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Lecture 3: Fenianism
The altered social balance in the countryside
The development of expatriate nationalism
The modernisation of Ulster’s economy & politics
The emergence of a disciplined nationalist parliamentary party
Themes that dominated Irish life and politics 1848 –
c. mid 1870s
‘A whole variety of parties and groups emerged, some
campaigning on the issue of the land, and especially tenant right; some concerned to
promote the interests of their particular social or religious
constituency.’
Boyce, Nineteenth Century Ireland, p136.
Politics in post-Famine Ireland
1. Tenant League
2. Catholic Defence Association
3. Protestant Conservatism
Irish Tenant League
Formed in Dublin in 1850
Campaigned for a redress of agrarian grieveances
Operated on an all island basis
Formed the Indepdendent Irish Party
with the ‘Irish Brigade’
National Association
Formally instituted in Dublin in December 1864
Facilitated co-operation between Irish Catholics and English radicals
Promoted disestablishment
Fenianism – origins
Developed in the absence of a viable constitutional movement
Offered rhetoric, recreation, status and the prospect of patriotic glory
Denis Dowling Mulcahy, Thomas Clarke Luby and John O’Leary
Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (1831-1915)
The I.R.B.
Dedicated to secrecy
A conspiratorial pledge bound society
Establishment of a democratic Irish republic
Committed to insurrection
Organised Fenianism was patchy
Strongest in Munster and Leinster
1864: 54,000 recruits
Appealed mainly to artisans, shop assistants, travelling salesmen, farmers’ sons
Fenian prisoner, Hugh McGriskin, 31 May 1865
Fenianism: The social aspect
A young men’s movement – 87% of Fenians in HCSA files were under 36 years of age
Fenianism in mid 1860s was converted to a social purpose
Provided young men with a forum for fraternal association & communal self-expression
‘However strongly they may have repudiated allegiance to
the queen in their initiation oath, the Fenians we have been looking at here were from the point of view of social history easily recognisable and fairly
typical mid-Victorians.’
Comerford, R.V., ‘Patriotism as Pastime’, p250.
‘Ireland’s opportunity will come when England is engaged in a desperate struggle with some
great European power or European combination, or when the flame of insurrection has spread through
her Indian Empire, and her strength and resources are
strained.’
John Devoy, Irish American Fenian
The Fenians in 1865
Stephens – 1865 would be a year of decision, a year in which, with American assistance, he would probably lead a rising in Ireland
John O’Mahoney sent large sums of money to Ireland from America
Irish-American veterans of the Civil War were sent to Ireland to take charge of the rebel army
6,000 firearms and an estimated 50,000 men willing to participate
By 1866 the IRB was on the defensive
September 1865: Offices of the Irish People raided
February 1866: Habeas Corpus suspended in Ireland
December 1866: Stephens stands down
February 11 1867: 1,000 Fenians turn out to raid the arsenal at Chester
February 1867: Minor uprising in Co. Kerry
February 10 1867: Executive committee transforms itself into a Provisional Government of Ireland
Illustration entitled ‘The Irish Fenian Executive’
Fenian bond for twenty dollars, signed by John O’Mahony, 1866
A skirmish between troops and Fenians in Co. Tipperary, March 1867
The Battle of Tallaght, 5 March 1867
‘The aftermath of the 1867 rising had in some ways a much more fundamental political impact than the military episodes of February and March: the immediate fall-out from the ’67 certainly stimulated a much more intense and sympathetic popular interest than the botched manoeuvres of the rebels.’
Jackson, A, Ireland: 1798-1998, pp102-3.
Fenian attack on a prison van in Manchester, September 1867
The ‘Manchester Martyrs’
Tipperary election address, 1869
Cartoon published by Punch in 1867 after the Clerkenwell explosion
Proclamation offering one thousand pounds for the capture of James Stephens, January 1866
Courtroom scene, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick, 1867