1-157-240 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Freeing of the Fenian Conspiracy leaders from a police van, Hyde Street, Manchester, 1867. On 18 September 1867, Colonel Thomas J Kelly and Captain Deasy, two leading figures in the failed Irish Rebellion of 1867 were being transported from court in Manchester to prison. A group of Manchester-based Fenians led by Edward O'Meaher Condon attacked the police van carrying the prisoners as it passed under a railway bridge in Hyde Street. In the ensuing struggle, Police Sergeant Brett, guarding the prisoners inside the van, was shot. Kelly and Deasy escaped to the USA, but their liberators were arrested. Three of them, Allen, Larkin and O'Brien, were hanged for the murder of Sergeant Brett, but Condon, an American citizen, had his sentence altered to life imprisonment at the request of the US government.