Aug 24, 2026 · 36 min · 11 segments
*Content warnings: This series discusses the use of explosives for terrorism. Episode 6 contains sounds of explosions, discussions of terrorism, statements from victims and descriptions of injuries…
Penny StewartHostAmy LongGuest
Chris HesterGuest
James CrosslandGuestSteve JohnsonGuest
Amy BruceGuest
Aileen FyfeGuest
The trial of the Ribbon Society members, or Glasgow Dynamitards as they became known, started on the 17th December 1883 at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh.
The ten prisoners were brought from the cells to the dock at a quarter before eleven o'clock under a guard of a dozen policemen with drawn batons who took up a position in the seat behind the prisoners.
Several of the prisoners are poorly clothed and most of them appear to belong to the lower class of society.
A considerable time was occupied in balloting a jury owing to the large number of gentlemen who were charged.
Ten men – Terence McDermott, Thomas Devaney, Peter Callaghan or Kelloghan, Henry McCann, James McCulloch or McCulloch, James Donnelly, James Kelly, Patrick McCabe, Patrick Drumm and Dennis Casey – all stood accused.
Acting in concert with Edward O'Brien Kennedy, otherwise Timothy Featherston and John Henry O'Connor, otherwise Henry Dalton, both prisoners in Chatham, who are said to have visited Glasgow at various times and to have given instructions in the manufacture and use of dynamite and aided by John Francis Kearney, formerly signalman at Buchanan Street Station, Glasgow, and who has absconded.
They were charged with subverting and overthrowing by force and violence the power and authority of Her Majesty the Queen, and of compelling or constraining by force and violence Her said Majesty to change her measures or councils relating to the constitutional government of that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland." Essentially, they were accused under the Treason Felony Act, which was a specific legal charge for attempting to overthrow the British government or change its measures through violence.
The prisoners are charged with having met in public houses in the Salt Market and Bridgegate, in Stables and Market Street, in the Democratic Hall, Nelson Street and in Garn Gag Road between July 1882 and March 1883 for the purpose of procuring dynamite, lignum dynamite or other explosives and with conspiring to explode by means of these substances the public buildings in Glasgow.
It is alleged that on the 20th of January they blew up the gas meter at Tradestone and on the same night attempted to blow up the canal bridge at Postle Park, besides having induced Kearney to destroy a shed at the Caledonian station in Buchanan Street.
The accused are mostly of the Irish type of countenance, and their nationality was betrayed by the brogue in which they replied, when asked by the Lord Justice Clark to plead to the indictments which had been served upon them.
The trial of the Ribbon Society members, or Glasgow Dynamitards as they became known, started on the 17th December 1883 at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh.
The ten prisoners were brought from the cells to the dock at a quarter before eleven o'clock under a guard of a dozen policemen with drawn batons who took up a position in the seat behind the prisoners.
Several of the prisoners are poorly clothed and most of them appear to belong to the lower class of society.
A considerable time was occupied in balloting a jury owing to the large number of gentlemen who were charged.
Ten men – Terence McDermott, Thomas Devaney, Peter Callaghan or Kelloghan, Henry McCann, James McCulloch or McCulloch, James Donnelly, James Kelly, Patrick McCabe, Patrick Drumm and Dennis Casey – all stood accused.
Acting in concert with Edward O'Brien Kennedy, otherwise Timothy Featherston and John Henry O'Connor, otherwise Henry Dalton, both prisoners in Chatham, who are said to have visited Glasgow at various times and to have given instructions in the manufacture and use of dynamite and aided by John Francis Kearney, formerly signalman at Buchanan Street Station, Glasgow, and who has absconded.
They were charged with subverting and overthrowing by force and violence the power and authority of Her Majesty the Queen, and of compelling or constraining by force and violence Her said Majesty to change her measures or councils relating to the constitutional government of that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland." Essentially, they were accused under the Treason Felony Act, which was a specific legal charge for attempting to overthrow the British government or change its measures through violence.
The prisoners are charged with having met in public houses in the Salt Market and Bridgegate, in Stables and Market Street, in the Democratic Hall, Nelson Street and in Garn Gag Road between July 1882 and March 1883 for the purpose of procuring dynamite, lignum dynamite or other explosives and with conspiring to explode by means of these substances the public buildings in Glasgow.
It is alleged that on the 20th of January they blew up the gas meter at Tradestone and on the same night attempted to blow up the canal bridge at Postle Park, besides having induced Kearney to destroy a shed at the Caledonian station in Buchanan Street.
The accused are mostly of the Irish type of countenance, and their nationality was betrayed by the brogue in which they replied, when asked by the Lord Justice Clark to plead to the indictments which had been served upon them.
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