[1][2][3] Thomas Kelly, the new leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, had been arrested in Manchester with Timothy Deasy under the Vagrancy Act in the small hours of 11 September 1867.

An escape plan was arranged by Ricard O'Sullivan Burke, an Irish veteran of the American Civil War.

A group of Fenians armed with an assortment of firearms and cudgels surrounded the carriage at the bridge over Hyde Road near the gaol.

Peter Rice, another of the ambush group, fired through the keyhole of the lock; this was in order to break it, according to a police witness, Constable Shaw.

Alternative contemporary journalistic reports describe Fenians trying to gain entry through the roof of the van by smashing at the wood with a rock that had been passed up, with Brett then confronted by William Allen (later executed) who shot him above the eye, the bullet exiting the top of his skull.

Newspapers heavily criticised the authorities for ordering the movement of the prisoners unnecessarily with unarmed policemen when they had been warned of an ambush.

Five people were sentenced to death but three, William Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien, were executed - the last people in Manchester to be - and became known as the Manchester Martyrs amongst Irish nationalists; they had taken part in the ambush but Rice - the shooter (in Court, Allen was accused of firing the fatal shot) - Kelly and Deasy all escaped to live in the U.S.A. Burke - the organiser - was later arrested on a separate issue and spent four years of a fifteen-year sentence in gaol.

Despite the initial outrage and some clear prejudice, the process and result of the trials was reported as unsatisfactory to an impartial observer.