Erica Veil, great-great-granddaughter of Colonel Thomas Kelly, and Bob Bateman, collateral descendant of Captain Timothy Deasy, at Colonel Thomas Kelly’s grave in The Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York, Easter Sunday 2015. Kelly and Deasy, the top men in the IRB / Fenian Brotherhood in 1867, were rescued in “The Smashing of the Van” in Manchester, England - scarpering back to America.

The “Manchester Martyrs,” Allen, Larkin and O’Brien were hanged for the part in the rescue. “God Save Ireland”, written in tribute to them, became a virtual Irish national anthem, until superseded by “Amhrán na bhFiann" in 1916. Captain Timothy Deasy is buried in Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Erica Veil placed a wreath on the grave of Thomas Kelly, as part of the 2015 Cumann na Saiorse Náisiúnta Easter 1916 Commemoration. † LIAM MURPHY