despite none of them having fired the fatal shot. However, under the terms of the English law principle of common purpose "joint enterprise", all that flowed from the execution of a plan made all the participants liable - and both Allen and Larkin admitted to being participants in the attempt to free the prisoners. Allen was a 19-year-old carpenter; Larkin was a tailor, the only married member of the group, and had five children. O'Brien, who had fought in the American Civil War, was a 30-year-old shop assistant from County Cork. O'Meagher Condon, born in Cork and 32 years old, had also fought for the Union side in the American Civil War. Thomas Maguire was a Royal Marine who had served for 10 years and had just returned home on leave. The trial took place in what was described as a "climate of anti-Irish hysteria" by the radical British weekly Reynold's Newspaper, which described it as a "deep and everlasting disgrace to the English government", the product of an ignoble panic which seized the governing classes. A yell of vengeance, it said, had issued from every aristocratic organ, and that before any evidence had been obtained the prisoners' guilt was assumed and their executions had been demanded. The Irish historian F. S. L. Lyons, writing in the 1970s, said that the men were convicted "after an unsatisfactory trial, and on evidence that, to say the least, was dubious". More recently, the events have been described as "accidental murder, public panic and rumour-mongering, elaborate trial...and lingering doubts about a miscarriage of justice." The jury retired at 6:15 pm on the fifth day and returned at 7:30 pm to give its verdict of guilty for each of the five defendants. When asked if they had anything to say before sentence was passed, several of the convicted men made a closing speech. Allen stated his innocence, and that he regretted the death of Sergeant Brett, but that he was prepared to "die proudly and triumphantly in defence of republican principles and the liberty of an oppressed and enslaved people". Larkin said he felt that he had received a fair trial, and that his counsel had done everything they could in his defence. He ended by saying: "So I look to the mercy of God. May God forgive all who have sworn my life away. As I am a dying man, I forgive them