In 1865 and 1867 there was a strong Fenian Circle in Carrigtwohill; many of them lived around Ahanisk and Ballyannon, and found employment at the Midleton Distillers where every man was a sworn Fenian. One of their parade grounds was an eighteen acre field called “Loc na Muice”, where they drilled and trained with their Fenian pikes and guns. This field is lower than the fields around it; and as can be understood, during training, Fenian scouts would be posted on the high ground about.

The plan in general for the rising was that Ireland would have the man, while the organisation in America would send over arms and the officers. A repetition of this happened in the I.R.A. bombing campaign of England in 1939 when the Clann na Gael in America supplied the finance; the I.R.A. gave the men and explosives.

Many were arrested before the rising. Zero hour for the rising was March 5th 1867; and as the clocks struck eleven, the Fenians at Midleton marched from the market place to the Cork Road where they were joined by the Carrigtwohill Fenians and Fenains north of the Carrigtwohill parish.