Fenian Brotherhood
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Fenian Brotherhood | |
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Founder | John O'Mahony |
Founded | 1858 |
Dissolved | 1880 |
Preceded by | Emmet Monument Association |
Succeeded by | Clan na Gael |
Headquarters | New York City |
Ideology | |
Irish affiliate |
Part of a series on |
Irish republicanism |
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The Fenian Brotherhood (
Background
The Fenian Brotherhood trace their origins back to 1790s, in the rebellion, seeking an end to British rule in Ireland initially for self-government and then the establishment of an Irish Republic. The rebellion was suppressed, but the principles of the United Irishmen were to have a powerful influence on the course of Irish history.
Following the collapse of the rebellion, the British Prime Minister
In the early 1840s, the younger members of the repeal movement became impatient with O'Connell's over-cautious policies and began to question his intentions. Later they were what came to be known as the Young Ireland movement.
During the famine, the social class comprising small farmers and laborers was almost wiped out by starvation, disease and emigration. The Great Famine of the 1840s caused the deaths of 1 million Irish people and another million emigrated to escape it, with a further million over following decades.[5] That the people starved while livestock and grain continued to be exported, quite often under military escort, would leave a legacy of bitterness and resentment among the survivors. The waves of emigration also ensured that such feelings would not be confined to Ireland, but spread to England, the United States, Australia and every country where Irish emigrants gathered.[6]
Shocked by the scenes of starvation and greatly influenced by the revolutions then sweeping Europe, the
The Government quickly rounded up many of the instigators. Those who could, fled across the seas and their followers dispersed. The last flicker of revolt in 1849, led by amongst others James Fintan Lalor, was equally unsuccessful.[7]
Founding
After the collapse of the
In 1863 the Brotherhood adopted a constitution and rules for general government.[11] The First National Congress was organised in Chicago in November 1863. It allowed the organisation to be "reconstituted on the model of the institutions of the Republic, governing itself on the elective principle".[12] Motions were passed to elect a Head Centre, with a Central Council of five elected members in 1863. This was extended to a Council of ten members at the second congress, held at National Hall in Philadelphia, Missouri in January 1865, also with a President to be elected by the Council.[13] This established a more distinctive republican style of governance with a Central Council or Senate and a Chief of the Senate, as well as a Presidential role with limited powers; O'Mahony was made President.[14] Subsequently, this created a divided camp, as the Senate had powers to out-vote O'Mahony on future decisions.
Fenian raids into Canada
In the United States, O'Mahony's presidency over the Fenian Brotherhood was being increasingly challenged by William R. Roberts. Both Fenian factions raised money by the issue of bonds in the name of the "Irish Republic", which were bought by the faithful in the expectation of their being honoured when Ireland should be "A Nation Once Again".[15] These bonds were to be redeemed "six months after the recognition of the independence of Ireland". Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants subscribed.
Large quantities of arms were purchased, and preparations were openly made by the Roberts faction for a coordinated series of raids into Canada, which the United States government took no major steps to prevent. Many in the US administration were not indisposed to the movement because of Britain's actions of what was construed as assisting the Confederacy during the American Civil War, such as CSS Alabama and blockade runners smuggling in weapons. Roberts' "Secretary for War" was General T. W. Sweeny, who was struck off the American army list from January 1866 to November 1866 to allow him to organise the raids. The purpose of these raids was to seize the transportation network of Canada, with the idea that this would force the British to exchange Ireland's freedom for possession of their Province of Canada. Before the invasion, the Fenians had received some intelligence from like-minded supporters within Canada but did not receive support from all Irish Catholics, as there those who saw the invasions as threatening the emerging Canadian sovereignty.
In April 1866, under the command of John O'Mahony, a band of more than 700 members of the Fenian Brotherhood arrived at the Maine shore opposite Campobello Island with the intention of seizing it from the British. British warships from Halifax, Nova Scotia were quickly on the scene and a military force dispersed the Fenians.[16] This action served to reinforce the idea of protection for New Brunswick by joining with the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West in Confederation to form the Dominion of Canada.
The command of the expedition in
Other Fenian attempts to invade occurred throughout the next week in the
To get the Fenians out of the area, both in the St. Lawrence and Buffalo, the U.S. government purchased rail tickets for the Fenians to return to their homes if the individuals involved would promise not to invade any more countries from the United States. Many of the arms were returned later if the person claiming them could post bond that they were not going to be used to invade Canada again, although some were possibly used in the raids that followed.
In December 1867, O'Neill became president of the Roberts faction of the Fenian Brotherhood, which in the following year held a great convention in
After resigning as president of the Fenian Brotherhood, John O'Neill unsuccessfully attempted an unsanctioned raid in 1871 and joined his remaining Fenian supporters with refugee veterans of the Red River Rebellion. The raiding party crossed the border into Manitoba at Pembina, Dakota Territory and took possession of the Hudson's Bay Company trading post on the Canada side. U.S. soldiers from the fort at Pembina, with permission of Canadian official Gilbert McMicken, crossed into Canada and arrested the Fenian raiders without resistance.
The Fenian threat prompted calls for
Fear of Fenian attack plagued the
1867 and after
During the latter part of 1866 Stephens endeavoured to raise funds in America for a fresh rising planned for the following year. He issued a bombastic proclamation in America announcing an imminent general rising in Ireland; but he was himself soon afterwards deposed by his confederates, among whom dissension had broken out.[15]
The Fenian Rising proved to be a "doomed rebellion", poorly organised and with minimal public support. Most of the Irish-American officers who landed at
After the 1867 rising, IRB headquarters in Manchester opted to support neither of the dueling American factions, promoting instead a new organisation in America, Clan na Gael. The Fenian Brotherhood itself, however, continued to exist until voting to disband in 1880.
In 1881, the
See also
Notes
- ^ Ryan, p. 92. The first organization was known as the Emmet Monument Association, founded in the early part of 1855 (ibid. 53–54). The Fenian Brotherhood was launched soon after the founding of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin in 1858 (ibid. 92)
- ^ Neeson, p. 17
- ^ Buescher, John. "What Happened to the Fenians After 1866? Archived 10 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine" Teachinghistory.org Archived 28 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 8 October 2011
- ^ Kenny, p. 5
- ^ Donnelly, Jim. "The Irish Famine". BBC. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
- ^ Kenny, pp. 6–7
- ^ Kenny, p. 7
- ^ Ó Broin, p. 1
- ^ Cronin, p. 11
- ^ It has been suggested, notably by O'Donovan Rossa, that the original name for the organization was the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood.
- ^ Savage, John (1868). Fenian Heroes and Martyrs. Boston: P. Donahoe. p. 55.
- ^ Savage, John (1868). Fenian Heroes and Martyrs. Boston: P. Donahoe. pp. 56–57.
- ^ Savage, John (1868). Fenian Heroes and Martyrs. P. Donahoe. pp. 60–61.
- ^ O'Leary, John (1896). Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism: (Volume v. 1). London: Downey & Co., Limited. pp. 212–213.
- ^ a b c d McNeill 1911, p. 255.
- ^ Buescher, John. "What Happened to the Fenians After 1866?" Archived 16 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine Teachinghistory.org Archived 28 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 8 October 2011
Sources
- The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from The Land League to Sinn Féin, Owen McGee, Four Courts Press, 2005, ISBN 1-85182-972-5
- Fenian Fever: An Anglo-American Delemma, Leon Ó Broin, Chatto & Windus, London, 1971, ISBN 0-7011-1749-4.
- The McGarrity Papers, Sean Cronin, Anvil Books, Ireland, 1972
- Fenian Memories, Dr. Mark F. Ryan, Edited by T.F. O'Sullivan, M. H. Gill & Son, LTD, Dublin, 1945
- The Fenians, Michael Kenny, The National Museum of Ireland in association with Country House, Dublin, 1994, ISBN 0-946172-42-0
Bibliography
- Beiner, Guy. "Fenianism and the Martyrdom-Terrorism Nexus in Ireland before Independence" in Martyrdom and Terrorism: Pre-Modern to Contemporary Perspectives, edited by D. Janes and A. Houen (Oxford University Press, 2014), 199–220.
- Comerford, R. V. The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society, 1848–82 (Wolfhound Press, 1985)
- D'Arcy, William. The Fenian Movement in the United States, 1858–86 (Catholic University of America Press, 1947)
- Jenkins, Brian. Fenians and Anglo-American Relations during Reconstruction (Cornell University Press, 1969).
- Jenkins, Brian, The Fenian Problem: Insurgency and Terrorism in a Liberal State, 1858–1874 (Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press. 2008).
- Keogan, William L. Irish Nationalism and Anglo-American Naturalization: The Settlement of the Expatriation Question 1865–1872 (1982)
- public domain: McNeill, Ronald John (1911). "Fenians". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 254–256. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Moody, T. W.(ed.) The Fenian Movement (Mercier Press, 1968)
- ISBN 978-1-903497-34-0
- O'Brien, William and Desmond Ryan (eds.) Devoy's Post Bag 2 Vols. (Fallon, 1948, 1953)
- O'Broin, Leon. Revolutionary Underground: The Story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858–1924 (Gill and Macmillan, 1976)
- Owen, David. The Year of the Fenians. Buffalo: Western New York Heritage Institute, 1990.
- Ryan, Desmond. The Fenian Chief: A Biography of James Stephens, Hely Thom LTD, Dublin, 1967
- Senior, Hereward. Canadian Battle Series No. 10: The Battles of Ridgeway and Fort Erie, 1866. Toronto: Balmuir Book Publishing, 1993.
- Vronsky, Peter. Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada. Toronto: Alan Lane/Penguin Books, 2011.
- _____. The Fenians and Canada. Toronto: MacMillan, 1978.
- _____. The Last Invasion of Canada. Toronto and Oxford: Dundurn Press, 1991.
- Whelehan, Niall. The Dynamiters: Irish Nationalism and Political Violence in the Wider World, 1867–1900 Cambridge, 2012.
External links
- Fenians.org
- Fenian Brotherhood Collection
- Fenian Brotherhood Collection at the American Catholic Historical Society, digitized by Villanova University's Digital Library
- "Torn Between Brothers: A Look at the Internal Divisions that Weakened the Fenian Brotherhood" – Jean Turner for Villanova University's Digital Library
- Thompson, Francis John (1940). "Fenianism and the Celtic Renaissance" (pdf). A dissertation studying the interrelation between the exponents of physical force and the literature produced in, or about, Ireland during the period between 1858 and 1916. University of South Florida Tampa Library: New York University. pp. 1281, 5 vols.[permanent dead link]
- Thompson, Francis John (1936). "Francis J. Thompson Diary" (pdf). A journal of Francis Thompson research for Fenianism and the Celtic Renaissance. University of South Florida Tampa Library. p. 229.[permanent dead link]