A noted man among the Fenians was “Pagan O’Leary.”  Jack Ryan told me of how he rather surprised the prison officials when they came to classify him under the head “Religion.”  Being asked what he was, he said he was a Pagan.  No, they said, they could not accept that—­they had headings in their books, “Roman Catholic,” “Protestant,” and “Presbyterian,” but not “Pagans.”  “Well,” he said, “You have two kinds, the ‘Robbers’ (meaning Protestants) and the ‘Beggars’ (Catholics), and if I must choose, put me down a ‘Beggar.’”

A startling incident in connection with the Fenian movement, the daring plan to seize Chester Castle, will enable me to introduce two exceedingly interesting characters with whom I came in contact at this time.  The idea was to bring sufficient men from various parts of England, armed with concealed revolvers, to overpower the garrison, which at the time was a very weak one, and to seize the large store of arms then in the Castle.  In connection with this, arrangements had been made for the cutting of wires, the taking up of rails, and the seizure of sufficient engines and waggons to convey the captured arms to Holyhead, whence, a steamer having been seized there for the purpose, the arms were to be taken to Ireland, and the standard of insurrection raised.  Of John Ryan, one of the leaders of this raid, I have already spoken.  Another of them, Captain John McCafferty, was one of the Irish-American officers who had crossed the Atlantic to take part in the projected rising in Ireland.  I met him several times in Liverpool in company with John Ryan, and, from his own lips, got an account of his adventurous career up to that time.

Most of the American officers I came in contact with during these years had served in the Federal Army, but McCafferty fought on the side of the South in the American Civil War.  He was a thorough type of a guerilla leader.  With his well-proportioned and strongly-knit frame, and handsome resolute-looking bronzed face, you could imagine him just the man for any dashing and daring enterprise.

I frequently met John Flood, too, whose name, with that of McCafferty, is associated with the Chester raid.  He was then about thirty years of age, a fine, handsome man, tall and strong, wearing a full and flowing tawny-coloured beard.  He had a genial-looking face, and, in your intercourse with him, you found him just as genial as he looked.  He was a man of distinguished bearing, who you could imagine would fill with grace and dignity the post of Irish Ambassador to some friendly power.  He was a Wexford man, full of the glorious traditions of ’98.  He took an active part in aiding the escape of James Stephens from Ireland.  With Colonel Kelly he was aboard the hooker in which the C.O.I.R. escaped, and to his skill and courage and rare presence of mind was largely due the fact that Stephens did not again fall into the hands of his enemies.

From then up to the time immediately preceding the Chester raid, he frequently called on me in Liverpool in company with John Ryan.