On 13 January 1878, Michael Davitt, Charles McCarthy, Thomas Chambers and John Patrick O’Brien, the released Fenian prisoners, arrived back in Ireland. They stayed in the European hotel in Dublin.
The following day they visited O’Connor Power in his lodgings in Doran’s, 10 Molesworth Street, to ‘thank him for his unceasing exertions on their behalf’.
That evening they went to the Gaiety theatre to see a production of The Shaughraun, a play by Irish nationalist, Dion Boucicault. They occupied a box immediately opposite the Viceregal box. They enjoyed the performance enormously.