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Patriotism as pastime: the appeal of fenianism in the mid-1860s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

R.V. Comerford
R.V. Comerford*
Affiliation:
St Patrick’s College, Maynooth
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Extract

There is general acceptance in recent writings that fenianism in its heyday — which is to say the middle 1860s — was espoused predominantly by members of lower-ranking social and occupational groups. It is not difficult to assemble supporting references and texts from well-placed contemporary observers. T.D.Sullivan writing privately to Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 1862 described the active but still anonymous organisation subsequently known as the ‘I.R.B.’ or the ‘feninas’ as drawing the bulk of its membership from among ‘shopkeepers’ assistants in our cities and chief towns who have a little smattering — often a very little indeed — of education’, and from ‘the very poorest and most ignorant people’ By 1865 the term ‘fenianism’ was in extensive use and the thing itself was receiving widespread attention. Writing his diary for 26 June that year, W J. O’Neill Daunt expressed the opinion that in his part of County Cork those implicated in fenian activities were ‘country lads’ and ‘town shop-boys’ At the same time, the mounting pile of constabulary reports from around the country provided more and more references to the infection of specific categories by fenianism: in one area, shopboys, artisans, servants and reduced farmers; in another, ‘young men of the labouring class and also mechanics or tradesmen such as tailors, nailors, shoemakers’; elsewhere, subordinate employees on the railway Less specifically, an alarmed detective visiting the Thurles area reported that the ‘lower orders’ thereabouts were fenians virtually to a man.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 87 , March 1981 , pp. 239 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1981

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References

1 Sullivan to D’Arcy McGee, 18 Feb. 1862 (Ottawa, Public Archives of Canada, MG27. 1.E9).

2 Journal of W J. O’Neill Daunt, 26 June 1865 (N.L.I., MS 3041).

3 Constabulary reports, 30 Aug., 1 and 6 Sept., 25 Oct. 1865 (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, nos. 208, 214, 223, 239). All S.P.O. records referred to in this article belong to the ’fenian papers’ section of the ‘police and crime’ division.

4 Cullen to Tobias Kirby, 8 Mar. 1867 ( Corish, P J., ‘Irish College, Rome: Kirby papers; guide to material of public and political interest, 1862–83’ in Arch. Hib., 30 (1972), p. 55).Google Scholar

5 O’Leary, John, Recollections of fenians and fenianism (2 vols, London, 1896), ii, 239.Google Scholar

6 T C. Luby’s recollections of the Irish People, communicated to John O’Leary, 1892 (N.L.I., MS 333) (hereafter cited as Luby, MS 333).

7 William Neilson Hancock to the chief secretary, 3 Jan. 1870 (S.P.O., ‘F’ papers, 5477R).

8 Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Act, 29 & 30 Vic, c. 1.

9 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, abstracts of cases, 1866-8 (S. P.O., police and crime records, fenian papers).

10 In S.P.O., police and crime records, fenian papers.

11 However, the genuinely fenian element in the more comprehensive list is sufficiently strong for analysis to show up the same general patterns, even if they are less decisive; see Clark, Samuel, The social origins of the Irish land war (Princeton, 1979), p. 203.Google Scholar

12 ‘Summary of the occupations of the prisoners in custody under the lord lieutenant’s warrant’, 12 Jan. 1870 (S.P.O., ‘F’ papers, 5477R). The date is that of compilation: the last of the H.C.S.A. prisoners had been released by late 1868.

13 A sample of 523 H.C.S.A. prisoners is subjected to aseries of interesting analyses in van der Wüsten, H.H., Iers verzet legen de staatkundige eenheid der Rritse eilanden, 1800–1921. een politiek-geografische Studie van integra tie- en desintegratieprocessen (Amsterdam, 1977), pp 84–99.Google Scholar In particular Dr van der Wüsten demonstrates, by reference to the occupational statistics in the 1861 census, the great under-representation of farmers and of labourers of all kinds and the over-representation of the trades, schoolteachers and publicans.

l4 Irish Freedom, Mar. 1913.

15 T C. Luby’s recollections of early fenian events, communicated to John O’Leary, 1890–92 (N.L.I., MS 331) (hereafter cited as Luby, MS 331).

l6 Irish People, 5 Dec. 1863, 23 Jan. 1864.

17 Ryan, Desmond The fenian chief: a biography of James Stephens (Dublin and Sydney, 1967), chs 7–15Google Scholar; Luby, MS 331.

18 Vaughan, W E. and Fitzpatrick, A.J. Irish historical statistics: population, 1821–1971 (Dublin, 1978), p. 261.Google Scholar

19 See Jr,Donnelly, J.S., The Irish agricultural depression of 1859–64’ in Irish Economic and Social History, 3 (1976), pp 33–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 ‘Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, abstracts of cases, 1866–8’ (S.P.O.).

21 Irish Freedom, Feb. 1912.

22 Ibid.

23 Luby, MS 331.

24 Irishman, 20 Oct. 1860.

25 Ibid.

26 Kilkenny Moderator, quoted in Irishman, 20 Oct. 1860.

27 Police report, 24 Sept. 1864 (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, no. 68).

28 Constabulary report, 3 Oct. 1864 (ibid., no. 66).

29 Ibid.

30 See Lúing, Seán Ó Ó Donnabháin Rosa I (Dublin, 1969), pp 81–2.Google Scholar

31 Irishman, 5 Jan. 1860.

32 Ó Lúing, , Ó Donnabháin Rosa I, pp 132–7Google Scholar

33 Luby, MS 333; Irishman, 28 May 1864; Devoy, John, Recollections of an Irish rebel (New York, 1929), pp 50–51 Google Scholar (where the date is wrongly given as 15 Aug.).

34 Constabulary reports (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, passim).

35 Irishman, 20 Feb., 19 Mar. 1864, 9 Sept. 1865.

36 Irishman, 26 Mar. 1864.

37 Irish People, 12 Mar 1864.

38 In the MS copy in which Nagle’s reply survives the word here is ’sentry’ but the sense suggests it is a transcriber’s error.

39 Police report, 19 Aug. 1864 (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, no. 44A).

40 Police report, 8 May 1865 (ibid., no. 157).

41 Police report, 21 Sept. 1865 (ibid., no. 203).

42 Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–70 (2nd ed., London, 1979), p. 220.Google Scholar

43 Irishman, 12 Dec. 1863.

44 Irishman, 16 Nov 1861; Breandán Mac Giolla Choille, ‘Dublin trades in procession, 1864’ in Saothar Journal of the Irish Labour History Society, i, no. 1 (May 1975), pp 18–30.

45 Police report, 19 Aug. 1864 (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, no. 44A.)

46 See Malcolm, Elizabeth ‘Temperance and Irish nationalism’ in Lyons, F S.L. and Hawkins, R.A.J. (eds), Ireland under the union: varieties of tension (Oxford, 1980), pp 75–7.Google Scholar

47 Irishman, 29 Aug., 26 Sept. 1863.

48 Statement of Robert Cusack, undated (S.P.O., Reports on secret societies, 1857–9).

49 Irish People, 17 June 1865.

50 See Lee, J.J.,‘Money and beer in Ireland, 1790–1875’ in Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd series, 19 (1966), pp 183–7Google Scholar

51 Constabulary reports, Bantry, 24 Sept. and 25 Oct. 1859 (S.P.O., Reports on secret societies, 1857–9).

52 Irish Freedom, Feb. 1912.

53 Constabulary report, 13 June 1865 (S.P.O., Fenian police reports, 1864–5, no. 179).

54 Police report, 2 Dec. 1864 (S.P.O., fenian police reports, 1864–5, no. 87).

55 Constabulary report, 4 Nov. 1966 (S.P.O., ‘F’ papers, F1423 and F3192).

56 Irishman, 11 July 1863. For a convincing evocation of a Cork fenian Sunday afternoon see Murphy, Maura, ‘The working classes of nineteenth-century Cork’ in Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., 80 (1980), p. 48.Google Scholar

57 Lord Fermoy to Lord Palmerston, 1 Sept. 1865 (Broadlands, Palmerston papers, GC/GR 2577) (used by permission of the Broadlands Trust).

58 Irishman, 2 Oct. 1858.

59 Comerford, R. V, Charles J. Kickham: a study in Irish nationalism and literature [Dublin, 1979), pp 68–9.Google Scholar

60 Irishman, 5 Feb. 1859.

61 Constabulary report, 8 Dec. 1858 (S.P.O., reports on secret societies, 1857–9); irishman, 28 Dec. 1861, 24 Jan. 1863, 25 Mar. 1865.

62 Nation, 28 Feb. 1863.

63 Bussy, F M, Irish conspiracies: recollections of John Mallon (the great Irish detective) and other reminiscences (London, 1910), p. 17 Google Scholar

64 Thornley, , Isaac Butt, p. 56.Google Scholar

65 J. MacCarthy to J.P Leonard, 25 Aug. 1862 (N.L.I., Leonard papers, MS 10,505).

66 Irishman, 20 Nov. 1858.

67 Irishman, 8, 15 Jan. 1859.