Casey, Patrick (1843–1908), Fenian, was born in Parliament St., Kilkenny city, son of Patrick Casey, ironmonger and his wife, Mary Anne Corcoran. Her sister, Anne, was the mother of James Stephens (qv), founder of the Fenian movement and godfather to her second son, Joseph Casey (qv) in 1846. Casey had two other brothers, James and Andrew. Stephens stayed with the Caseys in 1856 when he toured Ireland to assess the prospects for a new revolutionary movement. The Casey brothers were active Fenians and engaged in gunrunning from Birmingham to Cork, where they may have befriended John Stanislaus Joyce (qv), father of James (qv) and Stanislaus Joyce (qv).
In London, Joseph Casey and Ricard O'Sullivan Burke (qv) were arrested on 20 November 1867 for assaulting a policeman. Patrick Casey participated in the attempt to rescue Joseph Casey and Burke by blowing up the wall of Clerkenwell prison on 13 December 1867; the explosion caused twelve deaths, numerous injuries, and widespread devastation. Joseph Casey was acquitted in April 1868 and went to Paris, where his mother and brothers had taken up residence; France refused British requests for Patrick's extradition. The four brothers fought in the Franco-Prussian war (1870–71). Three were wounded during the siege of Paris and Andrew, who had received the Legion of Honour, and James, died some years later from their wounds. The brothers worked as compositors on the English-language newspaper, Galignani's Messenger, and subsequently on the Morning News and the European (Paris) edition of the New York Herald.
When Stephens visited them in August 1874 he found that although the brothers earned £500 a year between them they were heavily indebted. ‘Young men will be young men’, commented Stephens, describing the Caseys as ‘true Irishmen, nothing dearer to them in the world than to serve their country’. He noted that for some years they ‘kept open house’ for ‘people of our way of thinking’ (Ryan, 284–5). The Caseys were loosely associated with Stephens and splinter groups loyal to the fallen leader and Patrick sometimes acted as his secretary. Patrick was also secretary to the wealthy Irish-American adventurer, General MacAdaras, who lent his name to some of the Caseys' revolutionary schemes. In the early 1880s, John O'Leary (qv) used Patrick Casey's Paris address to receive correspondence.
In the early and mid-1880s, Patrick and Joseph Casey, mixing with journalists in Reynolds' Irish-American bar on the Rue Royale, became well-known advocates of dynamite attacks on Britain. An 1885 pamphlet, The repeal of the union conspiracy, written by a British agent provocateur associated with Patrick Casey, presented him as mastermind of a dynamite conspiracy in which C. S. Parnell (qv) was implicated. The Caseys associated with Richard Pigott (qv) and Captain W. H. O'Shea (qv); Pigott claimed to have acquired the supposed Parnell letters discussing the Phoenix Park murders from Patrick Casey. He later claimed, in an extremely dubious statement, that Casey helped to forge them. During the Parnell commission, Patrick Casey offered to testify for both sides in return for payment; a Times agent later complained that Patrick described all their activities to Joseph, who notified Michael Davitt (qv). Contacts with disaffected British intelligence personnel led Davitt to believe Patrick Casey was in British pay; it is not clear whether this refers to opportunistic manoeuvres, such as his relationship with The Times or systematic agent provocateur activity, like that of ‘Red’ Jim MacDermott (qv), with whom he was associated in the 1880s.
Press coverage of Patrick Casey's activities caught the attention of Duleep Singh, the deposed king of the Punjab turned English squire, who had entered into intrigues with supporters in India. In autumn 1886 Duleep came to Paris and Casey printed his manifestoes, putting him in touch with Russian agents who hoped to deploy Duleep in a Franco-Russian alliance against Britain involving Russian military intervention in India. Duleep had no passport, and wanted to enter Russia, so Casey obtained one by going to the British embassy and swearing (to his disgust and the amusement of officials) that he was a loyal subject of Queen Victoria. Duleep and his mistress travelled to Russia as ‘Mr and Mrs Patrick Casey’ on 21 March 1887, giving rise to confusion followed by British ridicule. Tsar Alexander III distrusted an associate of Irish dynamiters (uncomfortably reminiscent of Russian nihilist bomb-throwers) especially as Patrick Casey occasionally expressed sympathy for Russian revolutionaries in press interviews. The plot collapsed through Duleep's erratic behaviour and the activities of his secretary, an Irish-American double agent. After further intrigues, including an 1889 attempt to launch an Indian revolutionary movement with Patrick Casey and Stephens among its leaders, Duleep retired into obscurity.
Stephens returned to Ireland in 1891 and Patrick Casey moved to Kilkenny and associated with local Fenians. By 1893, he was living in Cabra and working as a night watchman for the Dublin Corporation paving board; the DMP thought him ‘fit for any villainy when in drink’ (Campbell, 436). His social life centred around the Fenians' Old Guard Benevolent Union, and the pubs where he drank with cronies, including John Stanislaus Joyce. This led to James Joyce making contact with Joseph Casey on his 1903 visit to Paris. In Ulysses he appears as Kevin Egan, encapsulating the shattered lives of a generation of revolutionaries (incidentally asking Stephen Dedalus: ‘Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time’).
Casey took an interest in his friend's younger son, Stanislaus Joyce, whom he tipsily beseeched to ‘take care of your father’ after the scandal of James's elopement with Nora Barnacle (qv). But Stanislaus disliked the old man ‘in the manner of loathing’ and avoided him in the street. As his health declined, Patrick Casey entered the north Dublin workhouse, where he fantasised to visitors about glittering financial prospects until his death in January 1908. His friends buried him in the Fenian plot in Glasnevin cemetery.