THE LAST FENIAN PRISONER FROM SPIKE ISLANDS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 176, 17 September 1879, Page 3

THE LAST FENIAN PRISONER FROM SPIKE ISLANDS.

Edward O'Kelly, the last of the Fenian prisoners released' from confinement on Spike Island, in Cork harbour, died in Newark at 11 p.m., Saturday week. lie arrived in this city on February 27, a condition of his pardon being that he should sts.y out of Ireland. Canon Pope and others subsequently tried to obtain permission for him to return to Dublin, where his aged and tridowf-d mother needed his help, and the subject was broached in Parliament, but nothing was done. O'Kelly was penniless when he came here, having refused a gratuity such as the other released Fenian prisoners had accepted from the British Government. He had even made the v- yage in the steamer's steerage, declining to use a cabin ticket bought with British gold. A fund had been raised in this city for Fenian exconvicts, but it had all been distributed, f,o O'Kelly was left to go ahead by him- ,-■ If. A shoemaker by trade, he got v.'.rk in Hogan's shoe factory in Newark, where he ran a burnishing

•:r,chine. Prison life had broken down b.-i he«ilth, and four weeks ago he suffered h.rinorrhage of the lungs. Later attacks ,-;c-nt him to his deathbed, in his boarding house at 155 Warren street, where he was cared for by Irish friends. His mind was clear until just before he died, MiCi he retained all his enthusiasm for Hit: cause of Irish nationalism. His ];:st rcqve-st was that his body might be i= ft buried in Newark until it could be transferred to free Irish soil. Ho was :. i years old.—' New York Sun.'