But Liverpool became much too suspicious a place to send from.  I therefore adopted the plan of sending parcels, made up as various kinds of merchandise, to friends in Manchester, from which city there was regular communication with inland towns in Ireland, and these friends sent on the parcels to their destinations more safely than if going direct from Liverpool.

This scheme was working smoothly enough, but eventually the London printers were frightened into giving up the contract, and the printing had to be transferred to Paris.

It is needless to say that, during this time, Michael Wolohan, our agent in Ireland (whose name had for the time being become Brownrigg), had the utmost difficulty in escaping the attention of the police.  Some parcels he was sending by the Broadstone terminus were detected and seized.  What troubled him most was that, as he paid a considerable sum for carriage on these, and as the railway company had not forwarded them, he was entitled to have the money returned, But the police were on the look out for the so-called Brownrigg, and it was thought best that he should not venture near the station.  It happened that week that my son arrived in Dublin with some more of the kind of luggage he had brought over at Christmas, and, with the recklessness of youth, he went to the station, and, as Brownrigg, got the money returned.

“United Ireland” for the week ending January 28th, 1882, was printed in Paris, in a section of a printing office rented by Patrick Egan, and sent, addressed to me, for circulation in Ireland and Great Britain.  The parcels were seized on their arrival at Folkestone and Dover, and though the seizure was illegal and I applied for the parcels as being my property (a question being also asked in Parliament) we could get no satisfaction.

But, notwithstanding the seizures made from time to time, it was determined to keep the flag flying, and no matter what might be the difficulty encountered in the production of “United Ireland,” not an issue was missed.  Of course, as a natural consequence of these difficulties, the paper was sometimes hard to be got, so that, taking advantage of this, some of the newsvendors and all the newsboys in Dublin were reaping a rich harvest, as, owing to the anxiety of the people to get copies, they were frequently sold on the streets of the cities and towns in Ireland at from 6d. to 2s. 6d. a copy.  The continued presence of the paper all over Ireland did perhaps more than anything else to keep heart in the people.  Accordingly, it must be kept going at all hazards.  The type for the paper continued to be set up in Paris, and, after a certain quantity had been printed off each week, for transmission by post and otherwise, the matrices from the type were brought over to me by carefully selected agents from Paris.  From these stereotype plates of the pages were cast.  As my own machine was not big enough, I arranged with a Liverpool firm of printers to machine the paper for me each week.  Accordingly, they printed the papers for the week ending February 4th, and delivered the bulk of them to us, so that we got our parcels for that week sent off.