Two other Fenian demonstrations, not to mention an abortive project to seize Chester Castle, were shortly afterwards made in England.  In 1867, some Fenian prisoners were rescued in Manchester, while on their way to gaol, and in the attempt to burst the lock of the van in which they were being conveyed a police officer named Brett, who was in charge of it, was accidentally shot.  Five men were found guilty for this offence.  One Macquire was proved to have been arrested by mistake, another Conder had the sentence commuted, but three—­Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien—­were hung.

Another Fenian exploit of a somewhat different character followed in December, 1867, when an attempt was made by some desperados belonging to the party to blow up the Clerkenwell House of Detention, in which two Fenian prisoners were then confined.  Luckily for them, as it turned out, they were not in that part of the prison at the time, or the result of their would-be liberators’ efforts would have simply been to kill them.  As it was, twelve other people were either killed on the spot or died from its effects, and over a hundred were more or less badly wounded.  For this crime six persons were put upon their trial, but only one was convicted and actually executed.

The next Irish event of any moment stands upon a curiously different platform, though there were not wanting suggestions that the two had an indirect connection as cause and effect.  In 1868 the Liberal party came into power after the General Election with Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister, and the session of 1869 saw the introduction of a Bill for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church.  The controversies to which that measure gave rise are already quite out of date, and there is no need therefore to revive them.  Few measures so vehemently opposed have produced less startling effects in the end.  It neither achieved those great things hoped by its supporters, nor yet brought about the dire disasters so freely threatened by its opponents.  To the Roman Catholics of Ireland the grievance of an alien State Church had, since the settlement of the tithe question, lapsed into being little more than a sentimental one, so that practically the measure affected them little.  As an institution, however, the position of the Irish State Church was undoubtedly a difficult one to defend, the very same arguments which tell most forcibly for the State Church of England telling most forcibly against its numerically feeble Irish sister.  Whatever the abstract rights or wrongs of the case it is pretty clear now that the change must have come sooner or later, and few therefore can seriously regret that it came when it did.  The struggle was protracted through the entire session, but in the end passed both Houses of Parliament, and received the royal assent on July 26, 1869.