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6 “No Event of Any Importance” The cadre of expatriates who deposed Fenian leader James Stephens in December 1866 attempted to bolster the Irish nationalist movement over the course of the following year by organizing three ultimately unsuccessful military initiatives. A mid-February attempt to steal firearms from a Lancashire arsenal preceded an ineffectual March revolt in Ireland and a transatlantic filibustering operation launched from New York City in early April. Expeditious British suppression of these and some smaller scale militant activities further suppressed Irish militant expression throughout the North Atlantic world. Thousands of male and female Fenian supporters of similar socioeconomic standing were subsequently drawn into more licit nationalist movements. By the latter half of 1867, would-be Fenian soldiers and Sisterhood auxiliaries were likely to be demonstrating for the acquittal of comrades who had been indicted for treason or for the release of convicted nationalists who had been incarcerated. The newest leaders of the militant Irish nationalist movement lacked the resources to mobilize thousands of poorly prepared IRB activists for battle before the spring of 1867.The sale of Killian’s Campobello supply ship, Ocean Spray, provided Kelly, Cluseret, and other members of a newly formed IRB provisional government with fourteen thousand dollars to travel to London and begin activating Fenian units. Stephens, however, had only stockpiled an estimated four thousand firearms over the previous two years and several salaried Fenian officers had been consistently underpaid.1 Although O’Mahony and others had enjoyed the amenities of the Moffat Mansion, Kelly and his colleagues were forced to live in a modest Bedford Square boarding house. The headquarters of the self-declared Irish republic thus doubled as a residence for everyday Englishmen. “No Event of Any Importance” 156 Kelly’s coterie was unable to sustain IRB manpower as desertions mounted and public criticism of the organization increased. Many Irish American officers had gradually returned to the United States after Stephens refused to initiate a rebellion upon his escape from prison two years earlier.2 An equally skeptical John Mitchel had similarly refused an offer to become president of a reunified Brotherhood at roughly the same time that a scathing anti-Irish nationalist letter appeared in the Philadelphia Catholic Herald. In addition to arguing that the Fenian agenda was futile, the author of the missive rhetorically suggested that benevolent domestic community service had become more important than underwriting the IRB: “When you cannot effectively assist those in Ireland, why not extend the hand and lift up from misery, degradation, and ruin those in America?”3 As in the past, members of reputable Roman Catholic Church-affiliated, expatriate benevolent organizations were some of the strongest critics of Fenian enterprises. IRB efforts to reverse declining support for the Irish republican movement were also stymied by British radicals. Several former leaders of the protoprogressive Chartist movement curtly rebuffed a Gustave Cluseret–led delegation during a meeting in London at the beginning of February, even though the French mercenary had presented a letter of introduction from Mazzini.4 Charles Bradlaugh, the London-born founder of the National Secular Society, hindered, rather than assisted, the IRB shortly thereafter when he revised a proclamation that the Fenian hierarchy intended to distribute as it mobilized its forces at the beginning of March. Although Fenian political objectives remained rather nebulous, IRB militants were falsely presented to the public in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as nondenominational nationalist champions of a disenfranchised working class. In addition to excluding any reference to past instances of state-sponsored anti-Catholic oppression, the final version of the document demanded universal suffrage from “the aristocratic locusts whether English or Irish who eat the verdure of our fields.”5 As Stephens had learned when he courted Chartist veterans in 1865, Poles, Italians, and other people opposed to the imperial rivals of the British Empire were the only nationalist insurgents who received sympathy from the English general public. At a time when radical leaders did not want to jeopardize passage of the pending Second Reform Bill, which would enfranchise the male working class in England and Wales, Fenian operatives were denied external support. Provisional government inability to quickly rectify IRB shortcomings fostered dissension and confusion within the global Fenian movement. Denied formal endorsement from Mazzini, Garibaldi, and aforementioned British radicals, the once-impatient Kelly recognized that his underprepared men were not ready to rebel on Monday, February 11, as he had originally planned. In an apparent [18.118.12.222] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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