public opinion in his favour. Arrest and trial Months earlier, Barrett had been arrested in Glasgow for illegally discharging a firearm and allegedly false evidence was used to implicate him in the Clerkenwell Prison explosion. In court, he produced witnesses who testified that he had been in Scotland on the date of the incident. The main case against him rested on the evidence of Patrick Mullany (a Dubliner known to have given false testimony before and whose price was a free passage to Australia), who told the court that Barrett had informed him that he had carried out the explosion with an accomplice by the name of Murphy. After two hours of deliberation the jury pronounced Barrett guilty. One of the trial lawyers, Montagu Williams, wrote: On being asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed, Barrett delivered an emotional speech from the dock, which ended: The next day the Daily Telegraph reported that Barrett had: Execution Many people, including a number of Radical MPs, pressed for clemency. In Fermanagh, Barrett's aged mother walked several miles in the snow to appeal to the local Conservative MP, Captain Archdale, a staunch Orangeman, who rejected her. Barrett was executed outside the walls of Newgate Prison on 26 May 1868 before a crowd of two thousand who booed, jeered and sang Rule Britannia and Champagne Charlie as his body dropped. On 27 May, following the execution, Reynold's News commented: Barrett's execution was the last public hanging to take place in England. The hangman was William Calcraft. Until their transfer to the City of London Cemetery, Michael Barrett's remains lay for 35 years in a lime grave inside the walls of Newgate Prison. When the prison was demolished in 1903 his remains were taken to their present resting place. Today the grave is a place of Fenian pilgrimage and is marked by a small plaque. Aftermath of the explosion After the explosion the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Great Britain, as was already the case in Ireland. Greater security measures were quickly introduced. Thousands of special constables were enrolled to aid the police and at Scotland Yard a special secret service department was established to meet the Fenian threat. Although a number of people were arrested and brought to trial, Michael Barrett was the only one to receive the death sentence. Within days