Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macmanus, Terence Bellew
MACMANUS, TERENCE BELLEW (1823?–1860), Irish patriot, was born in Ireland, it is said in co. Fermanagh, about 1823, but he spent many years of his youth in Liverpool, where he engaged in business as a shipping agent. He was present at the meeting at the Hill of Tara in 1843, but first appeared in Irish politics as a member of the '82 Club, formed to carry on the work of agitation while O'Connell was in gaol in 1844. In 1848 he was one of those who joined in the 'physical force' movement. On the advice 01 Duffy and John Martin he quitted Dublin when Smith O'Brien took the field, and joined him and Dillon at Ballingarry on 25 July. Intrepid in temper, tall, and handsome in person, frank and soldierly in demeanour, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the short-lived Tipperary civil war, stood by O'Brien to the last, and fought in the battle or widow McCormick's cabbage-garden. He then tried to escape to Slievannon, where he hoped to join Thomas Francis Meagher [q. v.], and was concealed by the peasantry for some days, until he made his way to Cork. He had actually got on board a vessel bound for the United States when he was arrested. He was tried for high treason by the special commission at Clonmel along with Smith O'Brien and his confederates on 9 Oct., and was sentenced to death, and confined in Richmond Bridewell. This sentence was commuted to transportation for life, but the patriots availed themselves of a legal doubt whether it was competent to the crown to commute the penalty for high treason, and petitioned parliament against the bill, which was subsequently passed, to legalise the clemency of the crown in sparing their lives. He was transported to Van Diemen's Land in the sloop Swift, and reached the settlement in July 1849. In 1852, having been wrongly arrested upon a charge of breach of some police regulations and set at liberty by the magistrates, he considered his parole revoked, and escaped with Meagher to San Francisco, where he settled and endeavoured to resume his former business of a shipping agent. Either the habits of the far west were strange to him, or revolutions had unfitted him for peaceful commerce. He failed in his attempts, spent his last years in poverty, and died in 1860. His body was brought to Ireland, and, in spite of the opposition of Cardinal Paul Cullen [q. v]. and the leaders of the Roman church, was buried amid, nationalist demonstrations at Glasnevin cemetery, near Dublin, on 10 Nov. 1861.
[Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography; C. Gavan Duffy's Young Ireland; T. C. Luby's Reminiscences; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. x. 88; Times, 6, 7, 8, 12 Nov. 1861.]