p. 82The Fenians

Agitation for separating Ireland from England has been kept up for over one hundred years by the people of Ireland, not only at home on the island itself, but wherever Irish emigrants made their home on the face of the earth. The different societies mentioned before being defective and not successful, new organizations arose to take their place.

In 1857 the “Phœnix Society” in Ireland was reorganized in the United States under the name of “Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood,” “Nationalists” or “Fenian Brotherhood.” The name may have been taken in honor of Fingal, also named Finn or Fionn of Ossian, a commander of an Irish home guard or militia which existed in the Third Century. Although the chief officers of the Order in the United States were known, the society was from the very start, a secret one. It spread rapidly over every state in the American Union and the British possessions. In 1863 a great convention of delegates of the order met in Chicago and avowed the object of the Brotherhood, namely the separation of Ireland, from England, and the establishment of an Irish Republic. The delegates represented fifteen thousand enrolled Fenians, one-half of whom were in the Union army. The assembly proclaimed the Fenian Brotherhood to be strictly in accordance with the laws of the United States, ignored partisan politics and differences of religion, and declared the Irish people to be a distinct nationality with James Stephens as president: to whom with central officers elected by an annual congress, state officers elected by state organizations, and centers elected by circles, the directions of affairs should be entrusted. The second Fenian Congress met in Cincinnati in 1865 and about 250,000 members were represented, each of which members was called upon for a contribution of five dollars, and it is said that this call was responded to. About the same time a Fenian Sisterhood was established, and the ladies were not inactive, for in two months from their associating they returned upward of a million dollars to the Fenian exchequer for the purpose of purchasing arms and other war material. The surrender of the confederate armies and the disbandment of the Union forces left free those Irish officers and soldiers on whom were mainly centered the expectation of the revolutionists. Many of the officers went to Great Britain and soon spread their principles among the British troops. The “Fenian conspiracy” spread rapidly over England, Ireland and the British possessions.

On the eighth of September, 1865, a proclamation from Stephens was circulated stating that the time for action had come. “I speak with a knowledge and authority to which no other man could pretend,” he says, and concluding: “The flag of Ireland, of the Irish Republic must this year be raised.”

In the United States an army of Fenians was organized and marched into Canada, but was defeated by the British troops. For several years efforts were made to compel England to concessions for the independence of Ireland, but without success. The society had its oaths, pass-words, emblems, its laws and penalties, its concealed stores of arms, its nightly drills, its correspondencies and agents, its journals, and even its popular songs and ballads, and plenty of money in the hands of its leaders who drew large salaries.

The Irish Bishops repeatedly warned their people against joining the Fenians and many of them publicly denounced the society as a secret one whose principles were forbidden by Catholic morals.

On January 12, 1870, the Roman authorities issued a decree forbidding all Catholics to become members of the Fenian Brotherhood.

The “Molly Maguires” were a secret society which, both in Ireland and the United States, was accused of many outrages during the years from 1863 to 1875. Clan-na-Gael is the name of the latest Irish society which according to the Le Caron in his “Twenty-five years in the Secret Service,” was organized with a “Masonic form of ritual, grips, signs, pass-words, and terrorizing penalties.” The Clan announces itself to be: “The vanguard and embodiment of Irish nationality, the motive power which animates and regulates the Irish struggle, and has nobly kept the national flag and national principles to the front in dark and evil days.” Though the membership is not very large, the Order is manipulating its forces in various ways to further its objects.