Cork Examiner as one of the last Fenians alive. He was reticent and non-committal about his view on the political landscape of the newly formed Free State. He remarked that the attempts made by the young Free State Government to raise the fortune and status of Ireland had the best wishes of, not only Irish Americans, but the American people.
He died a few months later, on May 10 1931, from old age. John’s remains were taken from his home at Miss Curtin’s boarding house on Kent Street, to Saint Patrick’s Church, Fermoy for requiem Mass. Among the mourners was Kathleen Clarke, widow of Thomas Clarke, who remained a lifelong friend of John.
He is buried in Kilcrumper old graveyard, Fermoy in the Curtin and Kent family plot.
(Laura Doyle is a great-great-grandniece of John Curtin Kent)