verpool willing to assist, it was not
difficult to get the parcels of papers, through one channel or another,
into our depot each week.

I engaged the services of Mr. Michael Wolohan, to go to Ireland, and act
as forwarding agent. It was his task to get people in various parts of
the country to receive parcels of "United Ireland," the papers being
packed in such fashion as to correspond with the business of the person
to whom each consignment was made.

For instance, the edition for the week ending December 31st was packed
in hampers provided by Mr. Garton, who advised me to send the lot as
dried fish, and found a reliable consignee for them in Ireland. The
"dried fish" arrived safely, and then the most arduous part of Michael
Wolohan's work began. For it was difficult to get the actual parcels of
"United Ireland" into the hands of the agents and sub-agents unknown to
the police, but this he did with consummate address, and on the whole
very successfully.

On one occasion Michael wrote me he had a good consignee for "woollen
goods." Nothing easier, for here was Edward Purcell, a clothier, one of
our own young men, who afterwards became a city alderman, having a good
business in Byrom Street, Liverpool. Besides helping actively with the
"blockade running" in other ways, he at once gave us the necessary
wrappers in which he had got his own goods from his woollen merchants,
and assisted in packing our "woollen goods" in the correct fashion.
Needless to say, these safely reached the consignee in Ireland.

Although there was no illegality in printing "United Ireland" in London,
the printers were perpetually harassed by the police to frighten them
into giving up the job. The parcels for the British newsagents could not
legally be stopped, but with the watchful eye of the police all over
Ireland on the look-out for the proscribed paper, it is not surprising
that individual parcels fell into their hands. For that reason we took
care to send the various kinds of goods in the names of mercantile firms
whose loyalty was unquestionable. I should say that to this day these
firms have no idea of the large Irish trade they were doing at this
particular time.

But Liverpool became much too suspicious a place to send from. I
therefore adopted the plan of sending parcels, made up as various kinds
of merchandise, to friends in Manchester, from which city there was
regular communication with inland towns in Ireland, and these friends