[6] According to Marta Ramón, there is reason to believe that he was born out of wedlock in late July 1825; however, according to Stephens his exact date of birth was 26 January.

[8] For many years, his father had been a clerk to auctioneer and bookseller William Jackson Douglas whose offices and warehouses were on High Street, Kilkenny.

[8] Ryan has the order of the name as William Douglas Jackson, of Rose Inn Street, in his Stephens' biography Fenian Chief.

[12] Because his father was intent on giving his son the best education his means would allow, Stephens was registered as a day pupil at St. Kieran's college for at least one quarter in 1838.

Aged 20, Stephens was apprenticed to a civil engineer and obtained a post in a Kilkenny office for work then in progress on the Limerick and Waterford Railway in 1844.

[17] Ireland in the 1840s was devastated by the Great Famine; the Repeal movement was in decline, and the country moved towards insurrection, aided by the incitements of John Mitchel and James Fintan Lalor.

Stephens sympathies lay more with the Mitchel and Lalor brand of republicanism, than with Charles Gavan Duffy's and William Smith O'Brien's mild constitutionalism.

With John Mitchel transported to Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania, Australia) by a packed jury under the purposely enacted Treason Felony Act, leadership of the Confederation fell to William Smith O'Brien.

[22]Later Stephens and his father went to a private meeting in the Victoria Hotel, when a Mr. John Grace rushed in to say there was someone with a warrant for the arrest of O'Brien at the Rose Inn.

[23] Stephens, O'Donoghue and Kavanagh headed to Cashel and arrived there between ten and eleven o'clock on 26 July and proceeded to the home of Michael Doheny.

It was here that Kavanagh decided that insurrection was hopeless and left, and according to Ramón, Stephens "took the most fateful decision of his life and resolved to stay.

Stephens was appointed aide de camp to William Smith O'Brien on the spot, later Doheny would write, "when they expected that every man would make a fortress in his heart, they were almost abandoned, but their resolution remained unchanged.

"[25] From Cashel they then headed towards Killenaule before making for Mullinahone where for the first time Stephens would meet Charles J. Kickham who would become a future leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

[27] Leaving Killenaule, they carried on towards Ballingarry, conducting drilling exercises at the collieries before moving on to Boulagh Commons two miles outside town.

They held a council of war at the local inn, with fourteen members present, including Stephens and joined by both John O'Mahony and Thomas Francis Meagher.

[28] On the morning of Saturday 29 July in Callan Sub-Inspector Thomas Trant received an order from Purefoy Poe, J.P. to proceed to the Commons.

[29] On coming closer to the town, Trant observed the barricades and a party of rebels prepared to meet them, with a multitude approaching them from all sides.

Moving forward Trant then turned his men right and spotting an isolated house on the top of a hill rushed to the building and took refuge inside.

They became members of one of the most powerful of these societies and acquired the secrets of some of the ablest and "most profound masters of revolutionary science" which the nineteenth century had produced, as to the means of inviting and combining people for the purposes of successful revolution.

[33] In 1853 O'Mahony went to America and founded the Emmet Monument Association[34][35] Stephens in early 1856 began making his way back to Ireland, stopping first in London.

[36] On arriving in Dublin, Stephens began what he described as his three thousand mile walk through Ireland, meeting some of those who had taken part in the 1848 /49 revolutionary movements, including Philip Gray, Thomas Clarke Luby and Peter Langan.

[37] In the autumn of 1857, a messenger, Owen Considine arrived from New York with a message for Stephens from members[38] of the Emmet Monument Association, calling on him to get up an organisation in Ireland.

[39] On 23 December, Stephens dispatched Joseph Denieffe to America with his reply which was disguised as a business letter, and dated and addressed from Paris.

The oath read:[44] I, AB., do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will do my utmost, at every risk, while life lasts, to make Ireland an independent Democratic Republic; that I will yield implicit obedience, in all things not contrary to the law of God to the commands of my superior officers; and that I shall preserve inviolable secrecy regarding all the transactions of this secret society that may be confided in me.

[51] According to Ryan, Stephens would bind in Ireland and America for nearly a decade, warring and ineffective elements, into a formidable political and revolutionary force.

Trusting to the patriotism and ability of the Executive, I fully endorse their action beforehand, and call on every man in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that concerns our military brotherhood.

With this information, Ryan raided the offices of the Irish People on Thursday 15 September, followed by the arrests of O'Leary, Luby and O'Donovan Rossa.

Breslin would go on to play a leading part in the Catalpa rescue of Fenian prisoners in the British penal colony of Western Australia.