Ireland , Dublin
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 the British, 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.
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 Ireland rebellion) 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. 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. Their efforts were to elect
James Stephens as president of a united organisation. Stephens had escaped the round-up of the IRB 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 IRB 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. File:Fenian Bond.jpg|Ten-dollar Fenian
Bond issued in 1866. It would have been redeemable from the Treasury of the Irish Republic at 6%
interest, six months after the establishment of an independent state. The Fenians' failure made it worthless. File:Manchester Martyrs.jpg| Three
Manchester Martyrs of 1867; at right is Michael O'Brien a former Corporal of Battery E 1st New Jersey Artillery regiment File:Fenians escape Fremantle.jpg|Fenian convicts escape from Fremantle in the 1876
Catalpa rescue.
Canada was the largest engagement of the
Fenian Raids. In Canada,
Fenian is used to designate a group of Irish radicals, a.k.a. the American branch of the Fenian Brotherhood in the 1860s. They made several attempts to invade some parts of the British colonies of
New Brunswick (i.e.,
Campobello Island) and
Canada (present-day
Southern Ontario and
Missisquoi County), with the raids continuing after these colonies had been
confederated. The ultimate goal of the Fenian raids was to hold Canada hostage and therefore be in a position to blackmail the United Kingdom to give Ireland its independence. Because of the invasion attempts, support or collaboration for the Fenians in Canada became very rare even among the
Irish. Francis Bernard McNamee, the man who started the Fenian movement in Montreal (and who was later suspected of being a government spy), was a case in point. In public, he proclaimed his loyalty to the queen and called for an Irish militia company to defend Canada against the Fenians. In private, he wrote that the real purpose of an Irish militia company would be to assist the Fenian invasion, adding for good measure that if the government denied his request he would raise the cry of anti-Irish Catholic discrimination and bring more of his aggrieved countrymen into the Fenian Brotherhood. A suspected Fenian,
Patrick J. Whelan, was hanged in
Ottawa for the assassination of
Irish Canadian politician
Thomas D'Arcy McGee in 1868, who had been a member of the
Irish Confederation in the 1840s. The danger posed by the Fenian raids was an important element in motivating the British North America colonies to consider a more centralised defence for mutual protection, ultimately realised through
Canadian Confederation.
England The Fenians in England and the British Empire were a major threat to political stability. In the late 1860s, the IRB control centre 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'Brien, 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 an 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. The IRB Supreme Council condemned the bombing. The Fenians also exploded three bombs on the
London Underground in 1883–1885 and were also believed to be responsible for a bomb on 26 April 1897 at
Aldersgate Street station which fatally injured two people.
Australia In 1868, an Irishman,
Henry James O'Farrell, attempted to assassinate the
Duke of Edinburgh, second son of
Queen Victoria, who was visiting Sydney. O'Farrell claimed to be a Fenian but was probably a lone actor. He was hanged on 21 April 1868. The Duke recovered but the attack was used by politician
Henry Parkes to wage a sectarian campaign against Catholics and people of Irish origin. Later in 1868, the
Hougoumont, the last convict ship to Australia, arrived in Western Australia carrying 62 Fenian prisoners convicted in England. Over the next decade, most were released and many chose to go to America. By 1876 only six remained in custody, and in that year they were freed in a daring rescue mission organised by the IRB in the United States. The ship
Catalpa was sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Fremantle, Western Australia, a distance of some 12,000 miles, and took the men back to the United States. The
rescue caused a worldwide sensation and sparked several ballads. ==Early 20th Century==