Fenians

London - Pax Britannica

The word Fenian (/ˈfiːniən/) served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organizations in the late 19th and early 20th century dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. In 1867 they sought to coordinate raids into Canada from the United States with a rising in Ireland. In the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence, the IRB led the republican struggle.

The term Fenian today occurs as a derogatory sectarian term in Ireland, referring to Irish nationalists or Catholics, particularly in Northern Ireland. The term has been used similarly in Scotland by Protestants as an attempt at a derogatory religious slur when referring to Scottish Catholics or to Scots with Irish ancestry.

Fenianism

Fenianism (Irish: Fíníneachas), according to O'Mahony, embodied two principles: firstly, that Ireland had a natural right to independence, and secondly, that this right could be won only by an armed revolution. The name originated with the Fianna of Irish mythology - groups of legendary warrior-bands associated with Fionn mac Cumhail. Mythological tales of the Fianna became known as the Fenian Cycle.

In the 1860s, opponents of Irish nationalism within the English political establishment sometimes used the term "Fenianism" to refer to any form of mobilisation among the Irish or to those who expressed any Irish nationalist sentiments, or questioned the Protestant Ascendancy (such as by advocating for the rights of tenant farmers). The political establishment often applied the term in this sense - inaccurately - to the unrelated Tenant Right League, the Irish National Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, who did not advocate explicitly for an independent Irish Republic or for the use of force. The establishment warned people about a perceived threat to turn what they saw as "decent civilised" society on its head by movements such as trade unionism seeking to change the existing social order in the United Kingdom

By Country

Ireland

James Stephens, one of the "Men of 1848", (a participant in the 1848 revolt) had established himself in Paris, and was in correspondence with John O'Mahony in the United States and other advanced nationalists at home and abroad. This would include the Phoenix National and Literary Society, with Jeremiah O'Donovan (afterwards known as O'Donovan Rossa) among its more prominent members, which had been formed recently at Skibbereen.

Along with Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary and Charles Kickham he founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood on 17 March 1858 in Lombard Street, Dublin.

The Fenian Rising in 1867 proved to be a "doomed rebellion", poorly organised and with minimal public support. Most of the Irish-American officers who landed at Cork, in the expectation of commanding an army against England, were imprisoned; sporadic disturbances around the country were easily suppressed by the police, army and local militias. In the aftermath, Fenian assassination circles were active in Cork and in Dublin and were responsible for shooting two officers of the Dublin Metropolitan Police on duty in October 1867.

In 1882, a breakaway IRB faction calling itself the Irish National Invincibles assassinated the British Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish and his Permanent Under-secretary (chief civil servant), in an incident known as the Phoenix Park Murders.

England

The Fenians in England and the Empire were a major threat to political stability. In the late 1860s, the IRB control center was in Lancashire. In 1868, the Supreme Council of the IRB, the provisional government of the Irish Republic, was restructured. The four Irish provinces (Connacht, Leinster, Ulster and Munster), along with Scotland, the north and south of England and London, had representatives on the Council. Later four honorary members were co-opted. The Council elected three members to the executive. The President was chairman, the Treasurer managed recruitment and finance, and the Secretary was director of operations. There were IRB Circles in every major city in England.

On 23 November 1867, three Fenians, William Philip Allen, Michael O'Brian, and Michael Larkin, known as the Manchester Martyrs, were executed in Salford for their attack on a police van to release Fenians held captive earlier that year.

On 13 December 1867, the Fenians exploded a bomb in attempt to free one of their members being held on remand at Clerkenwell Prison in London. The explosion damaged nearby houses, killed 12 people and caused 120 injuries. None of the prisoners escaped. The bombing was later described as the most infamous action carried out by the Fenians in Great Britain in the 19th century. It enraged the public, causing a backlash of hostility in Britain which undermined efforts to establish home rule or independence for Ireland.

United States

The Fenian Brotherhood, the Irish Republican Brotherhood's US branch, was founded by John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny, both of whom had been "out" (participating in the Young Irelander's rising) in 1848. In the face of nativist suspicion, it quickly established an independent existence, although it still worked to gain Irish American support for armed rebellion in Ireland. Initially, O'Mahony ran operations in the US, sending funds to Stephens and the IRB in Ireland.

In 1865, O'Mahony's leadership was challenged and the movement was split by a faction led by William B. Roberts, a wealthy New York City dry-goods merchant, more closely allied with the Democratic-Party machine. It was Roberts’ faction that sponsored the plan to invade Canada and hold it hostage for the liberation of Ireland.[8] In 1867 there was a further challenge to O'Mahony from the new IRB exile David Bell, and his weekly the Irish Republic. In contrast to Roberts, Bell, committed to black suffrage and to Reconstruction, was allied to the Republicans and was calling a "cleansing" of the spirits of the Irish in America: "Let our people fling off the scales of bigotry and declare that all men are entitled to 'life, liberty, and happiness.'"

John Devoy records that, in the course of 1866, various conferences to reunite the various factions were held. There efforts were to elect James Stephens as president of a united organisation. Stephens had escaped the round-up the I.R.B. leadership in Dublin the previous year, but still promised that "The Irish flag — the flag of the Irish Republic — will float in an Irish breeze before New Year's Day, 1867." At the close of 1866, a conference of the refugees of the I.R.B. and many of the American officers who had been in Ireland was held in New York and presided over by Stephens, at which the decision was taken that the fight should be made early in 1867. Some thousands of rifles were afterwards sent to Ireland, but arrived too late to be of any use in the Rising