Charles Underwood O'Connell

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Charles Underwood O’Connell (born around 1838 in County Cork, Ireland – died 22 February 1902 in New York) was an Irish Fenian activist. At the request of James Stephens, he organized a Fenian group in Cork that grew to several thousand members. He travelled to the United States to gain military experience and joined John O’Mahony’s Phoenix Brigade, part of the 99th New York State Militia that helped form Captain Meagher’s Irish Brigade. He reached the rank of captain.

Plans for a Fenian uprising in Ireland were uncovered, leading to arrests. A document found in Stephens’s newspaper The Irish People helped trigger the crackdown. O’Connell was arrested in 1865 on a ship at Queenstown while heading to Britain, found with Fenian papers and arms, and he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years at Portland Quarries.

Due to pressure from the United States, and because some prisoners were U.S. citizens and veterans, an amnesty was granted and he was released on 7 January 1871. Five of the released chose to go into exile in the United States, leaving Liverpool aboard the SS Cuba; they became known as The Cuba Five.

O’Connell continued to support Irish nationalist causes after his release. Some sources suggest he might have attended the Irish Race Convention in the 1890s as a U.S. representative, but he is not listed as a delegate. He died in a fire at the Park Avenue Hotel in New York on 22 February 1902, along with fifteen others. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York.