Timothy Deasy

Timothy John Deasy (20 February 1839 – 18 December 1880) was an Irish survivor of the Great Famine who emigrated with his family to Massachusetts in the United States. He later became an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, as well as a revolutionary fighting alongside the Irish Republican Brotherhood in both Canada during the Fenian Raids and Ireland during the Fenian Rising of 1867. Towards the end of his life, he became involved in electoral politics in Massachusetts, becoming one of the few Roman Catholics elected at that time to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Biography Early life Timothy Deasy was born in 1839 and was therefore old enough to experience, alongside his family and community, the devastating impact of the Great Famine in Ireland, which ravaged the land between 1845 and 1852. At the height of the famine in 1847, following the death of Timothy's younger sister Hanora, the Deasy family elected to immigrate to the United States in order to escape. They would eventually settle in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The Manchester Martyrs

On 11 September 1867, Deasy and Kelly were travelling to another meeting in Manchester City when it became apparent the pair were being followed by the British authorities. They were eventually arrested and charged with loitering so that they could be held for a prolonged amount of time. Kelly and Deasy gave their names as "Mr. Wright" and "Mr. Williams", but they were eventually identified after a number of days, at which point they were charged with their involvement with the Fenian Rising. However, their delay tactics had brought them time, and their arrest was known amongst the Irish community in Manchester. was offered, without result.

Deasy and Kelly were sheltered by the network of revolutionaries in Manchester, reputedly including Frederick Engels and his Irish partner Lizzie Burns. Deasy managed to eventually board a ship which took him directly to New York City, while Kelly disguised himself as a Franciscan friar and travelled back to Galway to visit his mother, before himself taking a ship back to New York.

The escape of the Fenian leaders and the death of a police officer caused outrage and mass embarrassment amongst the British authorities, and they turned to scapegoats for retribution. Dozens of Manchester Irish were arrested and thrown into jail. Three of the Fenian rescuers, William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien, were arrested after a massive manhunt and later executed after a swift trial followed by many appeals. Their execution was badly bungled and widely reported. Their cause was taken up worldwide and was one of the foundations of Irish revolutionary success of the early 20th century. The three are remembered as the Manchester Martyrs.

Return to Massachusetts and entering electoral politics Deasy finally returned home to Lawrence by 1870, having effectively been gone for a decade. Reunited with his brother Connie, the two set up a number of businesses such as a saloon, a liquor dealership, a hotel, and a number of rental properties. In 1872, Deasy successfully ran for Lawrence City Council and won re-election in '74. Deasy owed his success to the population of 8,200 Irish living in Lawrence by 1875, who accounted for almost half of the population. The Irish were becoming a powerful force in New England politics, and the Democratic Party moved to capitalise. A group of Irish community leaders and Democrats came to Deasy to ask him to run for the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Deasy agreed, and it was determined that John Breen, who had fought with Deasy in Canada, would serve as his replacement on the Lawrence city council. This gave Breen much political momentum, and Breen would later become the first Irish and first Roman Catholic to become Mayor of any city in New England. He was given an elaborate funeral that was attended en masse by Lawrence's Irish community, Fenians and veterans of the Union Army, with members of the 9th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment particularly in force. Deasy is buried at the Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The Irish National Graves Association, in Dublin, Ireland, designated the grave of Deasy an Irish National Grave on 16 August 1990. Deasy received a new green granite headstone on his grave on 23 November 1992, the dedication organized by Bob Bateman, great-grandson of Timothy's brother Cornelius. The principal speaker for the dedications was Derek Warfield of the Wolfe Tones.

His headstone reads: