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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
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Speaker 7: Good Evening. It was the biggest funeral Chicago had seen
Speaker 7: since Lincoln's. On May twenty sixth, eighteen eighty nine, four
Speaker 7: thousand mourners seated down Michigan Avenue, followed by a crowd
Speaker 7: forty thousand strong in a howl of protest at what
Speaker 7: commentators called one of the gasliest and most curious crimes
Speaker 7: in civilized history. The dead Man Doctor P. H. Cronan
Speaker 7: was a respected Irish physician, but his brutal murder uncovered
Speaker 7: a web of intrigue, secrecy, and corruption that stretched across
Speaker 7: the United States and far beyond Blood Runs Green tells
Speaker 7: the story of Cronan's murder, from the police investigation to
Speaker 7: the trial. It is a story of hot headed journalists
Speaker 7: in pursuit of sensational crimes, of a bungling police force
Speaker 7: riddled with informers and spies, and of a secret revolutionary
Speaker 7: society determined to free Ireland from Britain, but succeeding only
Speaker 7: in tearing itself apart. It is also the story of
Speaker 7: a booming immigrant population clamoring for power at a time
Speaker 7: of unprecedented change. From back rooms to courtrooms, historian Gillian
Speaker 7: O'Brien defintely navigates the complexities of Irish Chicago, bringing to
Speaker 7: life a rich caste of characters and tracing the spectacular
Speaker 7: rise and fall of the secret Irish American society Clan
Speaker 7: nee Gale. She draws on real life accounts and sources
Speaker 7: from the United States, Ireland, and Britain to cast new
Speaker 7: light on Clan the Gale and reveal how Irish Republicanism
Speaker 7: swept across the United States. Destined to be a true
Speaker 7: crime classic, Blood Runs Green as an enthralling tale of
Speaker 7: a murder that captivated the world and reverberated through Society
Speaker 7: long after the coffin closed. The book that we are
Speaker 7: featuring this evening is Blood Runs Green with my special
Speaker 7: guest journalist, author and historian Jillian O'Brien. And Jillian O'Brien
Speaker 7: is calling from Liverpool, England today and using our direct
Speaker 7: connect with the instructions provided by blog talk radio, and
Speaker 7: we have a problem connecting for those unfortunate persons there
Speaker 7: will listen to this live which are a handful. We
Speaker 7: will give Jillian for customary a few minutes to try
Speaker 7: to connect and I'll edit this portion out. I don't
Speaker 7: want to promise to do that, but I will and
Speaker 7: if not, I'm sure Jillian is still very interested in
Speaker 7: being interviewed regarding her book Blood Wind's Green, and there
Speaker 7: she is right now. Good evening, Jillian O'Brien, Good evening.
Speaker 7: I just did the introduction for your book, Blood Wren's Green.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much for a green to this interview.
Speaker 7: I know you're calling from your home in Liverpool.
Speaker 4: Is that correct, that's correct.
Speaker 7: I want to thank you very much. Let's start off
Speaker 7: with really the necessary background on your book, the history
Speaker 7: behind the formation of the secret Irish Republican move in
Speaker 7: terms of the societies that were predecessed or were prior
Speaker 7: to the Clan Nee Gale, and so tell us about
Speaker 7: the Fenians and before the Clan the Gale, and tell
Speaker 7: us about that whole formation of Irish republican partner, the
Speaker 7: Irish secret societies and the formation of this clan the Gale.
Speaker 7: And if I've mispronounced that, please correct me.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, you're quite accurate. Well, the Fenians and
Speaker 4: Clane Gale come out of I suppose they're posts the
Speaker 4: Irish Famine, when the huge numbers of Irish had emigrated,
Speaker 4: many of them to the United States, many of them
Speaker 4: to Canada, and there was a growing belief that the
Speaker 4: only way to defeat the British and to regain or
Speaker 4: gain control of Ireland and establish in Irish republic was
Speaker 4: through using force to do so, that constitutional means wouldn't
Speaker 4: necessarily work, and so a number of groups were established,
Speaker 4: and probably the most well known of those was the
Speaker 4: Fenian group, which was established in the late eighteen fifties,
Speaker 4: and that group as a secret society and it's it
Speaker 4: was dedicated to using force to try and establish an
Speaker 4: Irish Republic, and very often in these Irish Secret Society
Speaker 4: is the very first thing on any agenda is the split.
Speaker 4: And so there were a lot of divisions within those
Speaker 4: groups between how they would achieve this freedom and the
Speaker 4: various strategies that would use, and the level of connection
Speaker 4: they would have with their counterpart in Ireland and in Britain.
Speaker 4: And so the Fenian Movement U ultimately had sort of
Speaker 4: a series of uprisings or attempted uprisings in the late
Speaker 4: eighteen sixties, particularly in eighteen sixty seven, and there were
Speaker 4: again they weren't as successful as they thought they would be,
Speaker 4: and out of the sort of disappointment associated with the
Speaker 4: lack of success, you have a split in the Fenian movement,
Speaker 4: and out of that you get the establishment of a
Speaker 4: group called Clan the Gale, which means the Family of
Speaker 4: the Irish or the Family of the Gale. And that's
Speaker 4: the group that I was particularly interested in when I
Speaker 4: came to write the book.
Speaker 7: Now let's talk about also the You talked about the
Speaker 7: strategy to be able to free Ireland from Britain, and
Speaker 7: this was about but this also comes from a tradition
Speaker 7: of these secret societies in Ireland, like you mentioned the
Speaker 7: Hibernians and the Freemasons, and other fractured societies. So tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit more about again, because very important
Speaker 7: we talk about spies and how they would try to
Speaker 7: weed out informers in these organizations, and especially as the
Speaker 7: Klan the Gale and it progressed further. So tell us
Speaker 7: about the importance in the secret societies and some of
Speaker 7: the codes that were involved, and where it really came from.
Speaker 7: The traditions.
Speaker 4: Well, the traditional really of secret society, certain in Irish publicism,
Speaker 4: goes back to the end of the eighteenth century. At
Speaker 4: the end of the eighteenth century there was a group
Speaker 4: established called the Society of United Irishmen, and that society
Speaker 4: was set up really inspired by the French Revolution, and
Speaker 4: they set themselves up to achieve Irish independence and they
Speaker 4: led in seventeen ninety eight, the largest rebellion ever seen
Speaker 4: on Irish soil. Now, one of the problems with the
Speaker 4: Society of United Irish Man is that it was a
Speaker 4: secret society and it was designed to operate in secrets.
Speaker 4: But one of the issues that they had was that
Speaker 4: they held many of their meetings will be held in
Speaker 4: essentially saloons or bars, which isn't ideal for any sort
Speaker 4: of secret society. Because a lot of alcohol's been taken
Speaker 4: very often, the secrets begin to pass around those areas,
Speaker 4: and so later generations had recognized that there were issues
Speaker 4: to do with secrecy and the problems with secrecy within
Speaker 4: these Irish Republican organizations, and so by the time you
Speaker 4: get to the Fenian movement, they have established quite a
Speaker 4: developed sort of level of secrecy, and they are inspired
Speaker 4: by sort of the Freemasons and a number of other organizations.
Speaker 4: So there are things like secret codes. So if you
Speaker 4: were to meet but a member of Planet Gale or
Speaker 4: with the Fenians, you would if you were a member
Speaker 4: and you wanted to alert another man to another man
Speaker 4: that it was a member, you would run your finger
Speaker 4: along the inside of your collar from sort of where
Speaker 4: your ear is down towards your neck, and you would
Speaker 4: do that twice, and that would indicate to the person
Speaker 4: you were looking at that you were a member. If
Speaker 4: they recognized that symbol, they would respond by running the
Speaker 4: middle finger of their right hand down the side of
Speaker 4: their face. So then you would recognize each other and
Speaker 4: be able to converse about sort of secret matters. So
Speaker 4: they had all sorts of sort of secret signs in
Speaker 4: that way. They also in some cases wrote in invisible
Speaker 4: ink and they had a code to the plane, had
Speaker 4: a code that they use, a sort of secret cipher
Speaker 4: which they wrote in code. Now, the problem with that
Speaker 4: was that it was a very easily it was a
Speaker 4: very discoverable code. So all they did was they replaced
Speaker 4: one letter with another, So you would replace the letter
Speaker 4: I with the letter J, so each letter that came
Speaker 4: after it in the OFFHBET will be replaced. So it
Speaker 4: was extremely easy to decipher, and therefore anytime a letter
Speaker 4: was intercepted, the British police would easily know what the
Speaker 4: plans were.
Speaker 7: Now you talk about the clan was founded in the
Speaker 7: US in New York and they call that District Day
Speaker 7: and in Chicago was a huge Irish presence, and you
Speaker 7: can tell us about what I'm referring to in terms
Speaker 7: of the importance of Chicago at that time as a
Speaker 7: city as well. But it was Chicago's district key and
Speaker 7: which also included all of Illinois and Michigan. So tell
Speaker 7: us a little bit about that before we talk about
Speaker 7: the importance of fundraising in all of this.
Speaker 4: Well, the East coast of the United States was where
Speaker 4: a lot of these organizations started, and that isn't really
Speaker 4: a surprise because a lot of those who became members
Speaker 4: of these organizations had come from Ireland during the Great
Speaker 4: Irish Famine of the eighteen forties and in the years afterwards,
Speaker 4: and so most of those who arrived would have arrived
Speaker 4: along the east as the Eastern Seaboard, so they would
Speaker 4: have landed into Boston, or they would have landed into
Speaker 4: New York, and they established themselves in those cities, and
Speaker 4: they then spread through the United States. So most of
Speaker 4: these organizations began along the Eastern seaboard. But as the
Speaker 4: trains moved towards the west, as new opportunities for growth
Speaker 4: and for jobs developed, many of the Irish in New York,
Speaker 4: in Boston and other places also moved west. And one
Speaker 4: of the places that they moved to was Chicago. A
Speaker 4: lot of them moved part of doing for building the
Speaker 4: Big Canal network, an awful lot moved because of the
Speaker 4: stockyards and the employment available in the stockyards. A lot
Speaker 4: of them moved because of the railways. And so you
Speaker 4: have a move west as far west really as San Francisco,
Speaker 4: where you begin to have a large Irish population. So
Speaker 4: by the time we get to the eighteen eighties, and
Speaker 4: particularly in the period after the Great Fire of eighteen
Speaker 4: seventy one, when Chicago had to entirely rebuild itself, and
Speaker 4: it did with great enthusiasm, but it also did with
Speaker 4: huge manpower, and many Irish came and rebuilt Chicago into
Speaker 4: something that was bigger and better and grander than had
Speaker 4: existed before. And that's really why you get that move
Speaker 4: from the East coast to the Midwest. But it's also
Speaker 4: because the leadership of the Catholic Church, and most of
Speaker 4: these Irish who were involved were Catholic. The leadership of
Speaker 4: the Catholic Church in Chicago with more sympathetic towards radical
Speaker 4: Irish Republicanism than it was in other parts of the
Speaker 4: United States.
Speaker 7: Right now, we talked you talk about the numerous Saint
Speaker 7: Patrick's Day and other celebrations holidays that the Irish celebrated.
Speaker 7: Parton me and and you also talked about fundraising and
Speaker 7: then the lure of jobs. So for for sheer numbers
Speaker 7: and for and for for the Klan and Gale. How
Speaker 7: important were these picnics fundraisers and the influence that a
Speaker 7: lot of these people were interested in jobs, and there
Speaker 7: was promises of jobs with membership.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's very true. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 4: that they ever directly promised jobs, but it was certainly
Speaker 4: the case that if you were a member, and if
Speaker 4: you knew senior members of Connagale who tended to be
Speaker 4: relatively well off, I mean there was there was definitely
Speaker 4: a sort of class structure, so that the leaders of
Speaker 4: Colnegale and the other organizations were very often they were journalists,
Speaker 4: or they were lawyers, or they had senior positions in
Speaker 4: the police force. And a lot of these rank and
Speaker 4: file members would have been laborers or unskilled workers. Now
Speaker 4: in Chicago, if you were arriving in Chicago as an
Speaker 4: unskilled labor you certainly needed a job, and you wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been long in Chicago before somebody would suggest that
Speaker 4: joining Colnegale what would have was the way forward to
Speaker 4: getting a job. Now, in terms of raising money, they
Speaker 4: Conegale and other groups really did raise a lot of
Speaker 4: money through their picnics, through the Saint Patrick's Day parades,
Speaker 4: and that money and through membership. You had to pay
Speaker 4: a sub to become a member, and you would pay
Speaker 4: a weekly amount as well, and that money was used
Speaker 4: to pay for their campaigns to achieve Irish freedom. So
Speaker 4: the attraction really for many people was the job over
Speaker 4: Irish freedom, and they put that first and foremost. In
Speaker 4: Irish freedom was very much a secondary affair.
Speaker 7: This push for Irish independence really had a new chronicle,
Speaker 7: and in your book some major events that really helped
Speaker 7: ignite the population and rally the population in a certain
Speaker 7: concerted effort. Finally, and including you talk about T. D.
Speaker 7: Sullivan's God Save Ireland, which became basically the national anthem
Speaker 7: for impracticality, and you talk about some of the Finian
Speaker 7: prisoners that were given amnesty, and you talked about the
Speaker 7: Irish Republican Brotherhood and Devoy Donovan Rosa when he was
Speaker 7: handcuffed behind his back for thirty five days. Tell us
Speaker 7: about a couple of these events that really helped to
Speaker 7: shape this movement.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's true. I mean they required I saw
Speaker 4: some great, big sort of visuals to attract attention. And
Speaker 4: in the early eighteen seventies there was an amnesty in
Speaker 4: British and Irish jails where quite a number of men
Speaker 4: who had been arrested and tried and found guilty of
Speaker 4: treasonable offenses. So they were found guilty of membership of
Speaker 4: the Fenian organization, and they were Some of them were
Speaker 4: found guilty of plotting to bomb a number of places
Speaker 4: and they would have served time in British and Irish prisons,
Speaker 4: one of them being O'Donovan Rossa, who was particularly badly treated.
Speaker 4: Another was John Devoy, who became a great leader of
Speaker 4: Irish America. And when O'Donovan Rossa and John Devoy, along
Speaker 4: with another number of other leaders, they arrived sort of
Speaker 4: in triumph, having been released from jail. And when they
Speaker 4: were released from jail, they were they had to leave
Speaker 4: Ireland permanently. They were banished from Ireland forever. So they
Speaker 4: land into America and O'Donovan Rossa and Devoi come on
Speaker 4: a boat called the Cuba and they become part of
Speaker 4: a gang known as the Cuba Five, and they were
Speaker 4: going to senior figures and they arrived to great fanfare,
Speaker 4: and they become extremely well known, particularly along the Eastern seaboard.
Speaker 4: And that attracts a lot of attention and a lot
Speaker 4: of new members. And then the other big thing that
Speaker 4: attracted a lot of attention in new members was in
Speaker 4: the mid eighteen seventies with the Catalpa Rescue. And the
Speaker 4: Catalpa was a whaling ship that was bought by the
Speaker 4: Fenian organization and it was kitted out and sent from
Speaker 4: Maine to Australia. And the purpose of it going from
Speaker 4: Maine to Australia was not on a whaling mission, but
Speaker 4: it was going to Fremantle in Western Australia, which was
Speaker 4: a penal'con colony at the time, and the idea was
Speaker 4: that it would rescue five Fenian prison from that Fenian
Speaker 4: colony and bring them back in triumph to America. Now
Speaker 4: that sounds like a completely bonkers plan in the mid
Speaker 4: eighteen seventies. You've no way of communicating, you don't know
Speaker 4: how long the ship's going to take, you don't know
Speaker 4: the ship is ever going to even make it there,
Speaker 4: So it seems like a ridiculously expensive and futile plan.
Speaker 4: But the remarkable thing is that it takes a year
Speaker 4: for the ship to get to Fremantle, and they do
Speaker 4: manage to get these five Fenian prisoners and they achieve
Speaker 4: their escape, and they sail back to New York and
Speaker 4: they are greeted in triumphs, and the Mayor of New
Speaker 4: York comes down and welcomes them to New York and
Speaker 4: in Dublin and in Cork in Ireland. They have candlelight
Speaker 4: processions to say how wonderful this is. And that brings
Speaker 4: with it huge numbers of new members to the Fenian
Speaker 4: organization at Clonegale, and it brings with it money because
Speaker 4: the more members you have, the more money you have
Speaker 4: coming into the coffers. So they have a number of
Speaker 4: those sort of very so it was important propaganda victories
Speaker 4: which helps both through the numbers in the United States.
Speaker 7: And this really does, like you mentioned, a huge surgeon
Speaker 7: in members result, but also including two very of course
Speaker 7: main characters in this story. Alexander Sullivan and Patrick Cronan
Speaker 7: joined right about that time. So let's talk about first
Speaker 7: Alexander Sullivan. Who is he before we get to who
Speaker 7: is doctor Patrick Cronan.
Speaker 4: Alexander Sullivan was an Irish American and he had a
Speaker 4: very sort of checkered career. He is a very interesting
Speaker 4: individual in the sense that he has a number of
Speaker 4: different and very important sort of facets to his life.
Speaker 4: He becomes involved in Irish Republicanism in the eighteen and
Speaker 4: mid eighteen seventies after the triumph of the Catalpa. But
Speaker 4: before that he had a number of different careers, so
Speaker 4: he was a respectable businessman in some ways. He owned
Speaker 4: a shoe store in Detroit. That shoe store had a
Speaker 4: mysterious fire that burnt it to the ground, and he
Speaker 4: was suspected of arson. Now he fled Detroit before the
Speaker 4: trial could happen, and he ended up heading towards the
Speaker 4: Southern States, where he became a tax collector. He became
Speaker 4: a newspaper owner. He ended up back. He ended up
Speaker 4: in Chicago, where he was a journalist for a short period.
Speaker 4: He then became a city official. He was a postmaster
Speaker 4: at one point, and then eventually he qualified as a
Speaker 4: lawyer and all of that. During all of this period
Speaker 4: he was involved in American politics, not Irish politics, so
Speaker 4: he was an abolitionist at one point. He was a
Speaker 4: member of the Republican Party. He was a Democrat at
Speaker 4: another point. He was a gambler at a later point.
Speaker 4: And he had all of these sort of myriad of
Speaker 4: different careers before really he came to Irish Republicanism in
Speaker 4: the mid eighteen seventies, and then he very quickly established
Speaker 4: himself as a key figure in Irish Republicanism, both in
Speaker 4: the United States and very specifically in Chicago.
Speaker 7: You talk about avoiding scandal or overcoming it. Chronicle about
Speaker 7: an actual, much more serious case. Tell us about the
Speaker 7: most serious charge did he overcame in Chicago?
Speaker 4: Well. Soon when he moved to Chicago, he first worked
Speaker 4: as a journalist and then attended law school, And it
Speaker 4: was while he was qualifying as a lawyer that he
Speaker 4: became involved. And I suppose the first thing that brought
Speaker 4: him to a lot of people's attention. His wife was
Speaker 4: a school teacher, Margaret Sullivan, who had also left her
Speaker 4: position as school teacher and become a journalist. And she
Speaker 4: went on to become a very well known journalist, but
Speaker 4: she remained involved in education matters in Chicago, and at
Speaker 4: one significant meeting about the Board of Education in Chicago,
Speaker 4: it was alleged that a rumor had circulated to say
Speaker 4: that she was using undue influence with the mayor in
Speaker 4: order to have certain Catholic schools established. And when Alexander
Speaker 4: Sullivan heard that her honor had been insulted, he discovered
Speaker 4: who had made these comments, and he went to this
Speaker 4: man's house. And the man who'd made these comments was
Speaker 4: a man called Francis Hanford, who was a school principal
Speaker 4: in the Chicago area, and he went to this man's
Speaker 4: house with his wife and there was an altercation and
Speaker 4: Sullivan shot the man dead. And there were two trials.
Speaker 4: He was tried twice for the murder of Francis Hanford.
Speaker 4: On the first occasion they couldn't the jury couldn't come
Speaker 4: to a conclusion. On the second occasion he was acquitted.
Speaker 4: Though it's very clear from the evidence that we can
Speaker 4: see now that the jewelry then was bribed to find
Speaker 4: in his favor. So it was in many ways an
Speaker 4: inauspicious start to his career in journalism and in law
Speaker 4: in Chicago. But he weathered that storm in the way
Speaker 4: that he weathered almost every other storm.
Speaker 7: Now tell us about doctor Cronin.
Speaker 4: Doctor Cronan, we know a lot less about than we
Speaker 4: do about Alexander Sullivan, and that certainly one of the
Speaker 4: challenges of writing a book based on a secret society,
Speaker 4: in that they don't have huge records. But Patrick Henry
Speaker 4: Cronin was born in Ireland. He was born in a
Speaker 4: place called Buttervant in County Cork, in the sort of
Speaker 4: south of the country, and he along with the rest
Speaker 4: of his family, like many many others, emigrated from Ireland
Speaker 4: in eighteen forty seven, which was known as Black forty seven.
Speaker 4: It was the worst year of the Irish famine, and
Speaker 4: they traveled around quite a bit. They didn't settle for
Speaker 4: a number of years, but eventually they settled in Canada,
Speaker 4: and when Cronin had finished his schooling, he returned to
Speaker 4: the United States and then he had a number of
Speaker 4: He started off in the mining regions of Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 4: he ended up in Saint Louis, Missouri, where he worked
Speaker 4: in a number of not particularly impressive jobs, but he
Speaker 4: eventually got a sponsorship from a timber merchant who sponsored
Speaker 4: his way through medical school, and he qualified as a
Speaker 4: medical doctor in Saint Louis and he worked there as
Speaker 4: a medical doctor until eighteen eighty two, when he moved
Speaker 4: to Chicago and took up a position as a doctor
Speaker 4: in Cook County Hospital, a position he held for quite
Speaker 4: a short period because he decided he wanted to be
Speaker 4: a doctor to a primarily to an Irish community, so
Speaker 4: he set up into the private practice and had two
Speaker 4: private surgeries in Chicago itself, where a lot of his
Speaker 4: patients were Irish immigrants.
Speaker 7: How did Alexander Sullivan get involved in and how much
Speaker 7: did he get involved in this Clane Gale.
Speaker 4: He threw himself with great enthusiasm into Clanegale as soon
Speaker 4: as he joined it, and he very rapidly rose to
Speaker 4: the ranks. He was very smart man, he was very articulate,
Speaker 4: He spoke very well, and people either loved him or
Speaker 4: hated him, and so he had a huge sort of
Speaker 4: couteri of very very firm followers. So he joined in
Speaker 4: the mid eighteen seventies, and by eighteen eighty one when
Speaker 4: there's a convention Clanegale convention in Chicago, he essentially by
Speaker 4: eighteen eighty one, he essentially is in charge of Clanagale,
Speaker 4: not just in Chicago but in the United States. And
Speaker 4: he's not just in charge of Colnegale. He's also involved
Speaker 4: in constitutional nationalism, So he's involved in the Land League
Speaker 4: in America, which was more of a constitutional it wasn't
Speaker 4: dedicated to using fourth to promote an Irish republic. So
Speaker 4: he had his finger kind of in every possible pie.
Speaker 4: And by eighteen eighty one he's the leader of what
Speaker 4: became known as the Triangle and the Triangle was Clanagane,
Speaker 4: and they were called the Triangle because he signed any
Speaker 4: of these sort of internal memos that would go round
Speaker 4: rather than signing with his own name because it would
Speaker 4: absolutely identify and he signed it with just a symbol,
Speaker 4: which is the symbol was the Triangle.
Speaker 7: When you talk about his involvement with the Klan too,
Speaker 7: there was a lot of changes, significant changes as you
Speaker 7: write in the structure of the Clan organization. The executive
Speaker 7: community was reduced from eighteen members to five, and the
Speaker 7: makeup of the Revolutionary Directory, which coordinated the Klan and
Speaker 7: the Irish Republican Brotherhood policy was altered as well. Tell
Speaker 7: us about a little bit more about the violent or
Speaker 7: the the faction that was planning and resorting or talking
Speaker 7: and discussing such things as using dynamite and violence in
Speaker 7: its approach.
Speaker 4: Well, that's yeah. They did reduce some sort of the
Speaker 4: makeup of this leadership of Clanegale, and in addition to
Speaker 4: sort of reducing the number of people who were at
Speaker 4: the Helm, they also there were one of the key
Speaker 4: things to these organizations was that they would essentially what
Speaker 4: was meant to happen was that in America they would
Speaker 4: raise the money and the sister organization in Ireland would
Speaker 4: be the one to decide on the policy because they
Speaker 4: were on the ground and they knew what was happening. Now.
Speaker 4: Alexander Sullivan became increasingly frustrated with the Irish Republicans in Ireland.
Speaker 4: He felt that they were too slow to act. They
Speaker 4: felt that he they were raising all the money and
Speaker 4: that nothing was happening in Ireland or in Britain, and
Speaker 4: so he determined that they would just ignore the leadership
Speaker 4: of Irish Republicanism who was based in Ireland, and that
Speaker 4: they themselves would run what he called and others called
Speaker 4: a dynamite war. So he wasn't the first to think
Speaker 4: of this. In fact, there had been an earlier period
Speaker 4: where this had also been used. But this was a
Speaker 4: very well on pay per certainly a very well planned campaign.
Speaker 4: And the idea was that you would train young Irish
Speaker 4: Americans in the use of dynamite, which wasn't difficult to
Speaker 4: do because many of them were using dynamite in the
Speaker 4: building of railways and in mining, so they already knew
Speaker 4: how to do that, and that they would be sent
Speaker 4: from America to Britain. And the plan was that they
Speaker 4: would then blow up a series of targets. Most of
Speaker 4: these targets were in London, so they would blow up strategic.
Speaker 4: Strategic targets are high profile targets, so they would blow
Speaker 4: up things like the Tower of London, London Bridge, the
Speaker 4: Houses of Parliament, Scotland Yard, some tube stations, and that
Speaker 4: that would generate an enormous amount of attention and it
Speaker 4: would also generate an enormous amount of fear, so that
Speaker 4: the British Parliment would be forced to discuss the Irish question. Now,
Speaker 4: this wasn't a universally accepted plan and there were a
Speaker 4: number of reasons why it wasn't. One was that some
Speaker 4: of those in favor of using force did not want
Speaker 4: to risk lives, and so they were in favor of
Speaker 4: using force only in places where there wouldn't be casualties
Speaker 4: human casualties, and they felt it was very risky to
Speaker 4: attack things like tube stations and to presume that you
Speaker 4: wouldn't endure or kill civilians. And the second reason that
Speaker 4: some people were opposed to it is that there was
Speaker 4: some progress being made in terms of getting home moved
Speaker 4: for Ireland, which wasn't going to be a Republic, but
Speaker 4: it would give Ireland back of Parliament, and it was
Speaker 4: believed that i chance that Ireland had of getting home rule,
Speaker 4: which was certainly a step towards freedom, would be damaged
Speaker 4: by setting off these bombs. And so that began a
Speaker 4: very serious split within the plan, with one group on
Speaker 4: the side of Alexander Sullivan in favor of this dynamite campaign,
Speaker 4: and another group on the side of John Devoy, who
Speaker 4: was one of the leaders, and also Patrick Henry Cronan,
Speaker 4: the doctor in Chicago, who really disagreed with this dynamite war. Now,
Speaker 4: the dynamite war went ahead and fifteen bombing missions were sent.
Speaker 4: They were all unsuccessful, so the British authorities, the Secret
Speaker 4: Service knew about them, and in many cases the men
Speaker 4: were arrested before they got to plant their bombs anywhere.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't a successful campaign. But even before it
Speaker 4: had failed, there were issues to do its agreement over
Speaker 4: the policy.
Speaker 7: Why did Devoi and pH Cronin disagree with the use
Speaker 7: of dynamite, It.
Speaker 4: Wasn't so much a thing. They weren't opposed to the
Speaker 4: use of force in itself, but they didn't think the
Speaker 4: timing was right and they didn't like the idea of
Speaker 4: the organization in America overruling the organization in Ireland, and
Speaker 4: they felt that those in Ireland or to making the
Speaker 4: decisions because they were much closer, you know, to what
Speaker 4: was actually going on, and they understood the nuances of
Speaker 4: politics better than someone in the United States would do.
Speaker 4: So they didn't like the overruling. They didn't think that
Speaker 4: the targets that were being chosen were well chosen. They
Speaker 4: thought there was going to be too high a chance
Speaker 4: of their being civilian casualties, and they thought the timing
Speaker 4: of it was all wrong. So for many reasons they
Speaker 4: opposed Sullivan's plans.
Speaker 7: The idea that or the fact that the dynamite missions
Speaker 7: were interrupted or intercepted again plays into the idea of
Speaker 7: the spy and informers. Is that what Alexander Sullivan and
Speaker 7: his cohorts partially chalk this up to that they needed
Speaker 7: to rein in the informers and the spies within their organization.
Speaker 4: Not really, And that's the very odd thing, because most
Speaker 4: Irish secret societies had always had an issue and a
Speaker 4: problem with informers. And the strange thing about this is
Speaker 4: that they had so many failed missions and nobody really
Speaker 4: began to talk about how there must be an informer
Speaker 4: in a way that you would imagine that it would
Speaker 4: have been much more thought about and much more talked about,
Speaker 4: and that there would have been assumption that there would
Speaker 4: that there were spies and informers. Now it's something that
Speaker 4: later becomes an issue, But at the time when all
Speaker 4: these missions were failing, I've certainly not come across any
Speaker 4: or many letters where somebody says there must be We
Speaker 4: couldn't possibly just be unlucky every time somebody must be
Speaker 4: giving this information. At no point during that period does
Speaker 4: that seem to be the case. Now, they later talk
Speaker 4: about how they must have been a spy, but they
Speaker 4: don't do it at the actual time, which is strange
Speaker 4: because Irish secret societies had been bedeviled by five in
Speaker 4: the past.
Speaker 7: Now, let's talk about pH Cronin and which person's in Klan,
Speaker 7: the Gale, in the Split or otherwise that were supportive
Speaker 7: of his idea or where when did he get the
Speaker 7: idea that Sullivan and his cohorts were channeling money or
Speaker 7: funneling money to their own use. When when did he
Speaker 7: make that realization and how? And tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Well, he came to that conclusion in the mid eighteen eighties,
Speaker 4: in eighteen eighty five, and he came to this conclusion
Speaker 4: as a result really of that sales dynamite campaign. Because
Speaker 4: the dynamite campaign has failed, because a number of men
Speaker 4: had been arrested and imprisoned, there was a campaign in
Speaker 4: the United States to raise money specifically to look after
Speaker 4: the families of the dead or the imprisoned dynamiters. So
Speaker 4: many of them had wives, and many of them had children,
Speaker 4: and so this campaign began, and it raised a lot
Speaker 4: of money because people wanted their family, those families to
Speaker 4: be looked after, but the families never got the money.
Speaker 4: And in fact, there were a number of letters from
Speaker 4: the widow of one particular man called Machi Lomosny, who
Speaker 4: had been killed while setting his bomb, saying that she
Speaker 4: had a number of children, they'd had no money, and
Speaker 4: that they really needed money. And this prompted Cronan to
Speaker 4: wonder what had happened to the money, and he found
Speaker 4: a paper trail which indicated that about one hundred thousand
Speaker 4: dollars had been funneled into the private banking account of
Speaker 4: Alexander Sullivan, and that that money had gone from Alexander's
Speaker 4: Sullivan's account, and I bought stock on the Board of
Speaker 4: Trade in Chicago, and that that money had then completely disappeared,
Speaker 4: and the money had disappeared, not because Sullivan had ultimately
Speaker 4: disappeared with anything to do with the stock. That money
Speaker 4: had been a bad investment, and the value of the
Speaker 4: stock that he bought had completely collapsed. But the fact
Speaker 4: was that he had taken that money, put it in
Speaker 4: his private bank account, and invested it. Now he claimed
Speaker 4: that he'd invested it for Clone Gale, and that the
Speaker 4: organization would benefit from whatever advance or whatever increase in
Speaker 4: value he'd made. Now that seems unlikely to a large extent.
Speaker 4: But as soon as Crownin decided saw this, he thought
Speaker 4: and it really confirmed what he had previously thought. He
Speaker 4: believed that Alexander Sullivan was what he called a professional patriot,
Speaker 4: and by that that it was a huge insult to
Speaker 4: go from in a professional patriot, and professional patriot simply
Speaker 4: meant that you were interested in Irish freedom for what
Speaker 4: you could get out of it, so for his own
Speaker 4: advancement in America, and not actually for Irish freedom in itself.
Speaker 4: But he Cronan firmly believed that Alexander Sullivan was his
Speaker 4: professional patriot, that he really wasn't dedicated to Ireland, but
Speaker 4: he was dedicated to himself. And that set in train.
Speaker 4: I suppose a number of things that would ultimately lead
Speaker 4: to well, ultimately would lead to Cronan's death.
Speaker 7: How did he go about once he had this realization
Speaker 7: and recognition, What did he do? Who did he rally
Speaker 7: support from and what was the extent of his criticism
Speaker 7: in terms of the public arena.
Speaker 4: Well, he began internally, So he began by telling other
Speaker 4: members of the secret society. So it remained an internal matter,
Speaker 4: and that became known to Alexander Sullivan because obviously Chicago,
Speaker 4: it's a big city, but the Irish community was in Chicago,
Speaker 4: and the radical Irish community is quite a small community.
Speaker 4: So he was then charged with treason for making these
Speaker 4: accusations against the leader of Clanagale, and a trial was
Speaker 4: held within Clanegale itself, and he was charged with treason
Speaker 4: for making these accusations, and he was found guilty of
Speaker 4: treason and he was expelled from Clanegale. Now, as soon
Speaker 4: as he was expelled from Clanegale, he begins to bring
Speaker 4: his accusations to a much wider audience. So essentially he'll
Speaker 4: talk to the Irish community more broadly, not just those
Speaker 4: who are a member of this society, and he begins
Speaker 4: to talk to journalists. So you see appearing in newspapers
Speaker 4: in Chicago papers, particularly mutterings about all not being well
Speaker 4: within the Irish community in Chicago and Patrick Henry Cronan
Speaker 4: making a number of allegations. So that's quite a slow
Speaker 4: you know, but there's a growing awareness within Chicago that
Speaker 4: Alexander Sullivan, who's quite higher profile individual, he's a high
Speaker 4: profile lawyer and was well known, that accusations are being
Speaker 4: leveled against him. And Sullivan is very very unhappy that
Speaker 4: his reputation has been tarnished in this way.
Speaker 7: What is pH Cronin's criticism effect in Ireland, Britain and
Speaker 7: with the public in America. The Irish Citizen.
Speaker 4: Ream at the time it has no impact. His criticism
Speaker 4: has no impact in Ireland or in Britain. That criticism
Speaker 4: is not picked up. And in fact, it's like so
Speaker 4: many of these stories. If he hadn't been killed, then
Speaker 4: I think that story would have died a death. But
Speaker 4: the fact that he dies makes it an international story.
Speaker 4: So while he's alive saying these things, it's not going
Speaker 4: much outside Chicago. So if you went to New York
Speaker 4: and spoke to Irish Americans in New York, they would
Speaker 4: probably not have heard of Cronin. But as soon as
Speaker 4: he is dead, everybody has heard of from and everybody
Speaker 4: knows the story. So it is like so many other
Speaker 4: cases of murder, it's once the person has been killed,
Speaker 4: they suddenly become a household name and whatever they you know,
Speaker 4: they've been interested in, or whatever they've been involved in,
Speaker 4: suddenly becomes headline news. But up until his death, his
Speaker 4: campaign was restricted largely to Chicago.
Speaker 7: One are a couple of important events prior to his
Speaker 7: before we talk about his murder, and the just prior
Speaker 7: to that, the mystery of the missing pH Cronin. So
Speaker 7: let's talk about just the couple events prior that were
Speaker 7: a catalyst. I would say that that led to his murder.
Speaker 4: Well, what, there's a couple of things I think that
Speaker 4: bring it all to a head. Because carnage was so
Speaker 4: split displit gone on for more than three years. At
Speaker 4: this point, members of the clan sat down and said,
Speaker 4: we really need to essentially close this split that air
Speaker 4: dirty linen in a very enclosed environment. Let's investigate whether
Speaker 4: or not Sullivan took that one hundred thousand. So we'll
Speaker 4: have a meeting which will take place in New York,
Speaker 4: and it will bring everybody together, including Cronin and Sullivan,
Speaker 4: and we will thrash it all out and we will
Speaker 4: then emerge from that united. Whatever that finds, we will
Speaker 4: still emerge from that united. And so that happens, except
Speaker 4: they don't emerge united. This trial of Sullivan and this
Speaker 4: investigation to Sullivan is very much it's a false investigation,
Speaker 4: and Sullivan ends up being cleared of any accusations of wrongdoing.
Speaker 4: But and Cronin is not happy with this. So instead
Speaker 4: of having agreed that everything will be fine and assuming
Speaker 4: they'd all sort of shake hands and that they'd all
Speaker 4: go their separate ways, that doesn't happen. He returns to
Speaker 4: Chicago from New York, and he's absolutely adamant that he's
Speaker 4: going to continue this campaign against against Sullivan. Now at
Speaker 4: the same time, there are things happening in London that
Speaker 4: do have an impact on what happened in Chicago. At
Speaker 4: the same time as the trial of Sullivan and Crona
Speaker 4: and all his accusations are taking place in New York.
Speaker 4: There's a thing called the Parnell Commission taking place in London.
Speaker 4: The Parnell Commission was a sort of a trial of
Speaker 4: Charles Stewart Parnell, who was the leader of the Irish
Speaker 4: Parliamentary Party, so a constitutional political party. Now, there had
Speaker 4: been accusations leveled against Parnell that he had associates.
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Speaker 4: In America who were determined to use FOCE. Now, if
Speaker 4: those links could be proven, that would really damage Parnell's
Speaker 4: standing as a parliamentarian, and so a lot of those
Speaker 4: people he was supposed to have known and associated with
Speaker 4: were people like Alexander Sullivan and John Duvoy. So while
Speaker 4: there's one thing happening in New York and ultimately in Chicago,
Speaker 4: there's this second case taking place in London, and where
Speaker 4: the two meet is in February of eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 4: when there's a surprise. Witness takes the stand in the
Speaker 4: Parnell Commission in London and he turns up. He's traveled
Speaker 4: all the way from America. He turns up and he's
Speaker 4: a very elegant looking gentleman with a proper waxm stand.
Speaker 4: He takes the stand and he announces that he is
Speaker 4: his name is Thomas Beach. But for twenty five years
Speaker 4: he's been in America within alias, and his alias is
Speaker 4: Henri la Carran and he's pretended to be a Frenchman
Speaker 4: for twenty five years. And for that quarter of a century,
Speaker 4: this Frenchman, or this Englishman masquerading as a Frenchman, has
Speaker 4: been a spy, and he's been a spy in the
Speaker 4: pay of the British Secret Service, and he can prove,
Speaker 4: he says, these links between Alexander Sullivan and Charles Stewart Parnell,
Speaker 4: which would obviously seriously damage Parnell. Now these are sort
Speaker 4: of devastating revelations. He had never been suspected as being
Speaker 4: a spy. He was extremely close friend of Alexander Sullivan,
Speaker 4: and during his testimony he was alleged to have suggested
Speaker 4: that there were other spies in Chicago, and people who
Speaker 4: didn't like Cronin thought, wha, this is it. He must
Speaker 4: be the other spy. Something that they made no sense
Speaker 4: at all, because to be a spy you need to
Speaker 4: be close to the leadership, and in fact, what everything
Speaker 4: Cronan had done had pushed himself as far away as
Speaker 4: possible from the leadership. But people wanted to condemn. So
Speaker 4: there certain people wanted to condemn Cronan, and this was
Speaker 4: how they were going to do it. And so rumors
Speaker 4: began to circulate in Chicago that not only was Lecran
Speaker 4: a spy, but so too was Cronan. And once rumors
Speaker 4: began to circulate that he was a spy, essentially his
Speaker 4: days were numbered.
Speaker 7: Tell our audience about what Camp twenty was in terms
Speaker 7: of its relation to Clan Dee Gill and who was
Speaker 7: this important to Camp twenty important too?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Camp twenty is very important to each of the
Speaker 4: In the way in which the Clane Girl was organized,
Speaker 4: you joined the camp and your camp had a particular number.
Speaker 4: So Camp twenty was one of the camps in Chicago,
Speaker 4: and each camp had a fairly limited number of members,
Speaker 4: and you were supposed to really though this doesn't work
Speaker 4: really in the arts community because people knew everybody. You
Speaker 4: were supposed to only know the people within your camp
Speaker 4: so that secrets would remain secret. Now, Camp twenty was
Speaker 4: the camp that Alexander Sullivan was a member of, and
Speaker 4: there were a number of other men. There were a
Speaker 4: sort of maybe twenty five members of Camp twenty who
Speaker 4: were all very loyal to Alexander Sullivan because he wasn't
Speaker 4: the leader of their camp. A man called John F.
Speaker 4: Beggs was what was known as a senior guardian, but
Speaker 4: despite not being the official leader, he really was in
Speaker 4: charge of Camp twenty, and that was the camp that
Speaker 4: was most loyal to Alexander Sullivan.
Speaker 7: Now you say.
Speaker 6: He was.
Speaker 7: Basically labeled a spy as of February, as a confluence
Speaker 7: of events heard so tell us about the plan to
Speaker 7: murder pH Cronin.
Speaker 4: Well, the plan was hatched very soon after Lcoran or Beach,
Speaker 4: depending on whether he use his real name or his alias,
Speaker 4: after he gave his evidence, and there's evidence that a
Speaker 4: number of men came together and decided that the best
Speaker 4: thing to do with Cronin was to have him killed.
Speaker 4: And so they plot. They have a number of plots,
Speaker 4: not all of which are put into fourth but Chronum
Speaker 4: really feels his life is in danger, and he begins
Speaker 4: to carry a gun around with him. And he also
Speaker 4: he's called out on a number of kind of fake
Speaker 4: medical emergencies to vacant plots. So he is very conscious
Speaker 4: that there are people who have not his best interests
Speaker 4: at heart, but this group who conspire to take chrone
Speaker 4: out of the picture. Ultimately, what they do is they
Speaker 4: rent a cottage in the north of Chicago in what
Speaker 4: is now a suburb called Lakeview, but actually in eighteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine was a separate jurisdiction. It was a separate city.
Speaker 4: It doesn't get brought into Chicago until later in eighteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine as part of an annexation. So they hire
Speaker 4: this cottage. They rent a cottage from a Swedish couple
Speaker 4: called the Carlsons, and they rented using aliases and they
Speaker 4: say that it's a fur particular family who are moving
Speaker 4: I think from Baltimore and are going to move in.
Speaker 4: And the family, of course never move in. And they
Speaker 4: also establish a connection with Cronen, though he thinks it's
Speaker 4: an innocent connection. He's approached by a man called Patrick
Speaker 4: O'Sullivan who's no relation to Alexander Sullivan, but Patrick of
Speaker 4: Sullivan owns an ice house, and ice houses do very
Speaker 4: well in the summer when Chicago's very hot, and they
Speaker 4: essentially they go around and they sell ice to individuals
Speaker 4: and to businesses, and they travel around and they cut
Speaker 4: chunks of ice off the back of a lorry and
Speaker 4: they sell it so that people can keep their food
Speaker 4: from going off. And he approaches Cronin and says, during
Speaker 4: the summer months, when I'm busiest, would you be my
Speaker 4: doctor on call? And I will pay you a retainer,
Speaker 4: a monthly retainer for this business. But if I have
Speaker 4: an employee who gets injured cutting ice, would you attend him?
Speaker 4: And Cronan says yes. And his only sort of method
Speaker 4: of making sure that he's not called out in a
Speaker 4: fault call is he says, I will only attend if
Speaker 4: whoever comes to call for me brings a copy of
Speaker 4: your business card, so I know it's a legitimate call out.
Speaker 4: So that's agreed, and the two men go on their way.
Speaker 4: But it is part of the conspiracy. And so on
Speaker 4: the evening of the fourth of May eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 4: is a knock on Cronan's door at his surgery and
Speaker 4: a very panicked young man is there saying been an accident.
Speaker 4: There's been an accident. He presents a card to Cronan
Speaker 4: from Patrick of Sullivan's ice house, and Cronin packs up
Speaker 4: his medical case, hops in the buggie the horse that's
Speaker 4: waiting outside, and disappears and he's never seen alive again.
Speaker 7: Now, how does the rumor or the story yet that
Speaker 7: Cronin disappears and likely took off to Canada. Where does
Speaker 7: that rumor come from, Emina.
Speaker 4: From Well, that's one of a number of rumors. What
Speaker 4: happens is Cronin disappears that Saturday night and he doesn't return.
Speaker 4: And so the next morning his landlords and friends are
Speaker 4: concerned because it's out a character, and so they go
Speaker 4: to They go to three people or three organizations. They
Speaker 4: go to the police, they go to the Pinkerton Detective Agency,
Speaker 4: and they go to the newspapers and they employ Pinkertons
Speaker 4: themselves to look for him. They tell the police of
Speaker 4: their shoes that he's been murdered, and they give them
Speaker 4: the backstories to why they think he would be murdered,
Speaker 4: and they tell the newspapers and they have a lot
Speaker 4: of connections. A lot of Cronan's friends were newspaper men,
Speaker 4: so they were able to get this story in the press.
Speaker 4: But Alexander Sullivan is married to a very well known journalist,
Speaker 4: so he too and his sort of goes putting forward.
Speaker 4: His side also have access to the press, so Cronan
Speaker 4: there's no body or anything found. So over two weeks
Speaker 4: the press run with all sorts of stories. Firstly, they
Speaker 4: say that he'd run away because he was having an
Speaker 4: affair with one of his patients and that the husband
Speaker 4: had found out, so he had to skip town. Another
Speaker 4: is that he was performing illegal abortions and one had
Speaker 4: gone wrong, so he had to skip town. Another man
Speaker 4: comes forward and says that he murdered Cronin. He says
Speaker 4: that he had a dream where Queen Victoria told him
Speaker 4: to murder Cronan, and that he hired four Italian brigands
Speaker 4: and gave them cutlasses and they killed Cronan, that that
Speaker 4: man ends up in a mental asylum by the end
Speaker 4: of the year. And then there's a rumor that he's
Speaker 4: left town because he's going to turn up in London
Speaker 4: and become you give evidence, just as honorary the Kuran
Speaker 4: had done. And the final rumor is that he's gone
Speaker 4: to Canada, that he's just had enough of all the
Speaker 4: pressure and he's gone to Canada, and that in a
Speaker 4: way isn't a surprise because that's where most of his
Speaker 4: family are settled. And in fact, a reporter on a
Speaker 4: Canadian paper says he meets Cronin, and he conducts a
Speaker 4: whole interview with Cronin which is published in the Chicago Papers,
Speaker 4: where there's a full interview saying, yes, when I got
Speaker 4: set up this is I couldn't function as a doctor
Speaker 4: who was easier to leave and settle in Toronto, and
Speaker 4: that's what I'm going to do and set up all
Speaker 4: is Irish nonsense. And that's published as an interview. So
Speaker 4: there are all two orders of rumors, but that's the
Speaker 4: most I suppose seems the most authentic and the one
Speaker 4: that makes most sense. But it's not, of course true.
Speaker 7: No, you say that all speculation is finally washed. On
Speaker 7: the afternoon of May three, employees of the Border Public
Speaker 7: Works were sent to investigate a futrid smell emitting from
Speaker 7: the storm sewer at the corner of Foster and Broadway.
Speaker 7: And they looked through the iron gates and they noticed
Speaker 7: something blocking the sewer entrance. So tell us what they found.
Speaker 4: Well, they initially thought they'd found a dog, the body
Speaker 4: of a dog that had fallen into the sewer. And
Speaker 4: when they went to pull the body out, they realized
Speaker 4: actually wasn't an animal. It wasn't a dog at all.
Speaker 4: It was a human. And when they pulled the body
Speaker 4: out of the sewer, they who hadn't known Kronan, but
Speaker 4: they immediately all went, this must be the body of Cronan.
Speaker 4: And he was naked, and the only thing he had
Speaker 4: sort of left on him was a holy medal, that
Speaker 4: is a metal that Catholics often where the protection against
Speaker 4: arm which had clearly not done him any good at all.
Speaker 4: And it was very clear from from even though he'd
Speaker 4: obviously was quite badly decayed from having been in the
Speaker 4: sewer for two weeks. It was very clear that he'd
Speaker 4: been beaten very brutally around the head before being being
Speaker 4: dumped in the sewer. And so that put paid to
Speaker 4: any all of the rumors that he'd disappeared to Canada
Speaker 4: or run away. It was very clear that he'd met
Speaker 4: with a particularly brutal end.
Speaker 7: Now he was disfigured just from the decomposition, and that
Speaker 7: does that bloating, and so he had also been hit
Speaker 7: about the head. Like you say, what they found was
Speaker 7: weapons like which would connect him somewhat to this ice house.
Speaker 7: What were the weapons that they discovered were used in
Speaker 7: the attack.
Speaker 4: Well, they never actually found the weapon that was used.
Speaker 4: What they they assumed is it had been an ice
Speaker 4: pick and that he'd been hit around the head with
Speaker 4: an ice pick. I think he was probably actually attacked
Speaker 4: with a chisel. But they they very quickly began to
Speaker 4: visit the ice house of Patrick or Sullivan, and that
Speaker 4: led them quite quickly to a vacant house just beside
Speaker 4: the ice house, which it was owned by this Swedish
Speaker 4: family called the Carltons. And when they knocked on their door,
Speaker 4: the Carlton Carlton admitted that they knew that something bad
Speaker 4: had happened in the house because when their tenant disappeared,
Speaker 4: they went into the house and they noticed it was
Speaker 4: covered in bloodstains and that something unpleasant had happened, But
Speaker 4: they didn't report it because they felt that if they
Speaker 4: reported it, they'd never be able to rent the house
Speaker 4: out again, you know, if it became known that some
Speaker 4: some murder had taken place there, or something really dreadful
Speaker 4: had happened. And so very quickly the police were able
Speaker 4: to find the scene of the crime, if not actually
Speaker 4: the weapon us and there was the rocking chair and
Speaker 4: a number of other things that were completely had been
Speaker 4: destroyed by the brutality of the attack on Cronan.
Speaker 7: They also discovered a bloodstained trunk on Montrose and Broadways.
Speaker 7: So tell us a little bit about that discovery.
Speaker 4: Yes, they'd found that trunk actually two weeks before. They'd
Speaker 4: found the trunk just after croning and disappeared, And it
Speaker 4: was a bloodstained trunk that had clearly been thrown into
Speaker 4: a ditch, and they'd had quite a lot of cotton
Speaker 4: within it that was also bloodstained, and some human hair,
Speaker 4: and the police, who really weren't terribly interested, and there
Speaker 4: were two police forces kind of trying to investigate, and
Speaker 4: neither of them were particularly committed. So they had dismissed
Speaker 4: that because there was no body, they dismissed it as
Speaker 4: not relevant. But as soon as Cronin's body was sound,
Speaker 4: they put to into the together and they decided that
Speaker 4: what had happened was he was killed in the house.
Speaker 4: His body was then placed in the trunk, and that
Speaker 4: the trunk was and the intention was I think that
Speaker 4: the trunk would be that the trunk would be taken
Speaker 4: to Lake Michigan, to the shore Ofake Michigan, put on
Speaker 4: board a boat, and the body and trunk tipped over
Speaker 4: the side into Lake Michigan. But for whatever reason happened,
Speaker 4: the boat didn't meet them, and so instead they had
Speaker 4: to improvise, so they put the body in a sewer
Speaker 4: and then they just dumped the trunk on side of
Speaker 4: the road. But it wasn't until the body was sound
Speaker 4: that they made so they connected the dots in terms
Speaker 4: of the trunk.
Speaker 7: Which I found really fascinating with the story is that
Speaker 7: immediately after discovery and the announcement that Beach Cronin's body
Speaker 7: had been found, there was hordes of people that went
Speaker 7: to the police station when in and out of the morgue.
Speaker 7: We're looking peering through the morgue window to get a
Speaker 7: sight of anybody in the morgue or the body, and
Speaker 7: then the crime scene itself. People traveled all around that
Speaker 7: area as well. So anybody thinking that this is a
Speaker 7: new phenomena or a recent phenomena, not so recent phenomena
Speaker 7: of people being fascinated by this and heading to the
Speaker 7: scene of the.
Speaker 4: Crime, Yeah, you're absterly right. That was one of the
Speaker 4: things that really drew me to to sort of writing
Speaker 4: about the case was the sort of public fascination with
Speaker 4: this murder was incredible, and party to do with the newspapers.
Speaker 4: It's sort of that period where newspapers are reporting on
Speaker 4: you know, the more sensational crime, the better as far
Speaker 4: as they're concerned. And so, you know, hundreds of columns
Speaker 4: of news print were spent describing the murder and how
Speaker 4: he was beaten in the police investigation, and you're right,
Speaker 4: hundreds of people turned up. They were to see the body.
Speaker 4: He was laid out in the end of Michigan Avenue
Speaker 4: and you couldn't actually see the body when he was
Speaker 4: sort of put on a play, but there was a
Speaker 4: closed casket, and thousands of people filed past just to
Speaker 4: see the closed casket. And these people didn't know, they
Speaker 4: just knew the story. And on the day he was buried,
Speaker 4: you've got forty thousand people lining the streets of Chicago.
Speaker 4: Then the population of Chicago it's about a million at
Speaker 4: the time, forty seven people lyeing in Michigan Avenue. It's
Speaker 4: the largest funeral since Lincoln's funeral through the city. So
Speaker 4: it's an absolute phenomenal. They filled a Holy named cathedral
Speaker 4: with thousands and more turn up to Unions Depot where
Speaker 4: the train that takes his body just north of Chicago
Speaker 4: to Evanston for burial. Thousands more turn up to watch
Speaker 4: the burial. I mean, it's a compleet phenomenal for a
Speaker 4: man that most of these people did not know, had
Speaker 4: never heard of before. And that's party to do with
Speaker 4: things like the dime museums in Chicago. They were really
Speaker 4: quick to have waxworks. They had waxworks of the dead body,
Speaker 4: and as soon as the suspects are arrested, they've got
Speaker 4: waxworks of the suspects. So you don't even need to
Speaker 4: be literate in English in Chicago, and a huge numbers
Speaker 4: of people weren't, you know, it's a huge immigrant population.
Speaker 4: But you can still go and see what the body
Speaker 4: looked like after it came out of the sewer, which
Speaker 4: is a deeply unpleasant sight. But not only that. In
Speaker 4: the Carlton Cottage, newspaper men journalists interfere with the with
Speaker 4: the crime scene because they bring more blood. They bring
Speaker 4: ox blood and beef blood, and they distribute around to
Speaker 4: make it more gory than it already was. And then
Speaker 4: the family of the Carltons who owned the cottage, far
Speaker 4: from not being able to rent us, they can't keep
Speaker 4: people away, so they open the cottage and you can
Speaker 4: pay a dime to go to the cottage. You can
Speaker 4: have a little tour around, and then you can pay
Speaker 4: an extra dime if you want to take some bloodstained
Speaker 4: wood away with you, as you're a souvenir. So if
Speaker 4: it catches the public imagination in many many ways, and
Speaker 4: dime novels are written about. There's at least two dime
Speaker 4: novels written about this murder. It's front page news right
Speaker 4: across the United States, in Canada, in Britain, it's in
Speaker 4: Welsh language newspapers, it's in New Zealand, it's in Australia.
Speaker 4: Had he not been murdered, the story of Alexander Sullivan
Speaker 4: taking that money would not be known. But as soon
Speaker 4: as he's dead it takes on a whole life of
Speaker 4: his own.
Speaker 7: Before we talk about a little bit more impact of
Speaker 7: his murder in his funeral and the resultant story that's
Speaker 7: now much bigger, as you say, than if he were
Speaker 7: to not be murdered. So now it's much different story
Speaker 7: and much different response from the public. But what I found,
Speaker 7: again equally incredible, is this White Chapel Club that you
Speaker 7: refer to, established by twojournalists from the Chicago Herald in
Speaker 7: eighteen eighty nine, inspired by the Cronan murder and Jack
Speaker 7: the Ripper murders in London, and the theme of the
Speaker 7: club is sensational crime. Rooms decorated with macabre memorabilia from hangings, murders,
Speaker 7: coffins served as tables and sculls as lampshades, hands cuffs
Speaker 7: used by Martin Burke, shards of wood, like you say,
Speaker 7: from the Carlson cottage, and bloodstained cotton from a trunk
Speaker 7: that had Cronan's body, and apparently eighteen eighty nine it
Speaker 7: was ethically sound for journalists to collect memorabilia and as
Speaker 7: you say, or evidence from cases they covered, and to
Speaker 7: tamper with the scene of the crimes, sometimes then dismiss
Speaker 7: it as a joke. I found this incredibly fascinating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, if Wayne Chapel Club is remarkable and something
Speaker 4: I want to go back to and look at Kali
Speaker 4: again because the journalists in many ways almost become the
Speaker 4: story themselves. And the journalists involved in the White Chapel
Speaker 4: Club really do collect all of this memorabilia and it's
Speaker 4: essentially they're drinking down so the table that they use
Speaker 4: is in the shape of a coffin, as they use
Speaker 4: skulls as their lights. It's completely bonkers. And that building
Speaker 4: was demolished, so there's no kind of relics of us.
Speaker 4: But they were involved in all sorts of very bizarre things,
Speaker 4: and I think in some ways it's very representative of
Speaker 4: the late nineteenth century and you can see a sort
Speaker 4: of in how things are reported and Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 4: which is obviously they were murders that took place in
Speaker 4: London around the same time as the Chrona murder. It's
Speaker 4: referenced all of the time in the press about how
Speaker 4: the Chrono murder has echoes of Jack the Ripper, though
Speaker 4: it really doesn't, but people are quick to make those connections.
Speaker 4: And I think that in Chicago, the new certainly took
Speaker 4: a certain pleasure is the wrong word, but they were
Speaker 4: keen to show that they kind of had had a
Speaker 4: murder that was just as fascinating as those that were
Speaker 4: taking place in London.
Speaker 7: Also talk about we'll analyze it a little bit later
Speaker 7: as you do, about whether the prosecution was aided by
Speaker 7: the journalists, but that was the tone. They were obviously
Speaker 7: in favor of prosecution. So tell us. Equally fascinating is
Speaker 7: how hard they had in finding a jury in this
Speaker 7: two months jury selection. So you talk about the longest
Speaker 7: or the biggest jury select longest jury selection process in
Speaker 7: US judicial history. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 7: that process and how difficult it was.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, at the time, it was the longest. In fact,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what now is the longest sort of
Speaker 4: attempt to find twelve men. I suppose the closest comparison
Speaker 4: is something like the OJ Simpson trial in terms of
Speaker 4: just the amount of attention it had, And one of
Speaker 4: the reasons it has that level of attention is that
Speaker 4: they eventually try five men or five men are accused
Speaker 4: of murder, and one of those and the reasons the
Speaker 4: press were so interested one of the men that was
Speaker 4: charged with the man called Daniel Cocklan, and Cochlan had
Speaker 4: been the chief detective charged with finding Cronin when he
Speaker 4: went missing. And so if you're a newspaper man, that's
Speaker 4: just gold dust is that the man who was meant
Speaker 4: to find the missing man turns out to be the
Speaker 4: man accused of murder. And so for papers, this is
Speaker 4: just amazing. So there's hardly anybody in Chicago who hasn't
Speaker 4: read all the papers. And so when these people are
Speaker 4: called as potential jurors, then they're asked one of the
Speaker 4: first questions is do you have an opinion on the case,
Speaker 4: and they go, absolutely, they should hang, and then they
Speaker 4: get dismissed because I'm clearly they're biased. Takes the best
Speaker 4: part of two months before they can find twelve men
Speaker 4: who don't have say that they don't have an opinion,
Speaker 4: and that's you know, then once the trial gets up
Speaker 4: and running, it doesn't take particularly long to get through
Speaker 4: the evidence. If that takes longer to pick twelve men
Speaker 4: than it does to actually have the trial.
Speaker 7: What are you write about the specter of bribery in
Speaker 7: terms of the jurors. So tell us what happens or
Speaker 7: the respect of it.
Speaker 4: Yes, Well, Chicago had a long tradition of jury bribing,
Speaker 4: and there were a number of alleged attempts to bribe durors,
Speaker 4: so essentially where duror would be bribed to find in
Speaker 4: favor of the defendants. And in one case a note
Speaker 4: was put in the pocket of a duror with a
Speaker 4: neck tie and in it he was told in the note,
Speaker 4: if he was going to kind of vote on behalf
Speaker 4: the defendants, he was to wear that particular necktie the
Speaker 4: next day and sort of money would come his way.
Speaker 4: And in that case that the juror went to the
Speaker 4: state's attorney and said, this is what's happening. There are
Speaker 4: attempts to bribe, and that's something that was very often
Speaker 4: the case in Chicago in the nineteenth century and well beyond.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 7: Now you have defense tried to split up O'Sullivan from
Speaker 7: Beggs and Burke and Cochlan, and this was a conspiracy
Speaker 7: to murder trial. There's no Wye witness, so they have
Speaker 7: to deal with some circumstantial evidence. But what I thought,
Speaker 7: well again was interesting and unusual is that the magnitude
Speaker 7: of the prosecution, they brought in private attorneys to be
Speaker 7: able to do this as well, rather than just relying.
Speaker 7: So tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the big guns were certainly lined up for the
Speaker 4: for the trial. I mean interestingly, Alexander Sullivan has never
Speaker 4: actually charged with the murder, but everyone who charged is
Speaker 4: a member of Camp twenty. And it becomes clear that
Speaker 4: Sullivan didn't actually order the murder, but he was. It
Speaker 4: was the murder took place because they thought he wanted
Speaker 4: Cronin dead. So he doesn't actually order the murder himself,
Speaker 4: and in fact the murder does not help him at all.
Speaker 4: But because the court of public opinion convicts Sullivan. But
Speaker 4: in order to I suppose convict the others, the state's
Speaker 4: attorney and those who were supported of Cronin, they wage
Speaker 4: an enormous financial campaign. So not only is the state's attorney,
Speaker 4: who would normally just be the prosecutor, there's about nine
Speaker 4: very senior attorneys who are part of the prosecution, and
Speaker 4: the defense are also very well represented. Each one of
Speaker 4: those men who is charged and are five men charged
Speaker 4: have their own individual attorneys. And these are not wealthy men,
Speaker 4: So somebody's paying for those. Those men were not men
Speaker 4: who could have afforded to have an attorney themselves. More
Speaker 4: from one of them, Begs could probably if he was
Speaker 4: an attorney himself, but the rest of them would not
Speaker 4: have been able to afford significant legal representation. So it
Speaker 4: is that's why I think, you know they mention is
Speaker 4: King of the OJ Simpson case. These are the biggest
Speaker 4: guns that Chicago can put together in terms of legal teams.
Speaker 7: Sure, now you say October twenty third, the trial begins,
Speaker 7: and again fascinating, five thousand people want to attend this
Speaker 7: and get into a room that holds a couple hundred.
Speaker 7: And then what's interesting too is the newspapers are publishing
Speaker 7: transcripts of the trial. So and they're also they're also
Speaker 7: labeling their calling terming Iceman or Polomon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the papers. Thousands people turn first day,
Speaker 4: hundreds people turn up every single day. It's always packed out.
Speaker 4: It's one of the first times that the newspapers come
Speaker 4: together and they pay for stenographers. So several newspapers, you know,
Speaker 4: agree that they will pay for the for trial transcripts
Speaker 4: as a as a team in some ways, even though
Speaker 4: they're actually you know, seeing competition with each other for sales.
Speaker 4: And there's an awful lot of color pieces. So so
Speaker 4: O'Sullivan becomes knows the Iceland because he owns the ice house,
Speaker 4: and there they're completely fascinated with Dan Cocklan because he
Speaker 4: was the detective. So you get a huge amount of
Speaker 4: attention paid and you know, Paige after page. The newspapers
Speaker 4: cover this on a daily basis because it's absolutely the
Speaker 4: story of its time.
Speaker 7: Now there's a lot of claims by in a lot
Speaker 7: of action by the media itself and especially the Tribune.
Speaker 7: So tell us about their claim or anyone's claimed that
Speaker 7: they were the people that cracked this case, that the
Speaker 7: reporters were involved, because please explain the situation with the
Speaker 7: police at that time and their loyalties it would seem
Speaker 7: to in this investigation in the interference in this So
Speaker 7: tell us about that dynamic.
Speaker 4: Well, the police in Chicago was disproportionately Irish, About half
Speaker 4: of the police force were made up of irishmen, and
Speaker 4: the Irish made up about seventeen percent of the population,
Speaker 4: so far more Irish were in the police force, and
Speaker 4: sort of you would be expecting he'd expect maybe twenty
Speaker 4: percent of the police force to be Irish, but in
Speaker 4: fact you get half of the police force. Now, not
Speaker 4: all of those were involved in Calnegale, but quite a
Speaker 4: lot were, and so certainly the press suggested that there
Speaker 4: were a lot of the police force who had a
Speaker 4: vested interest in this case not coming forward. And the
Speaker 4: newspapers prided themselves on having kind of discovered a lot
Speaker 4: of the clues and having brought that to the police.
Speaker 4: Now that some of that's hyperbole. They didn't discover all
Speaker 4: of it, but they certainly laid claim to having discovered
Speaker 4: a lot of it. But they were right. There were
Speaker 4: definitely elements within the police force that didn't want this trial,
Speaker 4: with this case to go ahead, and there certainly were
Speaker 4: things that were discovered by the journalists that hadn't been
Speaker 4: discovered by the police. So I get in some way,
Speaker 4: I suppose it was a combined a combined effort. But
Speaker 4: the newspaper certainly blew their own trumpet as much as
Speaker 4: they could.
Speaker 7: Tell us about Pat Deanan and the evidence that he
Speaker 7: provided that linked O'Sullivan and Burke to the murder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well he was. He owned a livery stable, so
Speaker 4: he rented out horses and buggies, and he as the
Speaker 4: case sort of as the developments progress. He recognized the
Speaker 4: description of the horse and buggie as being a horse
Speaker 4: and buggy he owned, and he recalled that Daniel Cochlan
Speaker 4: had books that horse and buggie for the night the
Speaker 4: Crown had disappeared. And so he went to the police
Speaker 4: and reported Cochlan's involvement, and the police initially dismissed him
Speaker 4: and said they weren't interested and clearly it had nothing
Speaker 4: to do with Cochlan. And eventually Dinand took that higher
Speaker 4: and went to more senior police officials who took him seriously,
Speaker 4: and that was really the link that brought the detective
Speaker 4: into the murder investigation.
Speaker 7: Now, you also talk about the importance of Edward Spellman
Speaker 7: and his visit to Chicago end Camp twenty. So explain
Speaker 7: that to us.
Speaker 4: Well, he was a senior figure in Colnegale and he
Speaker 4: had been asked at one point for his sort of
Speaker 4: to take action against Cronin. And this has been sort
Speaker 4: of suggested in letters that if he didn't take action
Speaker 4: something people couldn't be responsible for what they did, and
Speaker 4: he said, well, look there's nothing just leap let it go.
Speaker 4: So he didn't have thin through Cronin's disappearance. But as
Speaker 4: soon as Cronin was discovered has been murdered, Spelman did
Speaker 4: sort of step in and go to Camp twenty and say,
Speaker 4: you need to destroy any evidence that there might be
Speaker 4: that might link you to this murder. So most of
Speaker 4: the records, in fact, all of the records of Camp
Speaker 4: twenty were burned or destroyed in some way when Spelman
Speaker 4: visited the Chicago.
Speaker 7: Now it's interesting there's no eyewitnesses, obviously, but there's one
Speaker 7: hundred and ninety witnesses everything from testifying about the meetings
Speaker 7: at Camp twenty, there was a Conklin and Frank Scanlon
Speaker 7: testified that Cronin felt his life in danger. Tell us
Speaker 7: about the most important in your mind, important, the most
Speaker 7: important event at the the most pivotal point in that trial.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that the evidence given by Dinan is
Speaker 4: really key because he links sort of all of the
Speaker 4: men together. I think his evidence is probably the most important.
Speaker 4: The rest, I think builds up a very clear picture
Speaker 4: of the involvement of many of the others, but his
Speaker 4: is the crucial one. I think that brings all of
Speaker 4: the men who were accused into the same circle and
Speaker 4: places places in there. But I think the evidence of
Speaker 4: people like the Carlsons who owned the cottage and they
Speaker 4: were able to identify demand Burke, who rented the cottage,
Speaker 4: fund and they could identify him. They were able to
Speaker 4: prove that O'Sullivan and Burke knew each other. So I
Speaker 4: think the mixture of the Carlsons and Dinam are particularly important.
Speaker 7: So tell us what happens ultimately in turns of the
Speaker 7: I mean, it's interesting the last summation by long Necker,
Speaker 7: But tell us about how the trial concludes and sort
Speaker 7: of the result in terms of the public sentiment.
Speaker 4: Well, the public fully expected that the men would be
Speaker 4: found guilty and that they would be executed, though there's
Speaker 4: very little there was very little sort of back up
Speaker 4: their assumption that this would happen, because there were very
Speaker 4: few executions in Chicago at the time, But public sentiment
Speaker 4: was definitely that these men would be executed and found guilty.
Speaker 4: And so what ultimately happens is that one of them
Speaker 4: is acquitted. John Beggs, who was the senior guardian and
Speaker 4: leader of Camp twenty. He was acquitted of being involved
Speaker 4: in the conspiracy. But three of them were found guilty
Speaker 4: of murder, but they were not sentenced to death. They
Speaker 4: were sentenced to life in prison. And the reason they
Speaker 4: weren't sentence to death is because if to sentence some
Speaker 4: to death, you have to have all twelve members of
Speaker 4: the jury to agree a death sentence, and in this case,
Speaker 4: only eleven members of the jury would agree a death sentence,
Speaker 4: and the twelfth man was opposed to the death sentence.
Speaker 4: In principle didn't matter. He was not in favor of
Speaker 4: the death sentence. So the public were disappointed. I think
Speaker 4: they were paying for blood and were disappointed that they
Speaker 4: didn't get their executions. But there were three men found
Speaker 4: guilty and three men sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 7: Again, what's most fascinating is the treatment of that one
Speaker 7: juror and how derided he was by the tell Us
Speaker 7: about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, he is essentially hounded out of Chicago as
Speaker 4: a result, because it's known who he is. He's a
Speaker 4: man called mister Culver, and he is essentially hounded out
Speaker 4: of Chicago. He has to put his house on sale
Speaker 4: within a month because of threats to his life and
Speaker 4: to the lives of his family members.
Speaker 7: Now what's the effect of this trial on the clan
Speaker 7: the Gale.
Speaker 4: Oh, it decimates Clanegale because it's basically it's dirty. Linen
Speaker 4: was washed in public and membership of the clan has destroyed.
Speaker 4: The position of Alexander Sullivan is destroyed. The clan never
Speaker 4: recovers really from this public kind of revelations about it.
Speaker 4: So it has huge repercussions for Clanegale, but it also
Speaker 4: has huge repercussions for the police force in Chicago. A
Speaker 4: number of men were sacked who were police officers because
Speaker 4: they were deemed to be sympathetic to Clanegale. They entirely
Speaker 4: reorganized how the policing system works worked in Chicago, and
Speaker 4: there were questions raised about jury bribing and the judiciary.
Speaker 4: So there were all sorts of kind of repercussions that
Speaker 4: go beyond just the Irish community in Chicago that really
Speaker 4: spread much further afield.
Speaker 7: In terms of that lucrative fundraising and that money and
Speaker 7: that political organization Irish Republican Brotherhood and nationalism itself. What
Speaker 7: was its effect This trial.
Speaker 4: Well, the real impact is that money is not raised,
Speaker 4: and Irish Republicanism relied very heavily on the dollar and
Speaker 4: on money raised in America to fund activity in Ireland
Speaker 4: and in Britain, and that stops, and that I think
Speaker 4: is very important, and it doesn't really start again until
Speaker 4: well into the twentieth century. So it has massive repercussions
Speaker 4: in that sense that that sort of money that people
Speaker 4: were expecting to be sent back for these organizations are
Speaker 4: not sent back and for more than a generation that continues.
Speaker 7: Again, I found this fascinating too, is that you say
Speaker 7: the Camp twenty that was involved in all of this
Speaker 7: is actually, if I'm not miscorrect, the expanded and John Biggs,
Speaker 7: the person that was acquitted, is elected senior guardian.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's true. They reassemble themselves almost immediately and he
Speaker 4: becomes the leader again. Though they end up not really
Speaker 4: having any impact. They they're not able to do very much,
Speaker 4: but they do reassemble almost immediately.
Speaker 7: The effect of this trial also on we just touched
Speaker 7: on it, but the sentiment of the public, the Irish
Speaker 7: community in America. What was its effect Essentially, Well, it
Speaker 7: brought to.
Speaker 4: Light an issue that a lot of American self about
Speaker 4: the Irish community in that this idea of a dual
Speaker 4: loyalty or a hyphenated identity was brought to the fore
Speaker 4: and was not very favorite received. So there was apprehension
Speaker 4: in America about this idea that the Irish were more
Speaker 4: loyal to Ireland than they were to being American, and
Speaker 4: Americans felt that their loyalty should be first and foremost
Speaker 4: to America and to the United States, and that they
Speaker 4: really should leave the issue of sort of the old
Speaker 4: home country behind. And so this idea of hyphenated loyalty
Speaker 4: was something that was sort of disapproved of, and people
Speaker 4: began to think, we couldn't really trust the Irish because
Speaker 4: not only are they kind of keeping one eye on
Speaker 4: what's happening in Ireland, but now there are murders taking
Speaker 4: place in its name on the United States soil. And
Speaker 4: so that did not go down very well, particularly with
Speaker 4: those who were anti immigrants, and there were a lot
Speaker 4: of those who were anti immigrants in the United States
Speaker 4: at the end of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 7: You speak in your book about the Klana guel And
Speaker 7: and talk of that there was ever reunited that Conklin
Speaker 7: Cochland would be declared outlawed by the Irish race.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean there was an attempt to reunite which
Speaker 4: worked at nine in nineteen hundred, but the Clonegaeale that
Speaker 4: was reunited in nineteen hundred would never really had the
Speaker 4: power that they'd had before. But it was interesting that
Speaker 4: one of the things that united the two groups who
Speaker 4: had previously been divided was the fact that they would
Speaker 4: both sides condemned Cochlan and Cochland himself had ended up.
Speaker 4: He didn't serve a full term in prison and was
Speaker 4: ultimately released, but he ended up having to go on
Speaker 4: the run, and he dies under an assumed name on
Speaker 4: a banana plantation in Honduras. So very far from any
Speaker 4: freedom fighting for Ireland, right.
Speaker 7: What about Alexander Sullivan, what is it his fate?
Speaker 4: Well, he remains in Chicago, he remains a lawyer, but
Speaker 4: financially he is not in any position. He doesn't really
Speaker 4: have very much business. His position as sort of the
Speaker 4: pre eminent irishman in Chicago is absolutely gone. He disappears.
Speaker 4: He's not seen in public for five years after the
Speaker 4: until eighteen ninety five, and nearly six years after the murder,
Speaker 4: and so his role is absolutely diminished. He really does
Speaker 4: not have any authority at all, so even though he
Speaker 4: doesn't serve any time, his position is very much diminished
Speaker 4: as a result of the murder.
Speaker 7: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 7: and talking about Blood Runs Green. If people are more interested, obviously,
Speaker 7: I hope people are motivated to go and seek out
Speaker 7: this fantastic book, but if people are more interested in
Speaker 7: contacting you, or do you have a website or Facebook
Speaker 7: page that people might be able to find out more
Speaker 7: information or look at your other work as well.
Speaker 4: I do. I have a word press blog, which is cool.
Speaker 4: It's Jillian m O'Brien wordress blog. I think it's called Murder, Murder,
Speaker 4: Mayhem and Shiny Things, So I quite a lot of
Speaker 4: what I'm working on is up on that and my
Speaker 4: other contact details are on that blog. So yeah, it
Speaker 4: would be great to be great to be in touch
Speaker 4: with some people.
Speaker 7: I want to thank you very much for this interview
Speaker 7: and a fantastic read. Blood Wren's Green a fascinating story
Speaker 7: and a trip back in history and a fascinating, fascinating time.
Speaker 7: So I want to thank you very much for coming
Speaker 7: on and thank.
Speaker 4: You for having us this book you're very welcome.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much, thank you, have a great evening
Speaker 4: You too, Bye bye, good night.