As the audience dispersed from a “fiery” Republican meeting in Bantry, one of them, Timothy Cadogan, was so excited by the speeches he had heard that he went to the office of land agent and magistrate William Bird and shot him dead. His excess of political enthusiasm led him to Cork Assizes in December 1900, on a murder charge.

Republicans alleged that the jury was deliberately “packed” with Loyalists, and that Cadogan was “fitted up,” with the police threatening witnesses. Their protests were in vain, for Cadogan was sentenced to death and hanged at Cork Prison on Friday, January 11th, 1901. He was unrepentant – while he was in the death cell he announced that if he was released the victim’s brother would be the next to die.