Stephens

Stephens, JAMES, Fenian, was born at Kilkenny in 1824, son of an auctioneer's clerk with more of Saxon than of Celtic blood. He had a good education, took early to mathematics, and at twenty obtained an appointment during the making of the Limerick and Waterford Railway. He next went to Dublin, and soon became one of the most active agents of the Young Ireland party. He was slightly wounded at the miserable scuffle of Ballingarry (29th June 1848), skulked for three months thereafter among the mountains from Tipperary to Kerry, and then sailed from Cork to France disguised as a lady's servant. For some years he lived mainly at Paris, where he obtained an insight into the working of continental secret societies, and in 1853 journeyed over Ireland making himself acquainted with its condition and preparing the soil for the Fenian conspiracy. As its 'Head Centre' he exercised an enormous and despotic influence, and throughout showed remarkable dexterity in the disguises and characters he assumed on his visits to all parts of Ireland. He visited America early in 1864 to attempt to overthrow the rival schemes formed there by patriots, and was arrested in Dublin on the 10th November of the same year. Fourteen days later he made his escape from Richmond Bridewell in a manner so suspicious that many have looked for the explanation rather to government connivance than to the treachery of officials. He found his way to New York, where he was formally deposed by the Fenians. He sank into obscurity, and returned to Ireland in 1891. See O'Leary's Recollections of Fenianism (1896).