The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882

3. The Fenian Era, 1867–70

3. The Fenian Era, 1867-70 The Fenians By MOST ACCOUNTS THE LATE 1860s constituted a particularly eventful period inAnglo-Irish relations, with an unsuccessful armed rising in Ireland, terroristic violence in British cities, raids on Canada by Irish Americans, the disestablishment of the Irish church, and the first ofWilliam Gladstone's Irish land acts. These same years also witnessed the "Murphy riots," a short but sharp economic depression, and the disturbances leading up to the passage of the reform bill in 1867. At the center ofthe violent outbreaks in this period stood the Fenians, an Irish nationalist organization dedicated to establishing an independent republic through armed force.1 The Fenian movement was technically composed of two wings. The first was a secret, oath-bound society founded in Dublin on Saint Patrick's Day in 1858 under the leadership ofJames Stephens: the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).2 The second was the Fenian Brotherhood, which lent the entire movement its name, founded in 1859 byJohn O'Mahony, who like Stephens was a veteran of the 1848 rebellion. A Gaelic scholar, O'Mahony named the organization after the elite legion, the Fianna, ofthe legendary Gaelic hero Finn MacCumhail . The Fenian Brotherhood was mainly based in America and operated openly as a support organization, providing money, arms, and eventuallyIrishAmericanveterans oftheAmerican CivilWar. While Ireland , Britain, and Canada were the fields of action for Fenian soldiers and operatives, it was America that provided the essential resources, especiallymilitaryleadership. In fact, after a split earlyin 1866, Stephens was effectively deposed in December of that year and control passed into the hands of Colonel Thomas]. Kelly, an Irish American who had fought with the Tenth Ohio RegimenU 144 The Fenian Era, 1867-70 The Fenians had already come to the attention ofthe British authorities well before this, however. Between late 1863 and September 1865, when the government suppressed it, Stephens's newspaper the Irish People was very effective in stimulating interest and gathering recruits for the movement. By1865, which Stephens prematurely declared the "Year of Liberty;" the Fenians were probably at their strongest in terms of numbers and morale, though not, apparently; in arms and militaryleadership .4 In the fall of 1865, assisted by a number of informants (a perennial curse ofthe movement), the government struck, shutting down the newspaper and arresting a number of leaders. By 1866 Fenianism was on the defensive, especially after the mass arrests following the suspension of habeas corpus in the spring. By then the movement in America had already split, with many members disillusioned by Stephens's failure to deliver the promised rising in 1865. The American Fenians split into two wings, one faithful to O'Mahonyand Stephens until the latter's ouster in December 1866, the other led by Colonel William Roberts. The larger wing under Roberts believed that the first stage in winning Irish independence was a strike at Britishruled Canada and launched the first of several spectacularly unsuccessful raids in the summer of 1866. By the end ofthat year Irish American veterans had secured effective control of both wings of the movement. In January 1867 Colonel Kelly and a number of other officers arrived in London and met with IRB organizers from Ireland, who informed them of their plans to stage a rising on 11 February with or without American support. Faced with a fait accompli, Kelly and the others asserted their authority as the "provisional government" of the Irish republic and oversaw the events ofthe next few months. On 11 February over one thousand Irishmen arrived by various means in Chesterwith the intent ofstorming the castle and its armorycommandeering a train to Holyhead in Wales and securing a ferry to take the seized arms to Ireland where a rising would Signal the birth of the Irish republic. Warned ahead of time by numerous informers, the government had strengthened the guard at the castle and sent a detachment of soldiers from London. It was too late to stop the men from assembling in Chester, but Fenian leaders did manage to call off the assault. Nevertheless, scores were later arrested and the police recovered numerous revolvers and large quantities of ammunition around the railway station and in ponds and canals outside the town.5 Word of the cancellation did not reach the conspirators in County Kerry; but the hundred who had assembled there qUickly melted away. 145 The Fenian Era, 1867-70 The aborted rising was rescheduled for...