FENIAN

FENIAN

HEROES

AND

MARTYRS

 

EDITED, WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION ON

 

"THE STRUGGLE FOR IRISH NATIONAL UNITY"

 

BY

JOHN SAVAGE

 

AUTHOR OF " ’98 And ’48, The Modern Revolutionary History and

Literature of Ireland, " Etc., Etc.

 

BOSTON:

PATRICK DONAHOE, FRANKLIN STREET.

1868

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868,
By PATRICK DONAHOE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

O'SULLIVAN. McBRIDE & MAREAT,
STEREOTYPERS,
8 SPRUCE STREET, N. Y.

 

PREFACE.

In offering this volume to the public, a few words of explanation are deemed necessary, not so much for its appearance, as for the arrangement of its contents.

As to its appearance, the state of Irish affairs calls for some record, and as, owing to peculiar circumstances, the nearest approach to a perfect chronicle which can now be offered, is an account of those who brought about the crisis and are gallantly struggling through it, the present form was adopted.

The arrangement is not entirely what might be desired by a strict chronologist; but as the data had to be obtained from widely scattered references and correspondents-the friends or families of those commemorated-and as the pages went to the press when written, it was found impossible to follow perfect chronological order. As a general rule, the characters are grouped as they acted together, and thus help to illustrate each others lives; and a slight hint will enable the reader to follow the history of the Irish struggle in a direct course, and to fill up, so to speak, the outline given in the Historical Introduction.

Thus (1) in addition to what is said there of the effort in '48, the sketches of Doheny, Meany, O'Mahony, and Stephens, further illustrate the doings of that period. (2) Mr. Luby's notice of Philip Gray gives the efforts which imme-

 

4

PREFACE.

 

diately followed the scattering of "Young Ireland." (3) The sketch of J. O'Donovan (Rossa) presents the rise of the "Phoenix Society;" while the progress of the Fenian Brotherhood, and the more recent events -- risings, arrests, escapes and trials-connected with it, are narrated with intelligible fullness in the notices of the respective heroes and martyrs of the most historical transactions.

No effort has been spared to secure and present the most authentic data. The files of the Dublin Irishman, Nation, and Cork Herald, and those of the New York Irish People, Irish-American, and Boston Pilot, have been found useful, especially when their reports and statements were corroborated by competent witnesses, or indorsed by actors in the scenes related. A quantity of interesting personal and political history has been placed at the disposal of the writer by associates and relatives of many of the heroes and martyrs, of which free use has been made to give value to these pages. Among those to whom special thanks are due, are General John O'Neill, for official documents ; Colonel O'Connor, Captains O'Rorke, Condon, and Conyngham, and Messrs. T. B. Henessey, (of Boston,) Walter M. J. O'Dwyer, M. J. Heffernan, Wm. J. McClure, M. Moynahan, D. O.'Sullivan, and M. Cavanagh, of New York.

J. S.

 

________________________________________

 

CONTENTS.

 

CHAPTER I.

 

IRISH PRINCIPLES AND ENGLISH INTEREST.

 

The Stuart Policy to Create an English Interest in Ireland--Complications Growing out of Confiscations–Alliance of the Irish with the Stuarts-All English Parties Against the Irish–The Penal Laws–Protestant Patriots–Swift, Molyneux and Lucas–Theobald Wolfe Tone puts Irish Politics on the Proper Basis–Revolution of '82 a Failure–Protestants, Dissenters, Catholics–United Irishmen-War of '98 –Patriotic Priest-Generals –The "Union," Dr. Johnson and Byron on–The Irish Exiles in France –Buonaparte and Talleyrand –Emmet's Rebellion–Davis on Catholic Emancipation and Repeal– O'Connell and Grattan–Young Ireland—Davis–Irish Confederation–The Famine and Coercion–Mitchel and the Rising of '48 ………………..11

CHAPTER II.

 

IRISH PRINCIPLES AND ENGLISH INTEREST–continued

 

Did Young Ireland Achieve a Victory–The released Prisoners and the Exiles at work–Continuous efforts to keep up a National Organization–The Fenian Brotherhood–Its Beginning and Extension–First Congress at Chicago –Declarations and Purposes –Not a Secret Society–The Poles and the Pope–O'Mahony elected Head Centre under the New Constitution–Second Congress at Cincinnati–Growth of the Brotherhood–Report of the Envoy to Ireland–Council Enlarged– State of Affairs in Ireland–The I. R. B.–James Stephens and his Connection with the Organization–Extensive Disaffections–Seizure of the Risk People and its Editors–Arrests all over the Country–Third Fenian Congress in Philadelphia–Mr. Meehan's Report–Constitution of the F. B. changed-Differences between the "President" and the "Senate" result in an " Irish Party" and a " Canadian Party"–Fourth Congress restores the Old Constitution, endorsed by Military Convention–Excitement in Ireland increases–Arrest and Escape of Stephens–Lord Wodehouse on the Conspiracy–The Country not safe unless the Habeas Corpus is suspended–Debate on that Measure –John Bright, Stuart Mill–The Irish Members –John B. Dillon–The O'Donoghue–Passage of the Bill ………………………………51

 

CHAPTER III.

 

THE INSURRECTION IN IRELAND—AMERICAN SYMPATHY.

 

Effect of the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus–The News in America–Arrrival of Stephens in New York—O'Mahony retires—Invasion of

6

Canada -- The Canadian Party Disrupt Stephens' Plans -- His Mission a Failure -- Rising in Kerry -- Searching vessels for Fenians -- General Insurrectionary Movements in Ireland -- Proclamation of Provisional Government -- Riots Among the Soldiers -- Massey betrays the Movement -- Irish Party in America-Fifth Congress in New York -- Great Meeting In Union Square -- Letter from Mayor Hoffman-Negotiations for Union -- The Cause in U. S. Congress -- Resolutions of Sympathy reported by Gen. Banks -- Speeches and Vote on it --The Queen declares Ireland Tranquil and the People Loyal -- Contradicted by Mr. Monsell and Mr. Bright -- Remarkable Speech of Mr. Monsell-Bright declares that Ireland should not be Tranquil-:Sixth National Congress held in New York-Savage elected Chief Executive—Remarks………………………………80

THE ANCIENT FENIANS.

The Fenians -- Who Were They -- Their Duties, Manners, and Customs - The Ossianic Society ………………………………..……………………109

 [NOTE: Names in Blue are transcribed to this website]

COLONEL THOMAS FRANCIS BOURKE,  
 

Emmet and Bourke -- Movements of Bourke's Family in America and Canada -- At Business -- A Family Picture -- Joins the Fenian Brotherhood after the War -- At the Third Congress—Success as Organizer for Manhattan District - Resigns Why he Went to Ireland -- Assigned to the Tipperary District -- The Rising -- Captured at Ballyhurst Fort -- Indicted for high Treason -- Trial -- Evidence of the Informers Massey and Corydon -- Great Speech in the Dock --Touching Letters to his Mother -Description in his Cell...121

COLONEL THOMAS J. KELLY,

Birth and Youth-A Printer-Famous Printers-Starts the Nashville Democrat -Flies from Tennessee for his Union Faith -- Joins the Army in Cincinnati -- Wounded -- Promoted -- Signal Officer on General Thomas' Staff -- Health Broken -- Enters the Fenian Cause -- First Military Envoy to Ireland -- On tour of Inspection -- Supervises Stephens' Escape -- Labors in America -- Difference with Stephens -- Returns for the Fight in Ireland -- Letter on the Aims of the "Provisional Government."………………………………..163

CAPTAIN JOHN M'CAFFERTY.

Arrested-Tried -- Half-Alien Jury because he is an American -- Acquitted -- Envoy from Ireland to America -- Address at the Great Jones’ Wood Meeting in New York -- Goes Back -- The Affair at Chester -- Second Arrest -- In the Dock -- Corydon’s Evidence -- Found Guilty -- Speech in the Dock -- In his Cell………………………………….177

COLONEL. JOHN J. O'CONNOR.

Born on Valentia Island -- Emigrates to America -- Runs off and Joins the Union Army -- Long Service -- Promotion -- Gallant Action at Spottsylvania -- Wounded at Cold Harbor -- First Lieutenant -- Captain – Seriously wounded Again at Petersburg -- In Command of his Regiment -- Mustered Out -- Goes to Ireland-Organizes Kerry -- The Rising -- Statement in the House of Lords -- Reporter Arrested for Telegraphing Military Disaffections -- O'Connor sent to America -- His Address to the Public-Organizing Tour…………………………194

CAPTAIN MORTIMER MORIARTY.

First Fenian Organizer In Canada -- Arrested Going to Campo Bello -- Escapes -- Goes to Ireland -- In Kerry -- Arrested on his Way to Take Command -- Cause of his Arrest --What Followed – Trial -- Evidence of the Spy Talbot -- Found Guilty – Sentence…..209

 

JOSEPH NOONAN.

"Out with O'Connor" -- Arrested in London -- Marvelous Escape from his Captors -- Re-Arrested at Atherstane -- Brought to Dublin -- Riot in Killarney -- Trial --Sentence ………………………………………218

 

CAPTAIN MICHAEL O'RORKE.

"O' Rorke alias Beecher" -- Birth -- Family Emigrate to New York -- Memories of the Boy Make him a Rebel -- Joins the Phoenix Brigade -- Enters the United States Service -- Irish Legion -- Sad Scene at the Battle of Spottsylvania -- His Father Killed -- Taken Prisoner -- Mustered Out -- Goes to Ireland -- His Duties in England and Ireland --Narrow Escape from Corydon -- Sent to New York…………………………………..223

 

STEPHEN JOSEPH MEANY.

Birth-Early Writings for the Press -- Publishes a Volume of Poems at Sixteen -- O'Connell's Reporter -- Establishes the Irish National Magazine - In the Clubs -- On the Irish Tribune -- Brenan and Meany Test the Right of the Police to Sell the National Journals -- Arrested Under the Suspension of Habeas Corpus, 1848 -- Released -- Journalism -- Emigrates to the United States -- Editor of the Toledo (Ohio) Commercial -- Centre -- At the Third Congress -- A Senator -- Address to the Parent Trunk of Fenianism --Resolutions at Jones' Wood -- Goes to England -- Arrested -- Tried for Treason-Felony -- Fine Speech in the Dock-Exposes Overtures Made to Him to Betray the Fenians -- Sentenced ……………………………………………………………231

CAPTAIN P. J. CONDON.

Youth and School Days-Emigrates to America-Enters the Army-In the Irish Brigade-Goes to Ireland-Arrested-Correspondence with U. S. Consul-Liberated -- Goes a Second Time to Ireland -- Arrested Again -- Tried -- Acquitted ……………………………………254

 

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY, JOHN EDWARD KELLY, CAPTAIN JOHN McCLURE.

Three Fenians give Battle to the Waterford Column and Police -- Sketch of Peter O'Neill Crowley -- Martyrdom of his Uncle, Father O'Neill -- The Martyr's Heir -- His High Character -- Sketch of John Edward Kelly --Goes to School in Halifax -- Emigrates to Boston-Becomes a Painter - Joins the Fenians in New York -- Passion for Military Knowledge -- lnstructs the Emmet Guards in Boston -- Goes to Ireland -- Military Instructor in Cork -- Views on Irish Revolution -- Duties as Agent of the I. R. B. -- Plans at the Time of the Rising -- Sketch of John McClure -- Native of New York -- Joins the 11th N. Y. V. Cavalry -- Service - -Mustered Out -- Goes to Ireland -- Attacks Knockadoon Station -- Crowley, Kelly and McClure In the Mountains -- Fight in Kilcloony Woods -- Capture of McClure and Kelly -- Death of Crowley -- His Funeral -- Popular Sympathy -- McClure and Kelly in the Dock-Manly Speeches-Sentence………………………………………………………….261

 

MICHAEL DOHENY, GENERAL MICHAEL CORCORAN, JOHN O'MAHONY, JAMES STEPHENS.

 

Sketch of Michael Doheny -- Youth at the Plough -- Desire for Knowledge - Studies Greek and Latin -- Life in London -- Writes for the Press -- Admitted to the Bar -- National Orator In the O'Connell Movements -- Joins Young Ireland Party, and Writes for the Nation and Tribune - Escapes to France and Comes to America -- Life In New York-Hopes for Ireland -- Death Sketch of General Corcoran -- Son of a Half-Pay Officer -In the Constabulary -- Emigrates to America-Joins the 60th N. Y. S. M. -- Orderly Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain -- Complimented by the Inspector -- General -- Elected Colonel -- Refuses to Parade the 60th in Honor of the Prince of Wales -- Court-Martialed -- Breaking Out of the Rebellion --Advises the 60th to go to the War -- Court-Martial Quashed, and Popular Applause -- Services of the 69th -- Corcoran Captured at Bull Run -- In Prison -- held as Hostage for a Privateer -- Cabinet Council on Exchange of Prisoners -- Liberated -- Great Ovation -- In the Field Again with the Irish Legion -- Defeats Pryor and Baffles Longetreet -- Defence of Washington -- Death Sketch of John O'Mahony -- Position lit '48 -- What Influenced his Political Career -- Hlereditary Disputes Between the O'Mahonys and the Earls of Kingston -- Death O' O'Mahony's Father -- Leaving the Family Residence at Kilkenny -- First Ideas on The Land Question -- Shelters the Young Ireland Outlaws -- Joined by Savage -- The "Reaping of Moulough-- Risings in September -- Projects the Release of 0 Brien -- Perilous Escape -- To Wales -- To France. Sketch of James Stephens - Civil Engineer -- In Kilkenny in '48 -- Takes Charge of O'Donohue en route to Smith O'Bricn -- Remains with the Latter -- At Killenaule and Ballingarry -- On the Hills -- Escapes to France. O'Mahony and Stephens in Paris -- Join a Revolutionary Society -- O'Mahony a Gaelic Tutor -- Stephens the French Translator of Dickens -- O'Mahony Goes to America - Stephens to Ireland -- Arrested -- Repudiates British law -- Before the Magistrates -- Escape from Prison -- ln America -- Retirement -- O'Mahony Declines his Present Position………………....286

THOMAS CLARKE LUBY.

Joins Young Ireland In '48, and Gives up his Worldly Prospects -- In a Now Movement in '49-Arrested-Patriotism vs. Family Patronage – National Journalism-Travels with Stephens -- Appearances In Public - Visits America -- The Irish People Seized -- Arrested -- The Special Commission, the first Since the Trial of Emmet, In Dublin -- Speech in the Dock -- Repudiates Assassination -- Sentence -- Interesting Sketch of Philip Gray by Mr. Luby….…………....317

 

PHILIP GRAY.

Remains In the South after '48 -- With O'Mahony and Savage -- Hardships -Organizing the People -- Goes to Paris -- The Conspiracy of '49 a Failure - Illness -- Death ….328

 

JOHN O'LEARY.

The Inspiration of Tipperary-Home Influences -- O'Leary a Man of Means -- At college -- Goes to France -- To America -- Returns to London and Ireland -- Enthusiasm in the Irish Cause --Spreading the Fenian Organization --The Irish People -- The Sagacity with which it was Conducted --Arrested -- In Court-The Trial-Speech in the Dock-Sentence 335

 

JEREMIAH O'DONOVAN (ROSSA).

Birth and Early Struggles -- Goes to Skibbereen-National Views of Rossa and M Moynahan -- Starts the Phoenix Society -- Its Character and Progress -- Scares the Peace-Mongers -- Revival Throughout Cork and Kerry -- Members of the Society Arrested -- Mr. O'Sullivan (Agreem) Convicted -- Cork Prisoners offered Liberty, but Refuse Unless Agreem is Liberated also -- Rossa Prevents Illumination for the Prince of Wales -- Parades for the Poles -- Comes to New York-Returns-A Manager of the Irish People -- Arrested -- Trial -- Defends Himself -- Defiance of the Court -- Special Vengeance on Him -- Harsh Sentence -- Cruel Treatment In Prison -- Notices of Captain William O'Shea, Mortimer Moynahan, Colonel P. J. Downing and Colonel D. J. Downing....………………………………………………………………….344

 

CHARLES JOSEPH KICKHAM.

His Family-Sad Accident when a Boy-A Student-Ills Love of Rural Sports-In the Cabins of the Poor-Forms a Club In '48-Literature -Espouses Keogh's and Sadlier's Tenant -- Might Party -- Treachery of the Leaders -- Literature Again -- Becomes a Fenian -- Arrest -- Trial -- Defends Himself -- Speech lit the Dock-Sentence-Cruel Treatment in Prison.…………………………………………………………………………..359

DENIS DOWLING MULCAHY.

Son of a Patriotic Farmer -- Fenian Propagandist -- Studies Medicine – his Fine appearance -- Arrested -- Trial -- Speech in the Dock -- Colloquy with the Judge-Guilty-Sentence-Sufferings in Prison-Writ of Error…………………………………….308

JOHN FLOOD, EDWARD DUFFY, MICHAEL CODY.

Flood Arrested with McCafferty -- Aids to Release Stephens -- Position in the Organization. Duffy Arrested with Stephens -- Sick in Prison -- Liberated-Re-Arrested and Identified-Trials-Flood, Duffy and Cody found Guilty-Their Speeches in the Dock-Sentences………………………………………..374

GENERAL JOHN O'NEILL.

Birth-Local Inspiration at Clontibret -- Emigrates to U. S. -- At Business --Military Leanings -- Goes to the Mormon War -- The Rebellion -- Services In Promotions -- Military Instructor -- Lieutenant of the 5th Indiana Cavalry -- His Dash -- Whips Morgan's Men at Buffington Bar -- Sick -- Fighting Again -- Resigns -- Romantic Marriage -- A Fenian -- The Representative Man of the Canadian Party -- The invasion of Canada -- He Commands the Expedition -- Battle of Ridgeway -- Conflict at Fort Erie -- Not Supported -- Arrested by U. S. Authorities while Re-crossing.………......383

DECLARATIONS IN THE DOCK.

Moore, the Pikemaker -- John Haltigan -- Bryan Dillon -- John Lynch -- Jeremiah O'Donovan -- Thomas Duggan -- Charles Underwood O'Connell -- J. B. S. Casey ("The Galtee Boy") -- Michael O'Regan -- John Kinnealy - James O'Connor -- C. M. O'Keeffe -- Cornelius O'Mahony -- C. Dwyer Keane -- Martin Hanly Carey -- Daniel O'Connell -- William Francis Roantree -- Patrick John Heyburne -- James Flood -- Hugh Francis Brophy - Patrick Doran -- M. A. O'Brennan....…………………………………......393

SWORD AND PEN.

Captain J. A. Geary -- In the war -- Starts a Circle In Lexington -- Goes to Ireland -- His Wit Saves Him from Arrest in Dublin -- Shoots a Head Constable who Attempts to Arrest him in Limerick -- Sheltered by the Priests -- Arrives in New York -- At Ridgeway. Captain Jas. Murphy - In the War -- Goes to Ireland -- Arrested -- Released --Re-Arrested -- False Imprisonment -- Comes Back to America. Arrested. John K. Casey ("Leo") -- Arrested -- Opinions on his Poetry John Locke ("The Southern Gael") -- His Talents and Nationality -- Arrested -The "Council of Ten" Arrested -- Names of the Members. Arthur Forrester. Gen. Fariola - List of School-Masters Active Fenians..…………………………………………………………………………….....421

DARING ESCAPES.

John Kirwan -- In Papal Brigade -- An Active Fenian Centre -- Wounded at Tallaght -- Arrested -- Placed in the Meath Hospital -- His Escape from It. Colonel -Leonard Takes Part in the Drogheda Rising-Mysterious Appearance in a House, and Escape from it-Arrest of Colonel T. J. Kelly and Captain Dacey in Manchester -- Remanded -- Crowds In Court -- Driven off in the Prison Van Handcuffed and Guarded by Police - The Police and Mob Defeated -- The Van Broken Open and the Prisoners Released. Wild Excitement. Captain Dacey. Captain Lawrence O'Brien -- Goes to Ireland -- Arrested -- Committed for Trial -- Bold and Mysterious Escape from Clonmel Jail.....433

CRUISE OF THE "ERIN'S HOPE.... 448

WILLIAM J. NAGLE AND JOHN WARREN.
Arrested-Position as American Citizens-What is Citizenship…………………. 450

 

[11]

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRISH NATIONALITY.

_____________________________

 

Chapter I.

IRISH PRINCIPLES AND ENGLISH INTEREST.

The Stuart Policy to Create an English Interest in Ireland -- Complications growing out of Conliscations -- Alliance of the Irish with the Stuarts -- All English Parties against the Irish --The Penal Laws -- Protestant Patriots -- Swift, Molyneux and Lucas -- Theobald Wolfe Tone puts Irish Politics on the Proper Basis -- Revolution of '82 a Failure -- Protestants, Dissenters, Catholics -- United Irishmen-War of '98 -- Patriotic Priest --Generals --The "Union," Dr. Johnson and Byron on -- The Irish Exiles in France -- Buonaparte and Talleyrand -- Emmet's Rebellion -- Davis on Catholic Emancipation and Repeal - O'Connell and Grattan -- Young Ireland -- Davis -- Irish Confederation 0- The Famine and Coercion -- Mitchell and the Rising of '48.

 

 

"EIGHTY-Two" and "Ninety-Eight" stand out prominently in Irish history. The last quarter of the eighteenth century is a monumental era -- recording the achievement of the legislative independence, the horrors of the civil war, and the extinction of the Irish Parliament. Few, save students of history, look beyond these great events; but, through the two centuries previous, there was enacted a wild and ferocious, a romantic and remorseless history in the de-

12 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

voted island. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are deeply, horribly saturated in Irish blood. But the conflicts cannot reasonably be accounted national, although they were at times characterized by patriotic motives and elements. They were the natural results of the extermination of the native Irish, and the planting of their inheritances by the adherents of James the First and his successors -- those Stuarts, whose primal idea was to create and sustain "an English interest in Ireland." This was the touchstone of the Stuart policy, which was to be furthered and fostered, at all hazards, by every intrigue, and the sacrifice of every vow and tie, religious, legal and political.

The wars which grew out of these land questions, together with the risings and revolts of a more avowed patriotic character, became as frequent, as complicated, as inveterate, as treacherous and bloody as a number of rival parties, all hating each other, and each ready to join the English to weaken the others, could make them. Thus the English Protestants and English Catholics in Ireland alternately feared and hated the English ascendancy, according as it was manifested by a Cromwell or a William of Orange in opposition to the Catholics, or by a Charles the Second or a James the Second in supposed opposition to the Protestants, but who were actually intriguing to

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 13

conciliate them. While the English Protestants and Catholics were thus afraid and watchful of each other on religious grounds, as the Government patronized or persecuted them respectively, they had, at the same time, an identity of interest in hating, watching, and uniting against the natives.

On the other hand, the memory and result of confiscations and pillage had overcome, if they had not totally swept away, all the tolerant amenities which a common religion might be supposed to protect. - The Irish Catholic hated the English Catholic as much as the English Protestant feared both. The old Irish were jealous of, and would not coalesce with, the Irish of English descent ; while distrust on every side created and excused unnatural apathy, where it did not inspire ignoble treachery. But for these feuds and follies Cromwell could -not have struck terror throughout the island, sacrificing not only the Irish, but the Catholics of English extraction, who were not less antagonistic to the older natives than himself.

As Cromwell beat the Stuarts in the field, so did he outshine them in the magnitude of his confiscations. He signalized it by blood and tears in the four provinces. He extended the Plantation of Ulster, divided Leinster and Munster among his soldiers and money-lenders, and sent those he had not time to massacre to "Hell or Connaught."

14 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

Oliver's death and the Restoration of the Monarchy and the Stuarts, brought some uneasiness to the Puritan settlers. The Loyalists who had lost their properties supporting the Stuart cause in 'Ireland, claimed the restitution of their estates. This would have been just, but it would also have interfered with the establishment of an "English interest in Ireland," by giving power and influence into the hands of Irish Chieftains. These land claims were subjected to tedious routine, forms, equivocation, and finally an Act of Settlement, which, passed by a Parliament from which Catholics were excluded, naturally ignored all interests save those of Protestants.

Thus the unfortunate and beggared Catholic cavaliers who had supported Charles the First, were denied recognition or restitution when his dynasty was restored. The successful enemies of Charles beggared the Irish Catholics for supporting him. The successful friends of Charles kept them in beggary. A complication of circumstances still controlled the destinies of these insulted people to the Stuart interest ; and they had the further ill-fate of shedding more blood, and freely spilling their own for that ungrateful race in the "succeeding reign. Their wrongs and their errors forced them to join with James the Second, because the Cromwellians (as the settlers under "the Protector" and their descendants were called) and Protestants

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 15

espoused the cause of William, to save their holdings in Ireland, already put in jeopardy by the repeal of the Act of Settlement, under which they had revelled in the forfeited estates of the Irish victims of the four previous reigns. The exigencies of the English planter and Cromwellian land-owner gave hope to the ejected Irish Catholic, and he attached himself to the fortunes, or rather, as it proved, misfortunes of James, not through any great faith in him, or love for him; but simply because it was the only opportunity of striking a blow at the English interest, as represented by the adherents of William of Orange-that very English interest which it was the subtle purpose of James himself to perpetuate. Through a consciousness of the double part he was playing, James, while he threw himself on the faith of the Irish, was so distrustful of them, coupled with the desire to conciliate some of the Protestant leaders, that he disbanded several Irish regiments soon after his arrival. He was a mean and irresolute leader, seeking to achieve by a self-delusive vacillation, which he thought diplomacy, the power he should have grasped by an assured victory. No better indication of his character is needed than that given by Sarsfield on the retreat from the Boyne, when James's distrust of his adherents breaking forth, the Irish officer exclaimed : "Exchange but kings, and we fight the battle over again."

16        FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

The precipice upon which the English interest in Ireland stood during the Williamite war, and until the Treaty of Limerick, warned it against being found in such a dangerous position in any future emergency. To prevent the possibility of a recurrence, the Penal Laws were established -- a code which, as a deep student and shrewd political philosopher of Irish birth, who devoted his life and intellect to the glory of England, Edmund Burke, said, "was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man." This terrible legal extermination of the Irish emanated less from intolerance than inhumanity, for the contrivers were too crafty to be fanatics, and only heartless and remorseless enough to be despots, in the widest and meanest acceptation of the term. Intended to send all Catholics to the grave, the Penal Code took hold of them in the cradle.

The children of Catholics could not be educated in Ireland save by Protestant teachers, and could not be sent out of Ireland without being guilty of a Penal offence. Catholic children were to be educated in the English interest or not at all; -- their brains were to be kindled by the light of Protestant wisdom, or left in total darkness.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 17

 

Every profession, save that of medicine, was forbidden to the Catholic. Even though educated by a Protestant, the Catholic student or scholar could not seek the reward of cultivation in any save one of the liberal professions-unless lie disclaimed his father's religion and claimed his father's property.

In the trade and commerce of all corporate towns, Catholics were held as pirates and outlaws; being legally excluded from joining or participating therein. In these towns, a Catholic could not sell anything save himself.

No Catholic could hold a long lease, or purchase land for a longer tenure than thirty-one years.

No Catholic could inherit the lands of a Protestant relative, or own a horse of greater value than five pounds. If lie was possessed of a valuable animal, any Protestant jockey or gentleman, or both in one, could fancy it and take it by paying five pounds.

A Catholic child, becoming a Protestant, could sue his parents for maintenance, the amount to be decided by the Court of Chancery.

An eldest son becoming a Protestant made his father a tenant for life, reversion in fee being secured to the convert, with a proviso limiting the portion of all the rest of the family to one-third.

Priests were hunted like wolves, and a reward and stipend given to any who would become a lamb within the Cromwellian fold.

18                   FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

Davis has well epitomized these penal Laws in verse:

 

"They bribed the flock, they bribed the son,

To sell the priest and rob the sue ;

Their dogs were taught alike to run

Upon the scent of wolf and friar.

Among the poor

Or on the moor,

Were hid the pious and the true

While traitor knave,

And recreant slave,

Had riches, rank, and retinue."

 

The history of Ireland, during the Penal Days, is dark and gloomy enough. Occasionally we find great utterances from noble Protestant men in behalf of the general rights of the kingdom ; such as Molyneux’ Case of Ireland, Swift’s Drapier Letters, and Dr. Charles Lucas’s persistent protestations against the encroachments on the Constitution. Molyneux’ brave little book was burned by the common hangman ; a reward was offered for the discovery of the Drapier, and his printer arrested ; and Lucas had to exile himself into England, to escape the laws enacted by and for the English interest in Ireland. A still stranger commentary on the laws of those days is afforded by the fact that the principles for which Lucas bad to fly from Ireland were extolled in England, and drew from such a cast-iron Tory as Samuel Johnson, the strongest encomiums. Indeed, Johnson’s allusions to Lucas are

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 19

 

quoted to show that the former was greatly misrepresented by those who regarded him as "abjectly submissive to power." " Let the man," says Johnson, "thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as the confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish."

Though having a patriotic purpose none of the endeavors of those able men might be accounted national in the correct sense of that idea. Molyneux’ was perhaps the most so, though Swift’s subtle, blunt, and polished philippics against the introduction of Wood’s half-pence, created the most universal excitement, and succeeded in accomplishing the object sought. The labors of those trusty men are famous because they were famous in their day. They were ahead of their surroundings in vigor of conception and boldness of expression, and deserve all praise. It remained, however, for Theobald Wolfe Tone to give a positive character to the Irish mind in politics. Other and able men looked to concessions. He alone regarded Rights.

They were hampered by illustrating ideas which in various forms already existed. Basing his views solely on the Rights of Ireland, and not contemplating the welfare of England, with which he deemed he had no

20 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

concern, Tone breathed a new life into and unveiled a vast and fresh purpose to those who desired the benefit of the Irish people in Ireland. Others had fought parties, and for successes which left large portions of the people in as dark despondency and degradation as before. Tone labored to unite all, and as he said, to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the distinctions which had been used to keep them asunder. He withstood the temptations of mere politics as a means of personal advancement, and discarded the overtures made to him by leading parliamentarians of the day. The ground upon which they stood was confined, the prospect presented was narrow, because the purposes contemplated were selfish and purely self-reflective.

When Tone surveyed the state of Ireland he saw her inferior to no country in Europe in the gifts of nature; blest with a temperate sky and a fruitful soil; intersected by many great rivers ; indented round her whole coast with the noblest harbors; abounding with all the materials for unlimited commerce; teeming with inexhaustible mines of the most useful metals; filled by four millions of an ingenious and gallant people-with bold hearts and ardent spirits; posted right in the track between Europe and America, within fifty miles of England and three hundred of France; yet with all these great advantages "unheard of and un-

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 21

known, without pride or power, or name; without ambassadors, army or navy; not of half the consequence in the empire, of which she has the honor to make a part, with the single county of York, or the loyal and well-regulated town of Birmingham." He truly argued these were mortifying considerations.

The so-called "revolution" of 1782 lead been accomplished. Henry Grattan, backed by the arms of the volunteers, had wrung from England the concession that no power had the right to make laws for Ireland but the King, Lords, and Commons thereof; but the Irish Parliament became only the shadow of the English one. The achievement of Grattan left the power on a broader basis than before in the hands of the Protestant ascendancy. Tone read aright the effects of the "revolution;" and had the copra e to speak the truth about it. Eight years after it had been on trial, he says : "The Revolution of 1782 was a Revolution which enabled Irishmen to sell, at a much higher price, their honor, their integrity, and the interests of their country; it was a Revolution, which, while at one stroke it doubled the value of every borough-monger in the kingdom, left three-fourths of our countrymen slaves as it found them, and the Government of Ireland in the base and wicked and contemptible hands, who had spent their lives in degrading and plundering her; nay, some of whom had given their

 

 

22 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

last vote decidedly, though hopelessly against this our famous Revolution. Who of the veteran enemies of the country lost his place or his pension? Who was called forth to station or office from the ranks of the Opposition? Not one I The power remained in the hands of our enemies, again to be exerted for our ruin, with this difference, that formerly we had our distresses, our injuries, and our insults gratis, at the hands of England; but now we pay very dearly to receive the same with aggravation, through the hands of Irishmen; yet this we boast of, and call a Revolution!"

This revolution concentrated power in the hands of the aristocracy and lifted no weight from the necks of the people. The position of the three great classes into which the inhabitants of the island were divided will show to any candid mind the truth and force of Tone's deductions.

The Protestant party had been for more than a century in easy enjoyment of the church, the law, the revenue, the army, the navy, the magistracy, the corporations, and all institutions receiving or extending patronage. Not one-tenth of the population, and descended from foreign plunderers and usurpers, they alone beheld security in maintaining. an English interest in Ireland; and England, profiting by their weaknesses, augmented their fears, kept them in a state of perpetual trepidation, gave them her protection, and

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 23

took in exchange the commerce and the liberties of Ireland. The events of the American Revolution emboldened the Catholics and Presbyterians, and forced the Protestants into some slightly beneficial measures of redress, but they remained attached to their protectors, a party property, an aristocracy.

The Dissenters -- double in numbers to the Protestants -- were chiefly manufacturers and traders, and did not believe their existence depended on the immutability of their slavishness to England. "Strong in their numbers and their courage, they felt that they were able to defend themselves, and they soon ceased to consider themselves as any other than Irishmen." They formed the flower of the Volunteer Army of '82, ,and were the first to demand Reform.

The Catholics were numerically the most formidable, embracing as they did, the peasantry of three provinces, and a considerable portion of the business class. The exactions of the Penal Laws had left them but a small proportion of the landed interest. "There was no injustice, no disgrace, no disqualification, moral, political or religious, civil or military, that was not heaped upon them." Under such a system, it is no wonder that the peasantry were both morally and physically degraded, and the spirit of the few remaining gentry broken.

Tone aspired to infuse into the Catholics a spirit

24 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

of civil and religious liberty. The overwhelming injustice of their position appealed powerfully to his sense of right as a man as well as an Irish-born man. His desire was to unite them with the Dissenters, and thus present to the party representing the government and the evils of English connection, a broad, popular front on which toleration would be written in letters of light. His objects and means were thus lucidly indicated. " To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country-these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter -these were my means."

Here we have the well-defined plan upon which the Society of The United Irishmen was founded. It was a bold and mighty step towards a true nationality to disentangle politics from religion in those days. Tone's plan surmounted the sectional difficulties which had made the island for centuries alternately a prey to remorseless depredation on the one hand, and as savage retribution on the other. To unite the elements descended from such recklessly discordant parentage -- to lift them out of their age -- fostered and blood-anoint-

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 25

 

passions, into a passion for an ennobling common object -- to bind them as close in friendship as they had been knit in fight, was an original, daring, and, judged by the obstacles to be overcome, almost sublime scheme.

Tone founded the first Society of United Irishmen, on the 12th October, 1791. On the 12th October, 1798, the seventh anniversary of the foundation of practical patriotism in Ireland, lie was captured on board the Hoche, 74 guns, the admiral's ship of a portion of the third expedition he had projected in France and Hamburg, for the aid of Ireland. Between those dates a wonderfully inspiring history was enacted in Ireland. United Irishism spread into all ranks, inflaming alike Catholic peasants and Protestant peers with a divine fervor, and bringing round the common altar of their country noble clergymen of every denomination. The Rev. William Jackson, a Protestant clergyman, undertook to sound the Irish in 1795, on the subject of an alliance with France, was betrayed By an English attorney, and died in the dock. Messrs. Warwick, Stevelly, and William Porter, Presbyterian clergymen, were hanged. Rev. William Steele Dickson of the same denomination, who had been the early asserter of Ireland's independence and advocate of his Catholic fellow-countrymen, was, for nearly two years, adjutant-General of the United Irish of Ulster. " Bet-

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS 26

 

ter die courageously in the field than be butchered in the houses," said Father John Murphy, putting himself at the head of his flock, after the yeoman had burned his chapel over his head, in May '98. The royalists did not know the flame they were kindling, when they set fire to the little chapel of Boolavogue. "We must conquer or perish" cried this priest-leader to his pikemen, at Oulart Hill, and they conquered. This reverend General Murphy was heard from at the battle of Enniscorthy, at Vinegar Hill, and other tough conflicts : as also were Father Philip Roche, who commanded at the bloody fight at Tubberneering, where Col. Walpole fell, and was subsequently elected generalissimo of the Wexford troops; and the soldier-priests, Moses Kearns and Nicholas Redmond, who drove Col. L'Estrange and his dragoons into Newtownbarry, and even had the audacity to engage and rout the garrison of over five hundred troops. Kearns subsequently made a desperate defence of Enniscorthy against General Johnston, and carried a serious wound from the fight, which led to his capture. Father Clinch, with those named, was one of the leaders of the patriots on the great but disastrous day of Vinegar Hill. Another prominent and brave priest-leader was Father Michael Murphy. The history of the patriot priests of '98 affords a thrilling chapter, which should be separately set forth for the sake of the noble

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 27

example furnished by their devotion and sacrifices. Aroused by inhuman barbarity and oppression, they made common cause with their persecuted flocks. They showed them how to fight` on the field ; and ]low to die, if need be, on the scaffold, as did Roche, John Murphy, Learns, Redmond, Prendergast, Quigley, and others. Father Michael Murphy was vouchsafed the nobler death on the field, being torn to pieces by a cannon-ball while leading on a division of pikemen at the battle of Arklow.

The war for national independence, projected by the United Irishmen, was forced into a premature explosion by the government. On the 30th March, 17.)8, Lord Camden, the viceroy, proclaimed all Ireland under Martial Law. The proclamation was a brutal incentive to riot. Armed with it the military and " authorities" went about the country exasperating suspected localities, creating feuds for the sake of punishing individuals, and involving individuals that whole districts might be plundered. What was true, of one locality was but too true of all. " The inhuman tortures instituted by the yeomen, the barbarities inflicted without regard to age or sex, the scourgings, pitch-caps, house-burnings, and murders, then drew a distinct and bloody line between those who acted fur, and under the protection of, the government and the people. No man was safe, no woman invio-

28         FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

lable, private pique found vent in public vengeance; Mid the magistracy falling into the hands of Orange factionists, was at once witness, judge, jury and executioner. "*

While the people on the one hand were goaded into unbearable agony, the leaders of the people on the other hand were seized, hanged, banished, put out of the way with indiscriminate fury. The betrayal of the plans and several prominent leaders by the infamous Thomas Reynolds, the Arnold of Ireland, on the eve of the rising, with the distraction which followed was an irreparable blow to the project. Judged by the light which documentary history has thrown on the period, the chances of success of the United Irishmen loom into very great proportions, while the destinies of England seem to have been held by a very slender thread. Madden is right when lie says of the United Irish Society, that " whether viewed in its results, the character of its members, or the nature of its proceedings, it may certainly be regarded as a confederacy which no political or revolutionary society that has gone before it has surpassed in importance, boldness of design, and devotion to its principles." On the other hand, England's incontrovertible danger may be judged from the fact that had either one of Tone's

* "'Ninety-Eight and 'Forty-Eight, Irish Revolutionary History and Literature." Third Edition, New York, 1857. p. 70.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, 29

expeditions been favored with a fair wind to carry it to its destination, England could not have held Ireland, and half of her prestige would have been gone. It is not disputed that England was saved by the elements that scattered Tone's expeditions. The active civil war lasted less than five months, that is from the rising of the people, 20th May, to the capture of Tone, but its extent, and the vigor with which it was sustained may be comprehended from its cost to the people and the government. The English employed 137,000 men to suppress the " insurrection." Its cost in money is variously estimated at thirty millions and fifty millions pounds sterling. The English lost twenty thousand men ; the Irish fifty thousand. The royalists received one and a half millions sterling for damages to property. No estimate can be made of the damage perpetrated on the property of the people. It may be indicated by the fact that the Catholic churches burned, of which any account was kept, amounted to sixty-nine. This, as Madden says, " may afford some criterion by which we can judge of the number and extent" of other outrages on property belonging to persons of that communion.

The "Union" followed the "rebellion," and in the reckless corruption and infamy by which it was carried was a fitting sequel to the murderous barbarity by which the latter was precipitated and concluded.

30 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

Twenty-one years before the Union was effected, Samuel Johnson well characterized the animus which would and did govern England in seeking it. " Artful politicians," as Boswell characterizes them, had often in view a Union between Ireland and England, and in 1779, Johnson, expressing himself on the subject to a gentleman from Ireland, said : "Do not make a Union with us, sir. We should unite with you only to rob you."* As Johnson indicated the spirit of rapine which would follow a Union, so Byron, twelve years after its accomplishment, stigmatized and illustrated the rapacious dishonesty of the measure. "Adieu," said lie, "to that Union so-called, as lucus a non lucendo, a Union from never uniting, which, in its first operation, gave a death-blow to the independence of Ireland, and in its last may be the cause of her eternal separation from this country. If it must be called a Union, it is the union of the shark with its prey; the spoiler swallows up his victim, and thus they become one and indivisible. Thus has Great Britain swallowed up the parliament, the constitution, the independence of Ireland, and refuses to disgorge even a single privilege, although for the relief of her swollen and distempered body politic."**

* Boswell's Johnson, by J. Wilson Croker. Enlarged by J. Wright. Bohn's edition, 1859. Vol. VII,., p. 295.

** Speech by Lord Byron, House of Lords, April 21st, 1812, on Lord Donoughmore's motion for a Committee on Catholic Claims,

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 31

The manner in which the Catholic peasantry were butchered in '98 to put down the rebellion, and the style in which the Protestant "gentry" were bought and sold in 1800, to effect the Union, were equally disgraceful, and proclaimed as loud as desperate deeds could proclaim that Ireland was not the patient slave of England, and that there was not, and could not exist a mutually beneficial or respected union between them. After quartering her native and Hessian mercenaries on the devoted people of Ireland, England quartered with much parade the arms of Ireland on the British Flag this too while the wanton agonies, inflicted by the former, were fermenting into vengeance, which took form in a few years afterwards in what is known as Emmet's Rebellion, and which was, although nobly inspired and well conceived, but a faint echo of the great fight in '98.

In Paris, where Robert Emmet spent the early autumn of 1802, deep in military studies, he met his brother Thomas Addis, and the exiles of '98, including some of the students who had been expelled with him from the University of Dublin, for national reasons. Irish affairs naturally engrossed their attention, especially as the relations between France and England were not of the most amicable nature. He had interviews with Buonaparte and Talleyrand, from which he hopefully speculated, inasmuch as the patched-up peace

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

between France and England could not, from the ambition of the former and intrigues of the latter, be of long duration. lie had not much faith in the actual sympathy of either of those personages; but felt that under the inspiration which guided both, the disruption of Ireland would be a grand point towards furthering the projects of France against England. Of Buonaparte's temporary sincerity to aid Ireland under the exigencies of his mission he had no doubt. "He thought, however, that Talleyrand rather desired the establishment of an independent republic in Ireland, and that Buonaparte did not. The object of the latter was to aggrandize France, and to damage England; and so far as that object went, to wish well to any effort in Ireland that might be auxiliary to his purpose." Thus the political movements-the "dreadful notes of preparation" for war-in both France and England, under favor of the temporary treaty of Amiens, dated March 27th, 1802-the evasive diplomacy indulged in by the statesmen of the two powers -the virulent abuse of Buonaparte by the leading English journals, and the unsatisfied demands of M. Otto, the French Minister at London, touching the Bourbon princes and the French emigrants in England, and his protestations against those " obnoxious, seditious and unbecoming publications" upon the French leader, fully convinced the hopeful and brooding Irish exiles

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 33

that war was inevitable, The fire of '98 was still smouldering on many a bleak and disquieted hearthstone in Ireland. There were sad and angry wailings through Irish vales and glens -- cries from the unshriven dead and the unappeased living to heaven or earth, or anywhere, for vengeance. There were horrible memories in men's minds-memories all the more desperate that they were pent up-and to such memories, and for the men who held them, war-war from any quarter, so that it was against England, was as giving speech to the dumb and light to the captive.

The design on Ireland was not that of Robert Emmet solely. All the Irish exiles in Paris and Belgium, with the exception of Arthur O'Connor, appear to have been engaged in it, or cognizant of the fact. Of the party in Paris, Thomas Russell had the most influence, if we are to judge by the memoirs of O'Connor, to whom the French Government communicated the project. The conspiracy was well laid in Ireland also, men of prominence and distinction, including some noblemen, giving it certain, if secret, sanction. In Emmet's speech, he declares he was the instrument, the willing instrument, however, of men before the splendor of whose genius and virtues he bowed with respectful deference. He emphatically and more than once denied that his purpose was to transfer Ireland from the hand of England to the grasp of France.

34 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

In his written communication with Buonaparte, Addis Emmet also, in unmistakable language, scouted the

idea that the Irish would accept aid on any such terms. It never was the idea of any of the Irish revolutionists. Impressed by the anxious representations from Ireland the majority of the exiles concur red in a co-operative movement when France would be ready to strike England on leer own account; and from his connections, enthusiasm, and ability, Robert Emmet became the leading agent in the movement.

William Lawless accompanied Emmet to Ireland; Thomas Russell, regarding whom Tone said, "I think the better of myself for being the object of esteem of such a man," and who had but just quitted his prison at Fort George, went to Ireland to lead the men of the North, over which district he was appointed. General-in-Chief. Putnam M'Cabe's presence in the country was made memorable by his felicitous escape from the soldiery at Belfast. Michael Dwyer was at the head of a brave band of mountaineers in Wicklow. Nicholas Gray, Bagnal Harvey's aide-de-camp in Wexford in '98, was in the movement. The indefatigable James Hope, the weaver of Temple Patrick, who had been the secret agent of the leaders of '98, and who, with M'Cracken, led the insurgents at the gallant fight at Antrim, was still unceasing in his allegiance to the

national cause.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 35

So far as I can discover, all the funds at Emmet's disposal amounted to about seventeen thousand dollars -ten of which comprised all his own fortune ; the other seven thousand being contributed by Philip Long, a patriotic and wealthy tradesman of Dublin, who entered fully into the conspiracy.

The principles held by Emmet were those of Wolfe Tone. Like Tone, too, young Emmet's energy was inexhaustibly great. No man who reflects on his career will fail to be struck with the irrepressible vigor with which he carried on his preparations; now planning, now superintending his various depots, and the manufacture of arms. In one of these places he slept on a mattress on the floor, that he might be always present to oversee what was going forward, to animate his workmen, and to meet any emergency that might arise to demand the governing power of his presence, or the inspiration of his example.

The accidental blowing up of a powder depot, on the 16th July, 1803, drew attention to the conspiracy, and precipitated events to a fruitless end. In fact, with that explosion, United Irishism was blown into fragments for more than two generations. The dogs of the street licked the blood of Emmet from the pavement under his scaffold, his body was hidden in an un-inscribed grave, and upon the ruins of those efforts for a distinct idea of nationality, arose, and in greater

 

36 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

proportions, the fabric of a sectional agitation. This agitation was needed; but it was not all that was needed. The United Irishmen had started the agitation of Catholic rights on broad national grounds. In taking up the theme, O'Connell circumscribed both. The United Irishmen labored to create a spirit of toleration between all denominations. O'Connell did not think this essential ; was the belligerent and powerful advocate of one and the ready and defiant antagonist of all others. Gifted with great ability and vast and subtle knowledge of the people, both combined to make him the leader by reflecting the humor, appealing to the misery, defying the enemies, and, by giving expression to the passions of his countrymen, which had acquired rancor and vindictiveness from having been so long choked in silence.
That the agitation for Catholic Emancipation was needed, all admit ; that it was not, all that was needed no rational being will deny. Subsequent agitation for the Repeal of the Union proved that more was wanting than such emancipation as was vouchsafed to the Irish Catholics. In advocating Repeal, Davis succintly epitomizes what was achieved by the one and what is embraced in the other

"From 1793 to 1829-for thirty-six years-the Irish Catholics struggled for Emancipation. That Emancipation was admission to the Bench, the Inner Bar, and Parliament. It was won by self.

HISTORICAL lNTRODUCTION. 37

denial, genius, vast and sustained labors, and lastly by the sacrifice of the forty-shilling freeholders -- the poor veterans of the warand by submission to insulting oaths; yet it was cheaply bought. Not so cheaply, perchance, as if won by the sword ; for, on it were expended more treasures, more griefs, more intellect, more passion, more of all which makes life welcome, than had been needed for war ; still it was cheaply bought, and Ireland has glorified herself, and will through ages triumph in the victory of '29.

"Yet what was Emancipation compared to Repeal?

"The one put a silken badge on a few members of one profession ; the other would give to all professions and all trades the rank and riches which resident proprietors, domestic legislation, and flourishing commerce, infallibly create.

"Emancipation made it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion ; and it left the local judges-those with whom the people has to deal as partial, ignorant, and bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, from the Chancery to the Petty Sessions.

"Emancipation dignified a dozen Catholics with a senatorial name in a foreign and hostile Legislature. Repeal would give us a Senate, a Militia, an Administration, all our own.

"The Penal Code, as it existed since 1793, insulted the faith of the Catholics, restrained their liberties, and violated the public Treaty of Limerick. The Union has destroyed our manufactures, prohibits our flag, prevents our commerce, drains our rental, crushes our genius, makes our taxation a tribute, our representation a shadow, our name a bye-word. It were nobler to strive for Repeal than to get Emancipation."

 

It is without the scope of these pages to follow the wondrous career of O'Connell through the Catholic and Repeal agitations ; but it cannot be without sug-

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

gestiveness to those who follow the changes in popular opinion to observe the persistent and positive recurrence of the Irish to those ideas which were in the ascendant before O'Connell became prominent.

O'Connell's career was in a great degree a repetition of Grattan's. Both brought peculiarly powerful inspirations into politics, and the powers they respectively encouraged, if not evoked, went far ahead of

the design contemplated by either. The spirit installed and animated by Grattan and the volunteers was a potent element in the formation of United Irishism, and its struggle in '98; and the talent which rallied round the latter years of O'Connell's great Repeal agitation, was the direct agency that led to the attempted revolution in '48. Grattan had said "Liberty with England, if' possible,-if not, without her. Perish the British Empire -- live Ireland." And O'Connell had used as a standing text, until the words became household, indicating a future

"hereditary bondsmen, know ye not

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

Grattan, however, also said, "May the kingly power that forms one estate in our constitution, continue for ever;" and O'Connell, while claiming "Ireland for the Irish," also said " God Save the Queen."

The progressive patriots thought these latter exclamations were used for the sake of policy, and

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 39

believed the leaders meant more than they actually did. So when they deemed the period for policy had passed, and the era for honesty arrived, the progressive Volunteers became United Irishmen, to carry out Grattan's idea" Perish the British Empire-live and the Young Ireland Repealers became Irish Confederates to carry out O'Connell's declaration of "Ireland for the Irish." Grattan lived to his country reduced to that condition in which O'Connell's maturity found her, and, dying in London, his ashes enhance the memories of the pantheon of Ireland’s oppressors-he was buried in Westminster Abbey. O'Connell, seeking for health far away from those scenes it had ever blest-far from his beloved Kerry Mountains, died in Genoa, bequeathing his Heart to Rome, and the case that had held it to Ireland

The Young Ireland party differed from O'Connell because he would not allow it the right to differ. The inspiring centre, if not the founder of this party, was Thomas Davis, who died before O'Connell, but lived long enough to feel that a difference if not a conflict of opinions, between his associates and the old chief was inevitable. Davis was a concentration of nationality and of everything that tended to nurture or spread it, whether in the paths of letters, art, manufacture, or politics. Everything Irish had a sig-

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

nificance to him of service to Ireland. As Smith O'Brien said, "Love of country was the passion of his life-the motive for every action-the foundation of every feeling." With characteristic force, as indicating his creative power of patriotism, Doheny said, Davis "Struck living fire from inert way-side stones. To him the meanest rill, the rugged mountains, the barren waste, the rudest fragment of barbaric history, spoke the language of elevation, harmony and hope." Meagher's first speech was a sweet tribute in honor of the dead, and upon the fresh grave of his friend, John Mitchel laid as a dedicatory offering the first fruits of his labors in Irish literature 'the life of Aodh O'Neill.

After remonstrating in vain with the O'Connellites, the Young Ireland party received great accessions of strength, and on the, 13th January, 1847, formed the "Irish Confederation." This organization was a brilliant representative of Irish honor and intellectual attainment. The genius and enthusiasm of the country rallied round it. The great journal, The Nation, which had fostered all the national resources, in whatever form they presented themselves, had a legitimate offspring at maturity in the Confederation. The Nation had attracted the applause of Europe and America as the spirit of progressive Ireland : the Confederation disclosed the active body behind it.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 41

In intellectual endowments the "Young Ireland" party will compare favorably with the men of '98, with one exception. That exception is Tone. As a political writer lie was alone in his day. He has not been equalled since. He was not only a patriot but a statesman and diplomat; a combination rarely to be found. lie was not only almost inexhaustibly suggestive, but he was also practical. He differed from most men who have one grand idea, in the fact that he never put the attainment of his object in jeopardy by publicly ignoring the sense of those who had other ideas or differed from his. While he was firm he was also considerate. To this faculty may be attributed the power he had with men. His pamphlets are characterized by fervor and argument, never by abuse. Thomas Davis, however, had one great advantage over Tone in seizing the popular heart, and throbbing it with healthy and indignant pulsations, he was a poet. Ills prose essays are abundantly illustrative of noble aspirations and ready gifts, but his poems are passionately national, and contain that fire which cannot be extinguished,

If the members of the Irish Confederation, taken as a party, were not only equal to, but beyond the United Irishmen, as poets, orators, and publicists, they were far behind them as revolutionists. It may be that from the formation of the Confederation,

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

 

time was not permitted to develop the revolutionary ability of the body until it was extinct ; and it is true that foreign example, especially the French Revolution, and the writings of John Mitchel, forced the leaders, and, through them, the people into a position not contemplated as so closely imminent. The Confederation was not a secret or oath-bound organization as the United Irish Society was. It might have become so had it lived longer. The United Irish Society was twice as long in existence before it took refuge in secrecy from the persecution of the government, and reorganized on a military basis. Originally started to effect Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform, it was persecuted into the wider field of Republicanism. The Confederation was designed to educate and organize the people-to achieve Repeal by moral force, if possible; by physical force, if necessary.

The famine years had been regarded by English ministers as powerful allies for the reduction of the Irish. Measures of relief were suggested in and out of Parliament, resolutions carried, committees appointed, discussions held as to what caused the famine? How far the potato blight had gone? How could it be stayed? Science grew blind experimenting; and the groans of the dying, which maddened the Irish only made the ministers deaf. Although

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 43

 

there was not a county in Ireland which had escaped the potato-rot, and the consequent scarcity of food and funds, yet the landlords were as unrelenting as ever in driving and grinding the impoverished peasantry. Meanwhile, the island'was rifled of its grain and cattle to meet the exigencies of the absentees and the English interest in Ireland ; t yd the Government, to make a show of charity and protection to the world, bought up some foreign corn for the " poor Irish." It might have bought the food in the country, and distributed it; but that would have been the means of circulating money and staving off famine; and neither of these appliances were calculated to sustain an English interest in Ireland. No ! every vessel seeking the doomed island with foreign corn "was sure to meet half a dozen sailing out with Irish wheat and cattle." There was no end to the meetings of learned bodies, and the reports they made. Every thing was done but the one thing necessary--feed the people.

Where famine and fever did not put the peasantry beyond the power of injuring the English interest," agrarian outrages," as the desire for food was called, brought them within the clutches of the law. The process was complete, and none will say it was not powerful. First, the people were systematically starved ; and for those who escaped death, the minis-

44 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

ters supplied a trap in the shape of the Coercion (Agrarian Outrages) Bill, to restrain the daring which gave them a desire to live. "Old Ireland" had gone with the Whigs, and the Whigs had gone against Ireland, as usual, notwithstanding the promises of beneficial measures, by which Lord John Russell had duped the Old Repeal Association. "Agrarian outrage" was the plea made to excuse Whig concessions on the one hand ; and on the other, to declare in Parliament that it were better to "outrage the Constitution," than allow the present state of affairs to continue in Ireland.

In the face of these actions, the Irish Confederation had work enough on hand, were it equal to the occasion. But it was not. Although it had, on the statement of its secretary, upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand enrolled men in the clubs,* yet the Confederate organization was far from perfect, and the amount of arms possessed by it insignificant. Inspired, as it was, by a noble sense of nationality, still the distinct purposes of the Confederacy were not widely defined or understood. The opinion of the body of its members was in a transition state, between the old principles they had left, and the new ones which were not fully adopted. This led to differences

* This statement of members I find in a pamphlet entitled,"A Disclosure connected with the Late State Prosecutions in Ireland, &c., by Thomas Matthew Halpin, Secretary of the Irish Confederation, Dublin, 1849.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 45

among some of the leaders, and suggested the necessity of a definite programme of guidance in the Confederation. Mitchel, not seeing anything in the famine policy of the Government but " a machinery deliberately devised and skilfully worked for the entire subjugation of the island,-the slaughter of a portion of its people, and the pauperization of the rest," believed that resistance should be opposed to the system at every point : that the transport and shipment of provisions should be obstructed and rendered impossible : and that the people should be advised not to give up their arms, under the law made to disarm them, but to provide more, especially pikes, of which the soldiery were in great horror. O'Brien, Duffy, and the Nation, party remonstrated against this course, as it would be a virtual declaration of war. On the two days debate which followed in the Confederation, Meagher gave the weight of his popularity, and turned the scale against Mitchel's views ; and Mitchel having already retired from the Nation set up the United Irishman, to promulgate the doctrines he thought best suited to the crisis. Throughout these movements Devin Reilly was the able lieutenant of Mitchel.

The French Revolution of February, 1848, created great excitement in Ireland, giving a new impetus to the Confederation, and apparently ratifying the

 

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

republican indications of Mitchel. The Confederate orators now rivalled the revolutionary vigor of the United Irishman. In the first week in February the assembled Confederates voted down Mitchel's war programme: a month afterwards, Meagher, the voice

of the Confederation, declared that if the Government did not accede to the demand for the reconstruction of Irish Nationality, he was ready to cry "up with the barricades, and invoke the god of battles." The Confederation also sent an address to France, which declared that her heroism "taught enslaved nations that emancipation ever awaits those who dared to achieve it by their own intrepidity." These significant expressions were seized with avidity by the people, as indicating a desire to fight. If the Whig Ministers affected to treat the Irish movement with contempt, the Tory leaders forced them out of that position. The Earl of Derby, in the House of Lords, called the Government to task, and said of the Irish leaders, "These men are honest ; they are not the kind of men who make their patriotism the means of barter for place or pension." The Whigs, disgusted at the Tories calling the Confederates honest and high-toned, determined to render their cause as degrading as English law could make it. The Treason-Felony Act was therefore passed. What was heretofore known as treason to the Crown,

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 47

which in Ireland was regarded as patriotism, was by this Act made a felony and the patriots "felons."

The arrest of John Mitchel quickly followed, and the national excitability seemed to culminate in the idea that now was the time for a general uprising. The Council of the Confederation, after the most strenuous exertions, prevented an outbreak, and excused its action in an Address to the People. The Council feared that an attempt to rescue Mitchel, and to free Ireland, would prove abortive. " We, therefore," said the Address, " interposed, and with difficulty succeeded in preventing the fruitless effusion of blood." Mitchel was permitted to be banished; and the Government, seeing the Confederates waver at the very crisis of the excitement, pushed matters with its usual recklessness and vigor. The Irish Tribune sprang into the gap made by the demolition of the

United Irishman, and, two weeks after, the Irish Felon was by the side of the former laboring for the

same ends. "The harvest," was now the cry of the patriots. " Wait for the harvest, and we will, in God's name, strike a blow." The Government, however, would not wait so long. All its power was put forth to force a rising, that it might crush it. The Tribune,

Felon, and Nation were seized, and the editors and proprietors thrown into prison. The Gagging Act prevented the leaders from addressing the Clubs in

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

 

the cities ; and the suspension of the Habeas CorpusAct compelled those who had rendered themselves objects of suspicion, to evade the authorities. Thus these men were thrown on the country, when they had helped to chill its spirit, or make it irresolute by hope deferred. The leaders had to "take to the hills." Rewards were offered for the more prominent, and the natural gallantry and truth of the Irish peasant created a sympathy where even a knowledge of the political situation had been but imperfectly understood. Hunted with celerity they strove to face the emergency in hurried councils, and with undisciplined material, and having come in contact with the British forces at the Slate Quarries, Mullinahone, Killenaule, Ballingarry, Abbeyfeale, and other places, they were either captured or found safety in escape and exile. Of the chief men, O'Brien and Meagher were captured, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to banishment for life; and Doheny, Dillon, Devin Reilly, O'Gorman and others, after various adventures, escaped, and found their way to America. Later in the year, in September, a more persistent effort was made by Messrs. O'Mahony and Savage to rally the people in Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny, and to retrieve somewhat the disasters that had preceded. After demonstrations on the mountains of these localities, and

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 49

conflicts at Portlaw barracks, Glenbower, Scaugh, and other places, the movement was given up as hope back calmly at the events of '48, and comprehending details which only time can present in their true light, there can he no rational doubt of the fact that the people were not prepared to attempt or effect a revolution by arms that year. There was no organization; the Confederation was not sufficiently long in existence to have put the country on a fighting basis; and Without organization nothing could he elected. The French Revolution came too soon for the good of Ireland. There were moments when a shot would have set the revolution going with an esprit and a fervor, the result of which cannot be imagined.

The 10th July was such an occasion, when the populace of Waterford and Cashel raised barricades to prevent the arrest of Meagher and Doheny. It needed Meagher's most impassioned exertions to free himself from his friends, that he might be arrested by his enemies. Doheny was taken out of jail by the Cashel men, recaptured himself, and only was permitted to do so by pledging his word that he was arrested on a bailable offence. Both, unknown to each other, feared to precipitate a revolt, because the leaders had no settled plan of action. The chief occasion

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

of the year, however, was the trial of Mitchel. The leaders were all at liberty, and the enthusiasm of the people intense and manageable. The Government had shown its vindictive intentions, which created as daring a desire of defiance, and the halo encircling the first martyr inspired the masses of the Dublin clubs with a frenzy which declined after the disappointments of that day.

 

____________________________________________________________

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.             51

CHAPTER II.

 

Did young Ireland achieve a Victory—The released Prisoners and the Exiles at work—Continuous efforts to keep up a National Organization—The Fenian Brotherhood—Its Beginning and Extension—First Congress at Chicago—Declarations of Purposes—Not a Secret Society—The Poles and the Pope—O'Mahony elected Head Centre under the New Constitution—Second Congress at Cincinnati—Growth of the Brotherhood—Report of the Envoy to Ireland—Council enlarged—State of Affairs in Ireland—The I. R. B.—James Stephens end his Connection with the Organization—Extensive Disaffections. —Seizure of the Irish People and its Editors—Arrests all over the Country—Third Fenian Congress in Philadelphia—Mr. Meehan's Report—Constitution of the F. B. changed—Differences between the "President" and the "Senate" result in an "Irish Party" and a "Canadian Party"—Fourth Congress restores the Old Constitution, endorsed by Military Convention—Excitement in Ire-land increases—Arrest and Escape of Stephens—Lord Wodehouse on the Conspiracy—The Country not safe unless the Habeas Corpus is suspended—Debate on that Measure—John Bright, Stuart Mill—The Irish Members—John B. Dillon—The O'Donoghue—Passage of the Bill.

 

 

By the, events of '48 " Young Ireland" was disbanded but not defeated. The new soul which came into Ireland and was manifested in the songs, essays, speeches and publications generally of the members of that party, could not be extinguished. If they did not organize, they did wonderfully help to educate the people with a healthy, manly and hopeful literature. their efforts in this regard have produced legitimate results; and in the spread of their ideas, hopes, affections and romantic feelings touching the uses of every

52 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

phase of Irish life to the end of Irish freedom, prepared the people to appreciate organization, which, powerful at all times, is all the grander and snore reliable when founded on and sustained by intelligence.

Philosophically judged, Young Ireland achieved a notable and fruitful victory. On the one land it compelled England to show the ruflian hand by which the "sister island" was governed. This was not lost on the world; the French Government adroitly alluded to it in 1860, when Persigny was "enlarging the liberty" of the French Press. On the other ]land it bestowed a new literature on the country, which commanded even the admiration of its enemies, and is the touchstone of all literary endeavor in Ireland since. Irishmen who could not embrace the politics of Young Ireland, welcomed the literature which seemed to combine the best characteristics of all that had gone before, with an informing spirit emanating from pure hearts and able heads.

Even in the disruption of the party, its scattered elements were destined to do wondrous service in testimony of the national faith and character of Irishmen, and of continued tribulation to the Government of Ireland. Those who were kept in jail under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, like Fenton Lalor and Joseph Brenan, we're no sooner released than

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.                 53

 

they were planning and projecting, with other untiring spirits, a renewal of armed hostilities in 1849.*

The exiles who were in France took advantage of the disrupted state of that country, to study successful means of revolution, and to interest many able Frenchmen in the Irish cause-no very difficult matter to be sure, as in addition to the sympathy between the Irish and French, descending from old military alliances, anything against England is attractive to a true Frenchman. The exiles in America, in the press, the lecture-hall, the drill-room, possessed welcome vehicles for the expression and expansion of the doctrines which had driven them from home; and even in the penal colonies, to which England had banished those who had fallen into the embrace of partisan judges and packed juries, the gallant settlers received as friends those who were branded as felons, and intrigued and conspired to set them free.

It would be impossible, even were all the materials at hand, to present at this date anything like a fair record of the unceasing, though sometimes contracted efforts made in Ireland and America to keep alive one organization after the other for the encouragement and indoctrination of Irish national principles. The history of these efforts, when written, will prove of deep interest, and give evidence of the undying devo-

* See the facts given in Mr. Luby's sketch of Philip Gray, in this volume.

 

54         FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

tion of all classes of Irishmen to the freedom of their native land.

Distracted, now by differences of able men, now by the jealousies of weak ones; at other times by the well-meant officiousness of ignorance; again by the want of means, and the bickering results of such a condition; sometimes falling into apathy by the dropping out of some earliest spirit, whose sensitiveness would pall before an accumulation of the visitations described, it is remarkable that some one was always found to cheer, to encourage, and give life and vigor to a nucleus of nationalists. The connection was thus kept up, sometimes by a happily-welded link, at others by a very fragile rope indeed. I have chiefly referred to the projective societies in New York, with which the congenial societies in Ireland were in communication.

One great source of dissatisfaction arose from the very hopefulness which kept the cause alive in Ireland, and which led men there to exaggerate the means at their disposal. The mistaken idea, also prevailing in Ireland, of the position of the exiles in America. who, it was thought, could control any amount of money and war material, caused the demands made on them to be of an equally-extensive character. It is needless to say, these demands could not be complied with. The existence of those societies

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.             55

was always precarious, sometimes exciting, but all were guided by worthy aspirations.

The Fenian organization was the result of the societies which had preceded it. The most imposing of them had fallen away, and the nucleus from which sprung this formidable power was composed of Michael Doheny, Michael Corcoran, John O'Mahony, and one or two others. From small numerical dimensions it slowly but steadily expanded to the form in which it has arrested the attention of the world.

When O'Mahony was elected president of the society, and at the same time received his commission as Head Centre from elsewhere, toward the end of 1858, it numbered forty members, all of whom resided in the city of New York. It had a great struggle for existence, but ultimately succeeded beyond the most sanguine hopes of its projectors. In five years it put forth its branches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Stretching northward, it had crossed the St. Lawrence and the great lakes, spreading widely over the British provinces. Toward the south it had reached the mouth of the Mississippi, before the great rebellion cut off communication with the southern circles. Up to 1863, the Fenian Brotherhood was little understood outside of the circles composing it. Its representatives had never been summoned together to adopt such a constitution and rules for general government, as a

56                             FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

association of its extent might have warranted. It had more the nature of a military organization than a civil and self governing body; and while this suited its infancy, many disadvantages became apparent when it had grown in numbers, intelligence and power. These disadvantages suggested to the plead Centre, that the organization should be reconstituted on the model of tho institutions of the Republic, governing itself on the elective principle. It was then decided to call a National Congress.

Other matters pertaining to the welfare of the Brotherhood demanded the consideration of its assembled wisdom. Thousands of the most ardent and best working members had rushed to the defense of the Union. Many whole circles had entered the army in a body, like the flourishing one at Milford, Mass., under its gallant centre, Col. Robert Peard. No less than fifty branches bad become extinct or dormant, and the rest had lost considerably in ardor and efficiency, through the absence of their choicest spirits in the field. In the West, the Brotherhood had sustained an almost irreparable loss in the death of the Rev. Edward O'Flaherty, the devoted pastor of Crawfordsville. His death seemed to paralyze Indiana, which, during his life, was the "banner state" of Fenianism The revolutionary Brotherhood in Ireland demanded aid and sympathy ; so the call for the first National Congress was issued.

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 57

 

This body assembled at Chicago, in the Fenian Hall of that city, on the 3d November, 1863. Sixty-three circles were represented, having a constituency of fifteen thousand men, half of whom at least were in the armies of the Union. "We no longer need generals of our own blood," said Mr. O'Mahony, in the opening session, "to lead us to battle for Ireland, nor veteran soldiers to follow them." The Congress met to place the Organization on a basis in accordance with the habits and customs of the United States, and to declare its position and objects before the world, so that all the friends of Irish freedom could understand them. It adopted a series of resolutions and formed a Constitution and By-Laws which promulgated the faith of Fenianism.

The organization was declared to be --

"An Association having for its object the national freedom of Ireland, and composed for the most part of citizens of the United States of America, of Irish birth or descent, but open to such other dwellers on the American continent as are friendly to the liberation of Ireland from the domination of England, by every honorable means within our reach, collectively and individually, save and except such means as may be in violation of the constitution and laws under which we live, and to which all of us, who are citizens of the United States, owe our allegiance."

 

An unquestionable right was claimed under the Constitution of the United States to aid with money, or moral or political influence any struggling nation.

 

58 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

Deeming the preservation and success of the Union of supreme importance to the extension of democratic institutions, and to the well being and social elevation of the whole human race ; it was

"Resolved, That we, the Representatives of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, do hereby solemnly declare, without limit or reservation, our entire allegiance, to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America."

All subjects pertaining to partizan American politics and religion were ignored.

The hostile assertions that the Brotherhood was "a ‘Secret Society,’ bound together by an OATH, and, as such, distinctly condemned by the Catholic Church, through certain rescripts thereof leveled against the Freemasons, Carbonari, Odd Fellows and other similar associations, social or political;" were repudiated and denied by resolution --

"That we, the members of this Convention, most distinctly declare and make known to all whom it may concern, but without the slightest disrespect to any of the societies above-named, that the Fenian Brotherhood is not a Secret Society, inasmuch as no pledge of secresy, expressed or implied, is demanded from the candidates for membership thereof; neither is it an oath-bound Society, for no oath whatever is required in order to entitle a man to all the privileges of the association."

The following embraces the objects sought, and the means by which it may be accomplished:

" Resolved, That it is the special duty of the members of the Fenian Brotherhood to strive with all their might, and with their

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 59

whole heart, to create and foster amongst Irishmen everywhere, feelings of fraternal harmony and kindly love of each other, unity of counsel, and a common policy upon the Irish question, with mutual forbearance upon all others, so that their efforts may be unanimously directed towards the common objects of their universal wishes after a common preconcerted plan. Thus will their force become irresistible, guided by one will and one purpose, in one undeviating system of action, and thus will they give shape and life, direction and movement to that love of Ireland, and that hatred of her oppressors, which are the predominant passions of every true Irish heart."

The well-trained Irish-American soldiers were besought to rally round the Organization, and the men in Ireland exhorted to stand by it to the last extremity, nor flee from it to foreign countries. The Irish people were declared to constitute one of the distinct nationalities of the earth. The Irish Republic was acknowledged as virtually established, with James Stephens as its Chief Executive: sympathy with the Poles was expressed and a resolution passed expressing --

''Reverential gratitude and filial respect towards his Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth, for his paternal solicitude in the cause of suffering Poland, up in arms for her liberty, and for the anxious care with which he offers up to Heaven his ardent aspirations for her success, and recommends her brave sons, battling for 'right against might,' to the prayers and support of the Catholic world,"

The direction of the Organization was vested in a Head Centre, elected annually by a General Congress, State Centres, to direct State Organizations, Centres,

60 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

to direct Circle and sub-Centres, for sub-Circles. The Head Centre to be assisted by a Central Council of five, a Central Treasurer, Assistant treasurer, nominated by hint and elected by Congress, and Corresponding and Recording Secretaries.

"In order," said Mr. O'Mahony, "that the Fenian Brotherhood be in reality what your legislation has made it this day-a thoroughly democratic, self governing institution -- it still remains for me to divest myself of the almost absolute authority which, with your assent, I have held for nearly live years, and by so doing to place the government and direction of the Fenian Brotherhood in the guardianship of this General Convention."

The resignation of John O'Mahony was accepted; and he Was immediately, on motion of Mr. Gibbons, of Pennsylvania, unanimously elected Head Centre, under the new Constitution. An address to Ireland was issued b}- this Congress, and messages of fraternity and encouragement received, among others, from General T. I'. Meagher, General M. Corcoran, and Colonel Matthew Murphy, of the Irish Legion.

The transactions of this Congress added great vitality to the Fenian cause. The second National Congress assembled in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 17th of January, 1865. In the, interim the sixty-three branches had grown to be three hundred, while the financial receipts exceeded those of the whole seven years since the Brotherhood had been established.

In addition to this success, Mr. O'Mahony said: "It

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.                 61

is no idle boast to say that the English Government has been influenced in no small degree by the actions of the Fenians here and at home, in abstaining thus long from openly aiding in the dismemberment of our union. Thus, perhaps fortunately for our cause, while working for the liberation of Ireland, we are also serving the best interests of America."

Among the important subjects brought before the Second Congress_ was a lengthy report by Mr. Philip Coyne, of Missouri, Central Envoy to Ireland, of his examination and inspection of revolutionary affairs in Ireland. He reported the masses of the people as desirous for revolution, Mid that the middle class, though hesitating to pass into a career of trial and labor, would in the extremity of a revolutionary outbreak, act boldly with the patriots. The national journal, The Irish People, was recommended for sustainment, for the courage and ability it displayed; and the mode of organization of the I. R. B. was declared to be as nearly perfect as possible, being so arranged as to defy the strongest power or finest subtlety to penetrate it.

On the recommendation of the Head Centre, the Constitution was mended so that the Central Council was enlarged to ten members, with a President chosen by and front themselves. He was to act on occasions for the Head Centre; and the powers of the Council

 

62 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

were materially extended. O'Mahony was unanimously re-elected.

Meanwhile so great a flame could not exist in America without some smoke becoming visible in Ireland. The newspaper reports of the progress of Fenianism in America were regarded as astounding developments, and being reprinted in England and Ireland, excited the anxiety, and enlisted all the resources of the Irish Government to watch and explode the counterpart Revolutionary Brotherhood, on that side of the Atlantic. But the Irish Brotherhood was manipulated with exceeding skill and foresight, and baffled the keenest scent of the authorities, while it spread widely among the people. James Stephens, one of the youthful participators in the '48 rising, had undertaken the organization of Ireland. Certain envoys having been sent to Ireland, from New York, for the purpose of seeing upon what basis a new revolutionary organization could be started in that country, carried letters from O'Mahony to Stephens, who had returned from France. In the early part of 1858, one of these envoys, Mr. Joseph Deniffe, returned to America with a written document from Stephens, showing already a formidable basis for action, and engaging, if lie were sustained with certain funds, to greatly increase the number by harvest time. The Directory of '48 was appealed to in vain by

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 63

 

Meagher; who, if Ire did not actively enter into the' movement afterwards, would never wilfully binder any measure undertaken for Irish liberty. The money, although not amounting to more than two thousand dollars, was raised with difficulty. With the first installment of it, Deniffe was sent back, also carrying with him a Commission for Stephens as Chief Director, signed by Doheny, O'Mahony, and others.

Having enrolled some thirty-five thousand men, Stephens came to America in the fall of I858, to report progress, and solicit more generous subsidies than he had received from America. At a meeting of the friends of Ireland at Tammany Hall, New York, the collection of a fund was inaugurated; and at the request of Stephens, O'Mahony was created Head Centre. The arrest in Ireland at this time of the members of the " Phoenix Society," which showed that some active disloyalty existed there, gave the cause here a much needed impetus, and aided the purposes of Stephens' visit. Attention had been directed to him on the Phoenix trials; and for a couple of years following, during which time lie was in France, the revolutionary party did not seem to make much progress in Ire land. This partly arose from the fact that remittances from America were not of that character to keep it in working order. In December, 1860, Mr. O'Mahony went to Ireland himself, to be personally satisfied

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

on the state of affairs. The most important districts were inspected, and a meeting of certain leaders held in Dublin, at which definite plans were laid down. Stephens returned to Ireland and O'Mahony to America, and the organizations on both sides of the ocean progressed with powerfully effective strides. That Stephens was successful to a degree without parallel in Ireland for half a century, cannot be questioned. With special qualifications as an organizer, he traveled throughout the island under various names and in many disguises, making the personal acquaintance of the people, and was to them for some years an object of wonder, almost of worship. That O'Mahony had also done wonders in organizing the Brotherhood in America and Canada, was attested by the thankful Congress of Chicago, which passed resolutions recording his wisdom, genius, eminent purity and heroic virtues, during the five trying years through which the organization had struggled.

The mystery which baffled the Government in Ireland, and the might which the auxiliary Fenian Society of America, represented, combined to bewilder and exasperate the authorities. At the close of the Civil War many officers of the Irish Brigade, Irish Legion, and other Irish-American commands, which had seen much service, found their way into Ireland. Of' these not a few regarded their preservation in the

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 65

 

great conflicts of the war, as a providential sign that they were destined to lead their countrymen to victory on their native soil. Young men were found drilling, books of drill-instruction were also discovered in suspicious places, and a variety of incidents added to the growing excitement. It was suddenly discovered that the Irish Government was sitting on a mine, that not only Cork and Dublin, and Tipperary, were hot-beds of disloyalty, but that disaffection was rife among the soldiery, and that the conspiracy had extensive ramifications in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and other manufacturing localities over the channel. A reward of £200 was offered for the capture of Stephens, all the transatlantic, steamers were boarded and searched for Irish-American-looking persons, and on the evening of the 15th of September, 1865, the Irish People was seized, and several arrests made, including Thomas Clarke Luby, J. O'Donovan (Rossa), and John O'Leary, the chief conductors of that journal. Numerous arrests in Dublin, Cork and other localities followed, and a state of feeling, recalling the feverish days of '48, but on a much larger scale, was visible throughout the island. Several soldiers were arrested, and the Sergeant-Major of a regiment in Cork, acknowledged his signature to a Fenian roll-book which had been captured. This suggested imminent insecurity, and caused a run on the Cork banks.

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

Bills of Exchange from the Fenian Treasury in New York to the Irish leaders, amounting to no less than £3,000 were intercepted, and arrests of many important local centres continued to be effected.

This intelligence awoke widely-extended sympathy in America ; and after sitting for some days in New York, the Central Council of the Fenian Brotherhood issued a call for a Congress to be held in Philadelphia, on the 16th of October. The deliberations of this assembly were looked to with anxious anticipation. It was very largely attended, and the enthusiasm which had already existed was greatly intensified by the arrival on the 19th, direct from Ireland, of Mr. P. J. Meehan, who had visited it as the accredited envoy of the Brotherhood. His report, which exhibited the accomplishment of a magnificent work, the organization as powerful, the management masterly, and the position solid, was received with exciting demonstrations. The most important measure of the Congress, however, was one changing the Constitution and officers, and drawing not a little ridicule on the organization. The new Constitution created a President, and Secretaries of the Treasury, Military, Naval and Civil Affairs, a Senate, the President of which would be Vice-President of the Brotherhood, a House of Delegates, and all the governmental paraphernalia, in name, of a distinct republic, within the American Republic. Other

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 67

important and depreciating changes were made ; and in a very brief period thereafter the vital differences introduced into the Constitution were augmented by differences between the "President" and the "Senate," which extending, created a disastrous dismemberment of the body of the organization. In a personal way the differences bred distemper, distemper vilification, vilification subterfuge, and subterfuge found sustainment in dishonor, and culminated in hatred. The American public was disgusted, the Irish cause disgraced by the charges and counter-charges which the interested parties too readily rushed into print. The record of these painful conflicts would occupy volumes: I feel humiliated to have to refer to them in a paragraph. It is only necessary here to add that John O'Mahony had been declared the unanimous choice of Senate and Delegates, for President, and was elected ; and that the seceding party, among whom were twelve of the fifteen newly-created Senators, chose William R. Roberts, President of the Senate, as their Chief. The distinctive policy of the circles which followed the latter, developed into an armed expedition into Canada, which was attractive to a large class as offering more immediate excitement. Thus the powerful Fenian organization of America, became divided into what will be known as The Irish Party, and The Canadian Party. Under these exigences, the

68 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

former held a Fourth National Congress, in New York, January 2, 1886. Over four hundred delegates, the largest representation of Fenians that had ever met, assembled, from Australia, the Pacific shores, British Columbia, Canada, and all portions of the United States. The old Constitution was restored, the Senate abolished, the history of the differences reviewed, an address issued, and O'Mahony reinvested with the old office of Head Centre. The proceedings of this Congress were accepted by a Military Convention, which assembled in New York, on the 22d of February, the anniversary of Washington's birth-day, and issued a spirited address signed by eighty-five officers and forty sergeants, nearly every one of whom had seen service.

In the meantime there was no diminution of the excitement in Ireland; and if anything would have united the discordant elements in America, a contemplation of the state of affairs there should have done it. The arrest of Stephens in Ireland was a great triumph for the authorities ; but his defiant course when brought before the magistrates, and his subsequent wonderful escape from jail, soon turned the tables, and gave the victory to Fenianism and the people. Notwithstanding that the Irish Attorney-General, at the close of the Special Commission, which tried the Fenian prisoners, boasted that " every single individual connect-

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 69

 

ed with the Irish People," and every one of mark, indicated in the captured correspondence of Stephens and others, had been, with one or two exceptions, arrested and convicted;* still in the middle of February, 1866, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was deemed necessary to control the wild current of conspiracy which the Government could not otherwise stay.

The debate on this measure, -which took place on the 17th February, was rather brilliant, and as it bears directly on the state of Ireland, some facts elicited in it very fitly fall into a brief narrative of the times. In proposing and advocating the bill, Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, traced the history of Fenianism, from his stand-point, up to the close of the American War, when it took a more threatening aspect. In the papers and proclamations captured, he saw that the desire of the Fenians was the disruption of the connection with England. The capture and conviction of so many of the leaders had not produced any good result.

"For a time," said he, "the Government indulged in that hope, but with the escape of Stephens, which seemed to give them renewed energy, the activity of the conspirators increased.

Shortly after these arrests, bills from America, to the amount of

* Up to the introduction of the bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, thirty six had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to various terms of penal servitude.

70 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

no less than £3,000, addressed to the leaders of the conspiracy who were then in custody, were intercepted by the Government. The Irish People newspaper, which had been suppressed in Dublin, was ostentatiously republished in America, and sent to Ireland for circulation about the country. Of course, wherever that paper has been found containing treasonable articles, it has been seized by order of the Government, and any person found circulating it is subject, no doubt, to a prosecution; but if this paper is brought over, and privately circulated by the agents, who are constantly coming from America, it is impossible for the Government, under the existing power of the law, to prevent it."

 

The Secretary justified the suspension, on the demands made by Lord Wodehouse, the Viceroy of Ireland, whose letters were full of most significant testimony to the power of the Fenian Brotherhood. Writing on the 21st January, 1866, Lord Wodehouse says:

"I hope that the presence of troops in some of the towns may perhaps allay the general alarm. I am, however, by no means confident on this point, and I wish to call the serious attention of the Government to the state of affairs here, which I regret to say becomes daily more unsatisfactory. When the People was seized and the arrests made, the Fenians were for a while stunned by the blow, especially by the arrest of Stephens, but after Stephens' escape their spirits great revived, and their activity was renewed. At the present moment, notwithstanding the perfect success of the Crown at the trials, they are more active than ever. I waited patiently to see would the alarm in the country subside, but the alarm has gone on continually increasing. I am now disposed to try what effect can be produced by proclamations, and by detaching troops to the more remote districts. With this view, we are about to send troops to Tralee and Sligo, and to proclaim the counties of Sligo and Carlow, in accordance with the strongly expressed wishes of the magistrates. Other proclamations will probably be-

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 71

come necessary hereafter. But I do not expect that these measures will be sufficient ; and in common with Mr. Fortescue and the Attorney-General, I have come to the conclusion that we may have to propose to the Cabinet to ask Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. What we have to deal with is a secret revolutionary organization spread over a great part of the country, supported by money from the Irish in America and Great Britian. This organization has its paid agents in most of the towns in Ireland, diligently propagating rebellion and swearing in recruits. I send you a return of men who served in the American war, who are known to the Constabulary as Fenian agents. There are, no doubt, others who escape notice. I have asked for a similar return from the rest of Ireland. These are the men who would take command of the rebels, and there cannot be a more dangerous class. Besides them, we know that there are some hundreds of men in Dublin and elsewhere who have come over from England and Scotland, who receive regular pay, and are waiting for the signal of an outbreak. Now, we see no remedy for this but to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. We should be able to arrest the paid agents of revolution, and to prevent the assemblage in the capital of men sent over specially to take part in a rising. The remedy may appear sharp, but the disease is very serious, and I am convinced will yield to nothing but sharp treatment. Without saying that the moment has actually arrived for so strong a measure as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, I have thought it right to warn the Cabinet that, in my judgment, that moment is not far distant."

He says they have arrested various agents from America, but they are " too wary to carry about with them the evidence necessary to convict them." They usually had "drill-books " and money. On the 4th of February, his Excellency has little hope of pacifying the alarm ; on the 9th, he is in better spirits, looking forward to "the suppression of the conspiracy,

72 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

by the means at his disposal," by "a judicious disposal of the troops at his command ;" but, on the 14th, he finds he has not power enough to do it, and that the only safety of the English interest in Ireland depends on the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. Nothing would save it but " prompt, immediate action." " The state of affairs," he writes, " is very serious. The conspirators, undeterred by the punishment of so many of their leaders, are actively organizing an outbreak, with a view to destroy the Queen's authority." Sir Hugh Rose had detailed to his Excellency various plans of action he had discovered, and also that the American agents were getting plans of detached forts and barracks.

"And he draws no exaggerated picture. There are scattered over the country a number of agents, who are swearing in members, and who are prepared to take the command when the mement arrives. These men are of the most dangerous class. They are Irishmen imbued with American notions, thoroughly reckless, and possessed of considerable military experience, acquired on a field of warfare, (the civil war in America,) admirably adapted to train them for conducting an insurrection here. There are 340 such men known to the police in the provinces, and those known in Dublin amount to about 160, so that in round numbers there are 500-of course there are many more who escape notice. This number is being augmented by fresh men constantly arriving from America. In Dublin itself there are several hundred men (perhaps about 300 or 400) who have come over from England and Scotland, who receive is. 6d. a day, and are waiting for the time of action. Any one may observe these men loitering about at the corners of the streets. (Hear, hear.) As to arms we have

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 73

found no less than three regular manufactories of pikes, bullets and cartridges in Dublin. The police believe that several more exist. Of course, bullets are not made unless they had rifles to put them in. The disaffection of the population in certain counties such as Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Dublin, is alarming, and it is day by day spreading more and more through every part of the country. But the most dangerous feature in the present movement is the attempt to seduce the troops. Are we to allow these agents to go on instilling their poison into our armed force, upon which our security mainly depends ?"

Mr, John Bright would not oppose the bill, but threw the responsibility of its necessity on the evil and unwise legislation of England for Ireland. He did not believe the Secretary overstated the case. On the contrary, he believed that if the majority of the people of Ireland had their will, and could do it, they would remove their island two thousand miles west of England ; that they would, if they could, by conspiracy, insurrection, or constitutional agitation, shake off English domination to-morrow.

"After centuries of English government, after 60 years of government by the Imperial Parliament, we find this people of Ireland engaged in a conspiracy to overthrow the authority of the Crown of Great Britain, and to forcibly separate their country from its connection with England. We are not now discussing a rare and singular occurrence in the history of Ireland. Fenianism is only an aggravated outbreak of an old disorder, for within the memory of the oldest man in this House, Ireland has not been free from chronic disaffection. * * * * Sixty years ago this House undertook to govern Ireland. I will say nothing of the circumstances under which the union of the two countries took place, save that they were disgraceful and corrupt to the last de-

74 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

gree. I will say nothing of the manner in which the promises made to the Irish people were broken."

During this period, in his opinion, but three acts of Irish relief were passed, while

"Complaints of their sufferings have been met often by denial, often by insult, and often by contempt (hear) ; and within the last few years we have heard from this very Treasury Bench observations with regard to Ireland which no friend of Ireland, or of England, and no Minister of the Crown ought ever to have uttered, with regard to that country. (Cheers.) Twice in my Parliamentary life these things have been done-at least by the close of this day they will have been done-that measures of repression, measures of suspension of the civil rights of the people, have been brought into Parliament, and passed with extreme and unusual rapidity. * * * If I go back to the Ministers who have sat on these benches since I have been in the House-Sir Robert Peel first, then Lord John Russell, then Lord Derby, then Lord Aberdeen, then Lord Palmerston, then Lord Derby again, and now Earl Russell-they did not all sit here, and I speak, of course, of their governments, I say with regard to all these men, the dead and the living, there has not been an approach to anything that history will describe as statesmanship in this matter. (Hear, hear.) Coercion Bills in abundance, Arms Bills Session after Session-lamentations like that of the right hon. gentleman, the member for Buckinghamshire to-day, that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act to a certain extent was not made perpetual by a clause which he regrets was repealed-Acts for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, like that which we are now. discussing-all these there have been; but there has been no statesmanship. (Hear, hear.) Why, men the most clumsy and the most brutal can do these things ; but it wants men of higher temper, of higher genius, and I will even add of higher patriotism to deal with the affairs of Ireland."

Recurring to the strong terms in which the Secretary referred to the "unhappy fact" that much of the

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 75

disaffection in Ireland was sent from the United States, Mr. Bright could take no consolation from it. It only added difficulty and gravity to the question ; for if the Irish have settled in America with so strong an hostility to England, "they have had their reasons;" and if, with the feeling of affection for their native country, which in all other cases they "admired and reverenced," the American Irish stirred up the sedition which existed, "depend upon it there is in the condition of Ireland a state of things which greatly favors their attempts." After rating the ministers for lack of statesmanship, in fighting for office, and not considering either their duty to the people or the sovereign, he said

" It is not in human nature-all history teaches this-that men should be content under a system of legislation and of institutions such as exists in Ireland. You may pass this Bill-you may put the Home Secretary's 500 men in gaol, you may suppress conspiracy and put down insurrection, but the moment they are suppressed there will still remain the germs of the malady, and from those germs will grow up, as heretofore, another crop of disaffection, another harvest of misfortunes. (Hear, hear.) And those members of this House-younger it may be than I am-who may be here 18 years hence, may find another Ministry and another Secretary of State proposing to them another administration of the same ever-failing and poisonous medicine."

Although the key-note of Bright's speech was how by good government to make the Irish as loyal as the Scotch and English, yet Mr. Roebuck characterized it

 

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

as meant for mere mischief, as " Irishmen had no grievances to complain of." Mr. Horsman thought Bright's speech "valuable only to the Fenian conspiracy." Mr. Stuart Mill did not blame her Majesty's ministers for the present state of affairs, as they could not be responsible "for the misdeeds and neglect of centuries," but he agreed with Bright that the Bill was cause of shame and humiliation to England. The question then fell into the hands of the Irish members. Mr. John B. Dillon thought that Fenianism was exaggerated, because he was able to defeat its influence at the last general election, but he perfectly well knew on the other hand that whatever power the organization possessed, was derived from the general dissatisfaction of the Irish people, arising out of years of misgovernment. This conviction justified him in opposing the measure introduced by the Government. He briefly replied to Roebuck's sneer that Ireland had no grievance. They excused the necessity of doing justice to Ireland by publishing for years that she was in profound repose and contentment : and when she is not contented, but seditious, they also use that as a reason to withhold beneficial legislation. Dillon, for one, could not aid them in any effort to quell that discontent which, he believed, was caused by a denial of justice. In his opinion, discontent and disaffection were not unmixed evils, as he believed that

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 77

but for discontent in England, there would have been no Reform Bill, and unless Mr. Bright had exerted himself to excite discontent the probability was that we should still have been suffering under the burden of the corn laws.

A Mr. Conolly, believed Ireland was galvanized into rebellion by America, and also that concessions would not lessen the prevailing insubordination. Sir John Gray regarded Bright's speech as calculated to do mischief. He did not want to hear Fenian speeches in the House; and declared the purposes of the Fenians to be the taking of life and property. The O'Donoghue, though not a Fenian, came to their defence and covered Gray with confusion.

"He was convinced, that robbery and murder were not the motives of the organizers of the movement. He attached no weight to that allegation, because he knew that similar charges had been made against all those who at any time had endeavored to bring about a national movement in Ireland. They were made against O'Connell (hear, hear, from Mr. Bright), and they were made-if he might be allowed to say so-against the hon. member for Kilkenny (Sir J. Gray), when he was a distinguished inmate of Richmond Bridewell. (Much laughter.) Statements of that kind were no doubt useful in throwing discredit on the movement, but he maintained that when those statements were without foundation it was discreditable to use them." (Hear, hear.)

Coercion was not what Ireland required. . The O'Donoghue believed it would create a panic and intensify disaffection. He had read in the leading jour-

78 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

nal that the notice of the bill was received with cheers. These came, he said, "from the representatives or deluders of the small Orange party of Ulster, who looked upon it that the greatest blessing the Government could bestow on Ireland would be to suspend the Constitution, not for six months, but for ever." Out of a House of three hundred and seventy members, but six voted against leave to bring in the Bill. Hence it was brought in and put through all its stages within twelve hours. With similar speed it went through the Lords the same day ; the Earl of Derby taking occasion to say he could not admit "that the Fenian conspiracy was entirely due to the closing of the American war, because he knew that in 1859, the Phoenix conspiracy prevailed in Ireland, and had numerous branches in America." The celerity of English legislation, in this instance, in bringing aid to the English interest in Ireland was almost without parallel.*

All of which was an acknowledgment to the world, as plain as words and actions could make it, that the perennial protestations of England to the effect that Ireland was profoundly happy, contented and improving, was a wanton and heartless fabrication to shield

* But two cases of similar promptitude occur in the history of English legis. lation : one when a bill was passed to aid recruiting of land forces when George II announced to Parliament that he had declared war against France, April 3, 1774; and the other on the 9th of May, 1797, to meet the grievances of the sailors of the Royal Navy, which culminated in the " Mutiny of the Nore."

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 79

her continued mis-government of that country. This preaching of Irish prosperity when there is dearth, of contentment when there is discontent, of improvement when there is impoverishment, is a very old subterfuge. Swift strove to combat it. In his day the courtier who wished to be successful, kept the Irish question out of sight, by misrepresenting the state of the country, and alleging it was " in a flourishing condition, the rent and purchase of land every day increasing." "If," says Swift, in 1727, "a gentleman happens to be a little more sincere in his representation, besides being looked on as not well-affected, he is sure to have a dozen contradictors at his elbow.'

In Swift's statement, Mr. Bright could find another illustration of his charge on the wilful apathy of English ministers toward Irish rights, for the case is exactly the same to-day as when the Dean of St. Patrick's wrote his able but short view of the state of Ireland.

 

______________________________________________________

8O FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

CHAPTER III

 

THE INSURRECTION IN IRELAND-AMERICAN SYMPATHY.

Effect of the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus -- The News in America -- Arrival of Stephens in Yew York—O’Mahony retires -- Invasion of Canada -- The Canadian Party disrupt Stephens’ Plans – US Mission a Failure -- Rising in Kerry -- Searching vessels for Fenians -- General Insurrectionary Movements in Ireland -- Proclamation of Provisional Government -- Riots among the Soldiers -- Massey betrays the Movement -- Irish Party in America -- Fifth Congress in New York -- Great Meeting in Union Square -- Letter from Mayor Holfman -- Negotiations for Union -- The Cause in U. S. Congress -- Resolutions of Sympathy reported by Gen. Banks -- Speeches and Vote on it -- The Queen declares Ireland Tranquil and the People Loyal -- Contradicted by Mr. Monsell and Mr. Bright -- Remarkable Speech of Mr. Monsell -- Bright declares that Ireland should not be Tranquil -- Sixth National Congress held in New York -- Mr. Savage elected Chief Executive --Remarks.

 

The suspension of the Habeas Coipus gave the sought-for scope to the English authorities in Ireland. Arrests were made on every side, and prisoners were counted by hundreds. The secret movements of Stephens were continuous sources of excitability, and a Fenian riot in Bradford, Yorkshire, at which the Irish Republic was cheered, and the police severely handled, was not calculated to raise public confidence.

In America, the news begat renewed activity all over the country. Mass meetings in the open air and in the principal public halls were held in New York,

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 81

 

Washington, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, Baltimore, Savannah, Mobile, and many other cities and towns, and a general clamor for action came from all points to the headquarters in New York. The Irish party and the Canadian party still continued to widen the breach between them, and while the latter was preparing to move on Canada, the former made a futile attempt to occupy Campo Bello as a military depot. Soon after this event Mr. Stephens arrived in New York amid great eclat, and O'Mahony withdrew to give his coadjutor a chance to adjust differences. It was thought that Mr. Roberts would yield the control of the Canadian party, as O'Mahony had retired from that of the Irish party, and thus open the way for a union of both under the lead of Stephens. This hope, however, was without foundation; and the former making a move on Canada, and engaging the Canadian troops at Ridgeway, attracted universal attention. Thus becoming the "party of action" for the moment, the Canadian party greatly distracted the Fenian element, and effectually interfered with Stephens' purpose in America.

To counteract the effect of the raid across the St. Lawrence, as well as to keep pace with a demand for action which he had cultivated in the public mind, Stephens made promises, which he was not able to perform. He promised to effect a rising in Ireland,

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

by a stated time, and when that time arrived, relieved himself by another promise. lie deemed this politic, and had the example of perhaps the greatest modern politician, O'Connell, for such a course; but it is to be hoped that the race which a quarter of a century age periodically cheered the announcement that Repeal would be attained "in six months" is extinct. The mission of Stephens to America was a failure ; he finally declined moving in Ireland, and retired into privacy in Paris. His military friends sought to force him to redeem his promises at any and every risk ; and failing in this, took it upon themselves to make the attempt.

On the faith of the promises of a rising, numbers of veteran officers had gone to their different posts in Ireland and England, at the close of 1866 and the beginning of 1867. These were now joined by the military staff of the ex-chief, and the determination of these men to strike a blow was soon illustrated. A Fenian demonstration at the English city of Chester, on the 11th February, produced a tremendous panic in England; but the intentions of the revolutionists were frustrated by Corydon, the informer, who was in the pay of the English authorities from the September previous. Within a couple of days a revolt took place in Kerry, under Colonel John J. O'Connor, and the locality became the scene of great excitement, which

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 83

extended to Cork and Limerick. Military dispositions were speedily effected under one of the "Indian heroes;" but O'Connor, a young veteran of the Irish Brigade, out-manoeuvred him, retreated with his band to the mountains, and completely baffled the troops. On the 15th, the Government stated to Parliament that "Colonel Horsford's force was altogether too small to follow the armed band of Fenians into Toomie's Wood."

The rising in Ireland was to have been simultaneous, but discovering that the plan for the capture of Chester Castle, and the troops in it, had been betrayed ; and concluding, of course, that the Government was prepared at all points, the leaders sent messengers countermanding the revolt. Owing to his remote position, the order failed to reach Colonel O'Connor in time to prevent his action, which thus had the appearance of an isolated movement. In a few days the "outbreak at Killarney" was declared "at an end" by the Indian hero, who thought, probably, that he had ended it : and in a week telegrams everywhere conveyed the blissful news, "Ireland is perfectly tranquil." While the telegraph was busy making news of Ireland's tranquility, the authorities were pursuing another mode of achieving that end, and of contradicting it at the same time. Every vessel arriving at an Irish port was searched by men armed with cutlasses, and expert in

 

84 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

the science of physiognomy. Any one looking like, a rebel was instantly seized, pinioned, and thrown into prison. A couple of days' work will illustrate how tranquil the Government believed Ireland to be.

 

"On the arrival of the Alexandra, thirty-one were seized aboard of her, thirty-six on board the Columbia a few minutes after. Next day forty more were added to the number on their arrival by the Hibernia and Trafalgar, and subsequently the same afternoon twenty-eight more. On Thursday twelve were added to the roll, and several in Drogheda and elsewhere, as they thought to land in the soil of their birth and their fathers."

The tranquility, however, did not last long, even on paper. "Ireland again in rebellion" was the startling news which in detail explained how a simultaneous revolt had taken place in various parts of the island on the 5th of March. The previous announcements gave the intelligence a thrilling effect, and the public mind was wrought to a state of bewildering fermentation by the confirmation of reports showing that an evidently well-designed plan of insurrection had developed itself in three provinces of the kingdom: The leaders controlling the movement promulgated this proclamation simultaneously in Ireland and America

PROCLAMATION.

After seven centuries of outrage and misery unequalled in the history of humanity ; after having seen our laws, our rights, our liberty trodden under foot by the foreigner ; our lands pass from the Irish farmer to the Irish or foreign usurper, and the rightful owners of hundreds of years supplanted by cattle destined to sup-

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 85

 

ply the markets of England; after having seen our skilled workmen driven into exile, our men of thought and action to imprisonment and the scaffold ; having no longer either lands to cultivate, laws or acknowledged rights to invoke ; in a word, having nothing pertaining to man save the faculty of suffering or the determinanation to fight, we cheerfully choose this last resort.

All men have a right to liberty and happiness. Believing that there can be no durable liberty or happiness except upon the basis of free labor, and that there can be no free labor when the means of labor is not free ; considering besides the first means of labor is the soil, and that the Irish soil, instead of being in the hands of the Irish working men, is held by a selfish and despotic oligarchy, we declare it to be our determination to repossess ourselves of that soil by force.

Considering that all men are born with equal natural rights, and that by associating themselves together to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such association should rest upon an equitable basis-such as maintains equality instead of destroying it-we declare that we aim at founding a Republic based upon universal suffrage, securing to all the intrinsic value of their labor.

We declare that we wish absolute liberty of conscience, and the complete separation of Church and State.

The public expenses will be paid by a progressive capitation (labor being free from any impost.)

Calling upon God and mankind to witness the justice of our cause and the intensity of our sufferings, we declare in the face of the world, in order to succeed in reconquering the inalienable rights that all men receive at their birth, we take up arms to combat the dominant oligarchy ; and as its strength dwells in its credit, based upon its property, we will employ to destroy it every means that science, or even despair, shall place within our reach. Wherever the English flag waves over English property it shall be torn down, if it be possible, without fear or truce ; and we swear in the sacred name of our country, by the sufferings of those who now endure the tortures of living tombs for the cause, by the dear and revered names of those who have died for the freedom of Ire-

 

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS. 86

land, by our honor and that of our children that this war shall cease only when the Irish Republic shall be recognized, or when the last man of our race shall lie in his grave.

Republicans of the entire world, our cause is yours! Our enemy is your enemy. Let your hearts be with us. As for you workmen of England, it is not only your hearts that we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by oppressed labor. Remember the past, look well to the future, and avenge yourselves 'by giving liberty to your children in the coming struggle for human freedom!

Herewith we proclaim the Irish Republic!

The IRISH PEOPLE.
(Signed) THE IRISH PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

 

The first report of the insurrection was made by the attack on the barracks in Drogheda. The next was from Castle-Martyr, in Cork, distant two hundred miles ; and these were rapidly followed up by armed displays and conflicts with the Government forces in the counties of Dublin, Limerick, Down, Clare, Wicklow, Waterford, Kildare, Kilkenny, Queen's County, and Tipperary. The wildest rumors agitated society. Nothing was talked of but attacks on barracks, conflicts with the military, midnight manoeuvres, railroads broken up, telegraph wires torn down, Fenian arrests and " Greek fire." Fenianism in the army had created jealousies and bickerings, which found an occasional outlet in the form of a riot : and some of the soldiers who fell in the open conflicts with the Fenians, were

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 87

not all brought to the dust, it would seem, by the peasant jackets.*

Of the several "disturbances" which occurred, both in England and Ireland, among the soldiers, one is especially noteworthy-it being a "serious fight" which took place at Ballincollig Barracks, near Cork, " among the British soldiers stationed there to protect the extensive artillery depot and government powder-mills. The cause of the outbreak was of course Fenianism." The Irish soldiers, assisted by some companies of a Scotch regiment, attacked the English lancer regiment, which had disgraced itself by acts of brutality in Dungarvan, and "the result was that several lives were

* The following remarkable letter was printed in the London Morning Post:

"SIR,-A reprint of a letter which appeared in your journal a few days ago, on the above subject, has just come under my notice, having been copied into a Dublin newspaper. In reply, I would beg your permission to make a few remarks through the medium of your aristocratic, though apparently impartial, journal. The writer of the letter in question seems to have read a one-sided, and ,consequently false, account of the rising of the Brotherhood in defence of their liberty, when he says: `Several of the interesting Fenian Brotherhood have been shot down in armed rebellion against their Sovereign. * * * I hope he (Lord Strathnairn) will shoot many more, and hang and flog the remainder.' Allow me to inform the writer that for every one of our Brotherhood shot, six men of the British soldiers have fallen. Many of these, I know, were shot by their own comrades in skirmish-not accidentally, but because of their perfidy towards the cause of freedom, and their avowed determination to show the Fenians `no quarter.' In a skirmish, in which I had temporary command, I saw no fewer than six of the 6th Carbineers unhorsed by one volley from our ranks, These were taken away in wagons, and nobody has since heard of them. I could cite many instances of a similar kind, if it were necessary. The fact is, sir, the British Government is most careful in keeping all these matters secret, for obvious reasons; but should you publish this letter, the Irish people, or at least such of them as belong to the I. R. P. y, or have made strict inquiries into the facts of the case, will fully corroborate my statements. I am, sir, your obedient servant, A SERGEANT-MAJOR OF THE 19th REGIMENT, IRISH REPUBLIC ARMY."

88 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

lost." All possible efforts were made to keep this secret ; but it leaked out nevertheless, and next day, while the Scotch companies were marching through the city of Cork, they were loudly cheered by the people. This ovation, says the account, was received by the Scotchmen with very evident pleasure.

The infamous Corydon put the authorities on the track of Godfrey Massey, a sort of adjutant-general to Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, who bad direction of affairs in America after the retirement of Stephens. Massey was arrested on the night of the 4th March, at Limerick junction, swooned, woke up in the Castle, and under the influences of a vindictive, cowardly nature, and his wife, betrayed the cause. The Government, in possession of sufficient information to shorten the life of the insurrection, lost no time in putting forth its every appliance for its suppression. The history of the Fenian revolt of '67, cannot now be detailed; but the world has already acknowledged the courage, dignity and devotion brought to its service by such heroic spirits as Peter O'Neill Crowley, Thomas Francis Bourke, and their comrades-some dead, like the former, and others, like the latter, reprieved from the scaffold to suffer a living death in perpetual imprisonment.

The Irish party in America labored earnestly, untiringly, and to a comparative degree, effectively, to

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 89

sustain the patriots in Ireland. The history of the Brotherhood in America, if ever written, will disclose as noble labors and sacrifices, made by men in so-called "humble life," to keep the organization in healthy existence, as ever refreshed the hopes of a struggling people. Immediately after the rising in Kerry, a National Convention (the fifth) was called, and assembled in New York on the 27th February. Affairs were in a great state of disarrangement, consequent on the feelings produced by Mr. Stephens' action. These were adjusted, Mr. Anthony A. Griffin was elected Executive, and measures taken to carry out a beneficial plan of operations in aid of Irish Freedom. These were at once inaugurated, and the cable intelligence of the simultaneous risings of the 5th March already found the Directory at work. On the 10th, an appeal was issued by the Executive imploring harmony among all parties, in view of the fact that England was willing to spend millions of money and sacrifice thousands of lives to subjugate or extirpate our race.

A great open-air mass meeting was held on the evening of March 13th, in Union Square, which, notwithstanding the extreme inclemency of the weather -- a chill rain constantly falling -- was attended by over fifteen thousand persons, who were addressed from three stands. Among the letters of sympathy received, was one from the Honorable the Mayor of the city

 

90 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

of New York, which has more than temporary interest. It reads as follows:

GENTLEMEN: I have received this day your invitation to attend a mass meeting to aid the Irish Revolutionists, now battling for liberty, to be held at Union Square, on to-morrow evening, at halfpast seven o'clock.

I am aware that it is somewhat the custom of public men to approach the Fenian movement with a delicate regard for our neutrality obligations, and of the duties enjoined by the laws of nations. Apart from my sympathy for the cause of Ireland, I may be pardoned if I do not individually entertain any high estimate of Great Britain's claims on us to keep peace within her dominions. When we were struggling for national existence, and the cause of Republican Government was on its great, perhaps, final trial, England gave aid and comfort, the violation of every principle of neutrality, on the side which it believed would work the destruction of our free institutions. Her people gave sympathy, money, ships and men, and munitions of war, to be used against us.

I do not counsel, nor will I countenance, any violation of the laws of our country ; but I do not stand alone in the community in feeling no very keen sense of our national obligation to England, and an indisposition to go out of my way to seek safeguards for her protection.

At all events, I feel no restraint in expressing, as an American citizen, my most ardent sympathy in the struggle which is now taking place in Ireland, and my hope in its ultimate success.

In the earlier days of the Republic, our Government did not stand on ceremony in expressing its sentiments in behalf of struggling nations emerging into freedom. More than forty years ago, when Greece was battling against the domination of the Turk, President Monroe did not hesitate to make their cause a subject of a message to Congress, and to express the "strong hope long entertained, founded on the heroic struggle of the Greeks, that they would succeed in the contest, and reassume their equal station among the nations of the earth;" and later, the Congress of the United States

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 91

did not hesitate to express its sympathy for the fallen fortunes of the Revolutionists of Hungary, and to tender an asylum in this country to Kossuth and his gallant followers.

Should we hesitate to send words of cheer and encouragement, and more substantial aid to the men who are now fighting for the redemption of their native land, because the land is not Hungary, or Poland, or Greece, but Ireland, and the oppressor is not Austria, Russia or Turkey, but England?

To my mind, the ultimate success of the people of Ireland in establishing their rights is a certainty. It is impossible that a nation of men of courage and capacity, firmly united in the determination to be free, can long be held in the chains of servile subjection. Ire

land demands the restitution of its ancient right of self-government; that it shall no longer be under the yoke of a power alien in religion, in feeling, in interests; it demands freedom, equality, and the rights which belong to manhood.

If our Government proves anything, it proves that these demands are just and right, and our history certainly indicates the validity of revolution. But it should be borne in mind that revolutions which do not turn backward are successful revolutions. Unsuccessful revolutions rivet the chains of despotism, and give a longer day to the oppressor. I know not what may be the means of the men in Ireland, or whether this is the fitting opportunity to strike

the blow. To give the onward word of command in such a crisis of destiny to a people, involves the gravest responsibility.

Let us hope that they who are charged with the responsibility, have acted wisely and well, and unite in earnest prayer for an early, successful and happy solution of the troubles of a long-suffering people.

Regretting that the brief time allotted prevents a more elaborate reply, I am, very respectfully,

John T. Hoffman.

The resolutions adopted were of a clear and forcible character, pledging aid to the patriots, declaring it to be the duty of all lovers of free institutions to sustain those who strive to extend the blessings of self-govern-

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

ment to the natives of every land; and concluding by most earnestly calling "upon every section and clasp of our Irish-born fellow-citizens, to lay aside all partisan strife and personal animosities at this momentous crisis of their country's fate, and to unite together, and rally as one man to the support of their brave countrymen, now battling for their National Independence."

Negotiations were undertaken to effect a union with the leaders of the Canadian party at this time, but without success ; and the Irish party bent itself with redoubled zeal and energy to attract public sympathy and aid to the noble cause it represented. The subject of Irish liberty having been brought to the attention of the United States Congress, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, presented a resolution on the 27th of March, which though not as bold and broad as the services of the Irish, and the baseness of England to this republic during the war would warrant, is nevertheless of historical import, as putting on record a fact to which England will not lovingly refer. The resolution, moreover, received sufficient opposition to more emphatically distinguish the remarkable unanimity by which it was adopted. The interesting proceedings are thus condensed

Mr. Banks -- I am instructed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs to report the following resolution:

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 93

Resolved, That this House extend its sympathy to the people of Ireland and of Candid in all their just efforts to maintain the independence of States, to elevate the people, and to extend and .perpetuate the principles of liberty.

Mr. Banks. -- I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Robinson).

Mr. Robinson. -- I do not intend at this time to make any lengthy remarks, and yet I desire to make some observations rather than let this resolution pass in silence. I presume I may say, without any disrespect to the chairman of the committee, or to the other members of the committee, or without referring to anything that may have occurred in the committee, that I should have preferred a much more decided expression of sympathy than this. But such as it is, I trust it will pass as the beginning of good things. Before this Congress expires I hope to have the privilege of introducing a resolution not only of sympathy, but acknowledging the belligerent rights and independence of Ireland. I throw this out in no spirit of bravado. I believe the independence of Ireland will come. I believe that the train of circumstances now in operation will bring about that result.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again."

Nor can England take any exception to our interfering in this matter. She has no more business with Ireland than we have -- She has no right, title or claim whatever in that country except that which had its origin in fraud and force. She took possession of Ireland by force and fraud, and she has made that country through seven centuries of oppression a howling wilderness. She has inflicted wrongs upon that people which no other nation under the sun has suffered from another. In conversation with the Chaplain of the House to-day reference was made to the parable of the good Samaritan. Sir, I maintain that we have the same authority to interfere that the good Samaritan had, when he saw a stranger by the wayside, who had fallen among thieves, and lay beaten and bruised. There is hardly a government in Europe that does not interfere with the affairs of other countries. Emperors and kings are all the time making new maps of Europe, and running new

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

boundaries of kingdoms and empires. I may be asked what are Ireland's chances of success? Her chances for success are greater than any other people ever had who have achieved their independence. They are all rebels in Ireland. There is not to-day an honest Irishman upon the face of the earth who is not a rebel against British rule in Ireland.

The sympathies of all the world are with Ireland, while England has the sympathy of no human being except its office-holders and garrisons. It is something to have the sympathy of mankind with you against your oppressors. Now, we are told that Ireland cannot govern herself. That statement is not true ; Ireland can govern herself. Irish intellect to-day governs the world; Irish intellect is good enough to govern England. Even the poorer sort of Irishmen, like the late Duke of Wellington, proves good enough for that business. Irish intellect to-day is uppermost in all the transactions of England. She rules in her Parliament ; she directs her press ; she commands her armies ; she fights her battles. Why may she not do so herself? Ireland to-day has more disciplined men than any nation in the world, men who have learned the use of arms, who have smelled gunpowder ; they are all over the world, in every clime, in every land. Irish valor has bloomed into glory upon every battle-field of this and other countries. In these United States, upon this very floor, may be found Irishmen of the second generation, whose deeds I need not recount, as they are on everybody's lips, and are a part of the history of this country. Look through the history of the late war, and see how many of the generals, and, above all, of the private soldiers, were Irish by birth or blood.

To-day Ireland can raise the strongest army the world ever saw. Her sons have been disciplined in the British army, in the army of this country, and of every country in the world. She has more men now scattered throughout the world ready to come to her assistance than would, under equal advantages, conquer twenty Englands if they stood in her way. I know the great difficulty is in gaining the first success. But other countries have achieved their independence without the strength that is behind this movement, and some time, in God's own time, Ireland will be able to take that

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 95

first step in her forward movement, and then there will be no holding her back. The first step gained everything else is easy.

If there were no other reason for our interference in behalf of Ireland, we have it in the fact that to-day no American citizen is safe upon the soil of Great Britain or in Ireland. Instead of the name of an American citizen being, as it should be, a badge of honor, a guarantee of personal security, it is, in Great Britain today, treated with more indignity than that of the citizen or subject of any other country. Two or three days ago, I received the information from an American citizen, in Liverpool, that, without any evidence to justify even a suspicion that he was implicated in any crime against the Government of Great Britain, he was arrested and dragged to jail, where, without even the form of trial, he was stripped of his citizen's clothes, dressed in the garb of a convict, and set to work to scrub the floors of the prison. If this is the treatment received by American citizens from the present Government of Ireland, may we not be pardoned for sympathizing with a movement which promises better treatment to our citizens under better rulers.

Mr. Banks. -- Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Pile) three minutes.

Mr. Pile here offered some verbal changes.

Mr. Banks. -- Mr. Speaker, it is the principle of monarchical governments that once being States their continued existence as such must be recognized. That is the universal principle on which such governments are administered. We claim the same for republican governments. Ireland had once a government of her own. That government has been displaced by the English Government. If they are contending against the English rule, they are contending to maintain the principle of the independence of States, and thereby I cannot accept the modification proposed by the gentleman.

Mr. Washburn, of Wisconsin. -- I move the following amendment:

Resolved further, That in sympathizing with the people of Ireland, we deem it proper to declare that the present Fenian movement must prove entirely abortive in bringing relief to that country, and that any encouragement to that movement by resolution,

 

96 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

unaccompanied by force, can only result in involving the brave, enthusiastic, and patriotic Irishmen in difficulties from which their brethren are powerless to extricate them.

Mr. Banks.-I hope that amendment will not be adopted. I demand the previous question.

The previous question was seconded, and the main question ordered.

Mr. Banks.-I am entitled to an hour to close the debate. In reference to the amendment, I have only to say this : it was considered in committee, and it was not deemed advisable to present it to the House.

Mr. Wood. -- Mr. Speaker, the amendment is virtually a nullification of the resolution itself. The country well knows as the House knows that the present agitation in Ireland looks to the establishment of free government in that island, as the result of this same Fenian movement. We all know it is this Fenian movement that has effected military organization in Ireland, and that every rebel in arms in Ireland, and all the preparatory arrangements looking to the establishment of an independent government in Ireland, have been promoted, if not originally prompted, by this Fenian movement. It may be true that it will cost lives, aye of hundreds and thousands of men in the prosecution of the Fenian movement. All revolutions cost blood before they become successful. In our own revolutionary war oceans of blood were spilled before we were able to establish our independence of the mother country. Therefore, when we say by this resolution we sympathize with the people of Ireland, in their present struggle, we say well and properly, but when we succeed it by saying that we are against the Fenian movement, we nullify the resolution reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs. I call for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. Eldridge -- I ask the gentleman to yield to me for a moment ?

Mr Banks. -- Certainly, sir.

Mr. Eldridge. -- I hope the amendment submitted to the resolution reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, will not be adopted. I look upon it, as does the gentlemen from New York,

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 97

 

as an evasion or nullification of the original resolution. It seems to me that it is idle for us to express sympathy with the cause of Ireland and at the same time deprecate every measure which the people of Ireland take for their alleviation. It is worse than mockery to tell them in their degradation and suffering that we sympathize with them, and yet advise against every effort they make to throw off the oppression which weighs upon them. It is not for me to determine at the outset that the effort they are making through the Fenian organization may not result to their good. Ireland's nationally is a cause worthy of Irishmen. What shall be done to achieve it is for them to judge, Submission and inaction will certainly not save them. It may seem a desperate struggle, but who can say that the liberties of that brave and generous people are not worth all their efforts? Who of us can determine what may or may not be accomplished? If their cause be just, and our sympathies with them, in the name of God, in the name of liberty, let us not disparage any effort or discourage any enterprise which to them may betoken success. Any blow which the oppressed may aim at the oppressor to regain his rights and liberty has my heart's best prayer for its success.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question was taken, and it was decided in the negative -- yeas 10, nays 102; not voting, 52,*

* The following is the vote;

, Gravely, Griswold, Haight, Hamilton, Hill, Holman, Hooper, Hopkins, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Hulburd, Humphrey, Hunter, Ingersoll, Judd, Kerr, Ketcham, Kitchen, Koontz, Laflin, William Lawrence, Lincoln, Loan, Logan, Mallory, Marshall, Marvin, McCarthy, McClurg, Mercur, Miller, Moore, Morrissey, Mungen, Myers, Newcomb, Niblack, O'Neil, Orth, Perham, Pile, Plants, Polsley, Robertson, Robinson, RossYeas -- Messrs. Blair, Broomall, Farnsworth, Finney, Merrell, Noell, Peters, Cadwalader C. Washburn, Thomas Williams, and Windom -- 10.

Nays -- Messrs. Allison, Anderson, Archer, Delos R. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barnes, Benton, Bingham, Boutwell, Boyer, Brooks, Buckland, Butler. Cake, Chanler, Churchill, Sidney Clarke, Coburn, Cook, Cornell, Cullom, Denison, Donnelly, Driggs, Eckley, Ela, Eldridge, Ferries, Ferry, Fields, Getz, Glossbrenner, Schenck, Selye, Shanks, Sitgreaves, Smith, Stewart, Taber, Taffe, Taylor, Trowbridge, Twitchell, Upson, Van Auken, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Van Trump, Ward, Henry D. Washburn, John T. Wilson, Stephen F, Wilson, Wood and Woodbridge -- 102.

98 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS

So the amendment was rejected.

The question recurred on agreeing to the resolution, and it was adopted.

As these pages are going through the press some documents of peculiar interest reach us ; one is a debate in the House of Commons on the state of Ireland ; another is a speech made by John Bright, in Birmingham, and a third is the Queen's speech, read by commission, on the proroguing of the imperial Parliament on the 21st of August. Every one read the Queen's speech which came by cable. Very few read the other documents which came by mail. As the two latter very flatly and authoritatively contradict the former, and moreover, throw great illumination on the speech from the throne, I shall have to place them in juxtaposition for the benefit of American readers especially for Americans who are in the dark on the subject of Ireland, and who chiefly seek to be enlightened from such sources as republications from the "leading English journal." In announcing that "the treasonable conspiracy in Ireland has proved futile," the Queen compliments the valor of the troops, the activity of the police, and " the general loyalty of the people." The general loyalty of the Irish people is a sentiment of similar import to the announcement s o constantly made that " Ireland is tranquil," or "improving," or "happy and contented."

The debate on the Irish question elicited a variety

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 99

of opinions and facts discussing the land, the educational, and the church questions as relating to Ireland. None of the speeches were intended to present a Fenian aspect, but all more or less were based upon the facts of which Fenianism is the honest and fearless exponent. The best speech of the occasion was made by Mr. Monsell, an Irish landlord and a loyalist ; but one who, upon the word of Father Lavelle, is " a deep thinker, a man of great uniform action and princely fortune." His position adds immeasurably to the force of his words, which, coming from any honest man, irrefutable as they are, should meet the attention of every American thinker and publicist

"Never in the memory of any living man was there such deep-rooted disaffection as there was now (hear, hear). Never were the minds of the people so alienated from the Government under which they lived (hear, hear). They were indifferent to the action of Parliament. Their eyes were turned not to Westminster, but to Washington. That disaffection prevails among the lower classes no one would deny, but it goes up much higher in the social scale. I do not refer to actual Fenianism, but to that feeling of actual hostility to Great Britain which is from day to day becoming more intense. I have made inquiries on that subject which satisfy me that this pervades the firming classes. It pervades the vast majority of those who pay less than £100 a year rent. Many of the younger members of the families of even larger farmers share it. The shopkeepers in the smaller towns, and many of the smaller shopkeepers in large towns, arc in ardent sympathy with it. What is the newspaper that is waited for with the greatest interest? The Irishman, Which is full of unmitigated treason. If you want to get a frame for a picture, you find the framers and gilders overwhelmed with de-

100 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

mands for frames for General Bourke's portrait. You see placards in the streets of the large Irish towns advertising `Voices from the Dock,' in other words, pamphlets containing speeches delivered by the Fenian prisoners at their trials. Only the other clay, at Dungarvan, many of the respectable people showed the direction of their sympathies, by providing champagne and every delicacy of the season for some American Fenians arrested there. At Waterford, not long ago, the mass of the people in one part of the town hurried out at short notice, to rescue some Fenian prisoners who were marching through the town (hear, hear). These were the sort of things which were taking place every day in the South of Ireland, and which demanded the most serious consideration of this house and of the Government. Has any cabinet ever devoted to that consideration one-tenth part of the time it bestowed upon the compound house-holder? Is any verification of the truth of my description asked for ? Look across the ocean –

‘Coelum non animas mutant qui Trans mare currunt.'

Does not every Irishman who lands in America at once become a Fenian? Does the voyage change his opinions? Is it not manifest that there he only professes openly the political creed he may have concealed at home. Here, then, is the result of six hundred years connection between England and Ireland-military occupation--suspended liberties-universal discontent, and a new Irish nation on the other side of the Atlantic, recast in the mould of democracy, and watching for an opportunity to strike a blow at the very heart of this empire. Now, let me ask what is the cause of this disastrous combination? Is it destiny! Is it a wayward fate? Must we fold our hands in despair? Are we powerless in this . emergency ? Is it impossible for two distinct races, such as the English and the Irish, to be cordially united in feeling? Look at Alsace (hear, hear, hear). There you have a population of German race-speaking the German language, separated only by a river from the rest of the German race ; and yet the inhabitants of Alsace are as thoroughly French in feeling as the inhabitants of Touraine (hear, hear), and woe to the German who endeavored to tamper with their allegiance. Well, then, if race is not the obstacle

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 101

to concord, is it religion? Look at Silesia -- in 1742, Silesia was taken from Austria and annexed to Prussia. From that day to this, Catholic Silesia has expressed by word and deed nothing but thankfulness for the transfer it underwent, and, as was shown in the war last year, no part of the Prussian dominions contains a population more devoted to the house of Hohenzollern than the Silesians are (hear, hear). Look again at Canada-look at the Canadians of French origin. All history teaches the same lesson, justice and equality have a binding force which nothing can destroy. But, sir, let me ask is it not the most natural course to go to the Irish people themselves, and find out from them what is the cause of their disaffection? (hear, hear). You will find that they all will give the same reason. I am going to repeat that my honorable friends who come from Ireland have heard usque ad nauseam. The people of Ireland say that they are not governed according to their own wishes or feelings or requirements, but according to the wishes or prejudices of the people of England (hear, hear). They say they have no effectual control over their Government, which is controlled by England, and that measures admittedly just and suited to Ireland, are abandoned because the Government of the day is obliged to conform its measures, even those that regard Ireland alone, to the views, often ignorant, and to the narrowest prejudices of the people of Great Britain (cheers). I do not say whether this view is right or wrong; but I can vouch for its being the opinion, nay the conviction, not only of the peasantry but of the middle and farming classes in the greater part of Ireland (no, no). I do not know who says ' No, no.' It must be some one not very well acquainted with Ireland. I see now who it is. It is the right honorable gentleman the Attorney-General for Ireland. The other day that learned gentleman said that the people of Ireland were not at all discontented (hear, hear). No authority can be attached to the opinion of a gentleman who made such a statement (hear, hear). I think it quite unnecessary, therefore, to refute his present contradiction (cheers). What the people of Ireland, then, ask, is to be governed according to their own requirements, just as the English and Scotch are according to the requirements of their respective countries (hear, hear). And they point to the re-

102 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

markable instances in confirmation of the view that Irish interests are sacrificed to English opinion. They take the land question, an old grievance; for more than two hundred years ago Sir John Davies said, `No care is taken of the inferior people. Tenants at will, by reason of the uncertainty of their estates, did utterly neglect to improve the land.' They say that Parliament recognized this grievance twenty-two years ago-that it deliberately admitted that the Irish law of landlord and tenant was not adapted to the wants of that country (hear, hear), and yet, in spite of eloquent speeches and the exertions of eminent statesmen, nothing had been done to redress the grievance (cheers). Over forty bills have been introduced-not one that touches the admitted grievance has been passed (hear, hear). They ask-not, I think, unnaturally-would an English or a Scotch grievance have been so dealt with (hear, hear) ? Next they turn to the question of the Irish Church (cheers). For a longer period even than twenty-two years, ever since 1834, the most eminent orators and statesmen have declared that no grievance like it exists or ever has existed in the world (hear, hear). Nowhere else, as Macaulay, Brougham, Lord Grey, C. Buller, a whole army of distinguished men have proclaimed, are the funds destined for the spiritual wants of a whole people appropriated to the wants of a small minority (cheers) ? But eloquence, and reason, and authority, and logic, have been powerless against prejudice -- orators and statesmen have passed away, and the Irish Church remains. Would, the Irish people demands, such an anomaly have been tolerated in England or in Scotland (cheers)? Do you wonder, then, that the Irish people complain that they are governed according to the feelings and prejudices of the people of England, rather than according to their own requirements (cheers) ? Do you wonder that they resent the deprivation of that which Guizot, in his last volume, declares to be the end of representative government, viz: that a people should have a constant direction and effectual control in their own government; that they should be ruled, not according to the abstract principles of statesmen who do not know their condition, but according to the peculiar wants generated by their own special circumstances. If you mean to satisfy them, then, you must give them what they reasonably and justly

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 103

ask for, not what those at a distance think suitable for them (cheers). Let them be the judges in their own concerns. It is, believe me, perfectly idle to attempt to change the condition-the perilous and

menacing condition of Ireland-unless you strive to gain the hearts of the Irish people (cheers). These hearts you can never gain unless you remove the impression that English policy, not justice, rule your deliberations (cheers). No advancement in national prosperity-no improvement in the material condition of the people will do anything so long as that policy of injustice rankles in the minds of the people (cheers). Indeed, the more educated they become, the more they are able to compare their lot with that of the inhabitants of other countries, the more acutely they must feel their own wrongs."

Mr. Monsell was led into this bold picture of the state of Ireland, by a desire to make the Government hold out some inducement for those not Fenians to become loyal. "Make those," said he, imploring the Ministers, "that are not Fenians loyal, and you need not trouble your heads about the Fenians." What an admission by an honest landlord who does not advise coercion but concession ; not the rule of rage, but redress. The Fenians are dis-loyal: Mr. Monsell says the mass of people not Fenians are not loyal; in other words the vast majority of the people in Ireland, Fenians or not Fenians, are opposed from their heart of hearts to the English Government. How does this estimate of the people agree with the Queen's announcement of the general loyalty of " her Irish subjects." Assuredly the self-delusive congratulation in

 

104 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

the Queen's speech cannot stand before the powerful truths in Mr. Monsell's statement.

"Ireland tranquil ;" the "conspiracy futile;" the people " loyal!" Hear how John Bright, at Birmingham, addressing the majesty of the people contradicts the "Majesty of England," on Ireland and the Irish

"Will you let me tell you that Ireland was once an independent kingdom-that within the life-time of many here it had an independent Parliament-that at this moment, united with Great Britain, it requires about forty thousand men -- soldiers and military police-to keep the country quiet, and to prevent insurrection, and, it may be, revolution ? (Cries of shame.)"

Impossible! forty thousand troops to keep the tranquil, loyal Irish quiet. If they are so quiet with forty thousand soldiers amongst them what would such loyal people be without them. It is plain that her Majesty's idea of loyalty and Mr. Bright's are not exactly the same. The latter continues:

"What right have you to hold in subjection, by forty thousand troops, paid out of your taxes, a people-(loud applause)-who dislike your government, and who believe that you have not done them justice I (Rear, hear, and cheers.) I hear a talk-it is old phraseology-it was common here about seventy or eighty years ago-about our sacred institutions in Church and State (derisive laughter). Does any man tell me that the Christian religion, or that the Protestant portion of the professors of that religion, have any interest in the maintenance of a Protestant Church, comprising but a handful of the population, in the midst of a great Catholic nation? -(loud cries of no)-and a Protestant Church, compris-

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 105

 

ing not more than one-eighth or one-ninth of the population, absorbing the whole ecclesiastical property of the whole kingdom. (Cries of shame.) I have discussed this matter before in this hall, (hear, bear). I have asked you if you were to endeavor to set up such an abomination north of the Tweed, what would happen to Scotland? Tranquility? Constant union with England? No; but exactly what you have in Ireland, only fought out by a people infinitely more united than are the people of Ireland. And if anybody were to attempt to set up in England what England has set up in Ireland, England would be in a condition of perpetual anarchy and constant revolt, (hear, hear)."

 

Mr. Bright's idea of a tranquil nation differs as much from that in the Queen's speech, as their estimates of what makes a loyal man. Moreover, the English Reform orator shows why there ought not to be tranquility quite as forcibly as the Irish landlord shows there is none. American journalists should note these facts and be prepared to expect a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as an echo to Irish "tranquility;" an attack on a barracks to be hidden behind every official glorification of "content" in "poor Ireland," and to be morally certain that the jails are overflowing when Ireland is complimented on her " loyalty."

While the Queen's speech was being read, and the British Parliament prorogued in London, on the 21st of August, the Sixth National Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood was assembling in New York. Delegates representing the States of Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,

106 FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

Ohio, Maryland, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Virginia, Michigan, Kansas, Iowa, Washington, D. C., New York City and District of Manhattan, Long Island, and Counties and Towns of the State of New York, and Canada, took their seats.

The administration of the affairs of the Brotherhood since the last Congress was submitted and approved. The great object of the Assembly was to consult on some means of reconstruction to meet the altered aspect of circumstances in Ireland. To this end the Constitution was slightly amended, and Mr. John Savage elected Chief Executive. On the next day, the 25th, Mr. Savage attended the Congress. The following is from the official report:

Mr. SAVAGE briefly addressed the Convention. After explaining why he was unable to accept the invitation of the Convention, and be present at its sittings (in consequence of severe illness which scarcely permitted his presence for a brief period to-day), Mr. Savage thanked the Convention for the high honor it had paid him in unanimously electing him to the office of Chief Executive of the Fenian Brotherhood, and said

"Many of you are aware that I have for months persistently refused to allow my name to be brought forward in this connection. As far back as the last Congress or Convention, I declined the proposition. If I consulted my own desire, I would decline it now. My habits are at variance with those of what is called an 'Irish politician,' a character with which I have no desire to be confounded. My habits are those of a student and literary man ; and I have been induced to accept this office on the urgent representation of good men, personally and by letter-men who, speaking for localities thousands of miles apart, have expressed the same request,

 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 107

based upon the same hope. They have been pleased to say that possibly through me a union of discordant parties might be effected, and placed the matter in such a light as compelled me to this course as a duty."

Mr. Savage spoke of the deep love of country which lay in the centre of every Irishman's heart, and which needed only mutual respect among themselves, and a proper incentive to be made an effective power. Without a knowledge of details, the movements of the year were deemed failures. The world judges causes by results-measures the character of attempts by their issues, but time, to use a journalistic simile, was a careful proof-reader, a sedulous emendator, and revised the erroneous impressions left by contemporaneous judgments, often proving -what it will again prove-that failures are but the openings to success.

Mr. Savage excused himself on account of the state of his health, from speaking at length, but, in conclusion said he would invoke Almighty God-the God of the sorrowful and oppressed, as well as the God of the free, to illumine his brain with the fire of wisdom, and cleanse his heart with the fire of truth, so that thus purified and strengthened, he might be gifted with honesty, sagacity and courage, to unite the scattered elements of the race, and fervently labor to guide them to a beneficial result.

Such is, in substance, an historical epitome of Irish wrongs for centuries; and of the efforts made, especially within the last three-quarters of a century, and even unto this date, by Irishmen, at home and abroad, to establish Irish rights in Ireland.

J. S. .[John Savage]
FORDHAM, 26th August, 1867.

 

[Page 108 is a blank page in the original -mr]

THE ANCIENT FENIANS. 109

THE ANCIENT FENIANS.

 

The Fenians -- Who Were They -- Their Duties, Manners and Customs -- The Ossianic Society

SINCE the Fenian Brotherhood have become famous, a power on the earth, and a terror to English ministers and excited Parliamentarians, there have been many speculations as to the origin, meaning and appropriateness of the designation -- Fenian. Some of these conjectures were very far-fetched, others ridiculous, and none correct. That tracing the name of the Brotherhood to the Phoenicians who calve to Ireland in the remote ages, was the only one approaching rationality.

The era of the Fiann (Feean), that is the Fenian period, was one the most romantic and glorious in the records of ancient Ireland, and an account of the Fenian Brotherhood who then made it so, collated from the most reliable authorities at hand, will doubtless be interesting in itself, as well as furnishing the origin of the designation now so widely recognized as synonymous with Irish liberty.*

 

* The authorities freely used in the compilation of this chapter, are Dr. John O'Donovan's Translation of the Annals of the Four Masters. 7 vols; Owen Connellan's Translation of these Annals, with annotations, by Philip MacDer

mott, M. D., 1 vol., 4to ; Moore's Ireland ; O'Mahony's Translation of Keating, N.Y., 1866, and the various references made by all.

110          FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

 

The Fenians, called by the Irish writers Fianna Eirionn (the Fenians of Ireland), are mentioned in the Four Masters, under the title of Fene, or Fein, which according to Doctor O'Conor, signifies the Phoenicians of Ireland, and they were probably called so, says McDermott, from the tradition that the Phoenicians came to Ireland in the early ages. Their mode of life would seem to give some warrant to the conjec­ture that the name was as likely to come from Fiadhach (Feeagh), a hunt, and to mean an order of hunters. Thus the German Light Cavalry Corps, Jagers, means hunters. The Fenians seem to have done nothing but hunt and fight.*

The most widely accepted explanation of the name is that 'the Fianna Eirionn, were called after Finn MacCumhal their great leader. This Finn is the hero of MacPherson's Ossian, and is there called Fingal. "It has been time fate of this popular hero," says Moore, "after a long course of traditional renown in his country, where his name still lives, not only in legends and songs, but yet in the most indelible scenery connected with his memory, to have been all at once transferred, by adoption, to another country (Scotland), and start under a new but false shape, in a fresh career of fame."

Dr. O'Donovan says, " This celebrated warrior, who had two grand residences in Leinster, one at Almhaim, now the hill of Allen, and the other at Magh Elle, now Moyelly, in the King's County, was son-in-law of King Cormac, and General of his standing army,

* See O'Mahony's Keating, notes to preface.

THE ANCIENT FENIANS                            111

which, as Pinkerton remarks, seems to have been in imitation of the Roman Legion. The words of this critical writer are worth quoting here : ‘He seems, says he, ‘to have been a man of great talents for the age, and of celebrity in arms. His formation of a regular standing army, trained to war, in which all the Irish accounts agree, seems to have a rude imitation of the Roman Legion in Britain. The idea, though sim­ple enough, shows prudence ; for such a force alone could have coped with the Romans had they invaded Ireland. But this machine, which surprised a rude age, and seems the basis of all Finn's fame, like some other great schemes, only lived with its author, and expired soon after him.’ ”* Finn, however, was not the founder, but the great disciplinarian and most re­nowned leader of the body.

The traditional repute of Finn and his Fenians was undoubtedly great, for, as O'Donovan suggests, their achievements were handed down, vividly remember­ed, and enthusiastically recounted, while their imi­tators, the Kerns and Galloglasses of later ages, are nearly forgotten.

The Fenians were the standing military force, the national militia, instituted in the early ages long be­fore the Christian era, but brought to the greatest perfection in the reign of the celebrated Cormac, Monarch of Ireland, in the third century. They were in regular and constant pay, and their duty similar to that of any modern standing army. They had to defend the country against foreign or domestic enemies, to

* Pinkerton's Inquiry into the History of Scotland.

112                  FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

support the rights and succession of the chief monarch,and to be ready at the shortest notice, to meet any sur­prise or state emergency. They guarded tine sea coasts, having strict eye upon the creeks and havens of the island, lest any pirates should be lurking there to prey upon the inhabitants, and plunder the country. They were to support the crown, defend the country, and secure the liberty and property of the people.

In the winter time, that is from Samhain (All-Ilallow-tide) to Beltani, (May) these troops were quartered upon the people, and the rest of the year they lived out of doors, being permitted to hunt and fish and pro­vide for themselves. They received pay during the winter season, and for wages during the hunting season, the skins of the animals they caught, which brought a good price. By this admirable arrangement the troops were always kept in a state of athletic activity, and was a self-sustaining establishment daring the greater part of the year. The hunting and fishing was not permitted to interfere with other duties, as they were enforced to perform their military exercises, and to be under discipline. The officers were enjoined not to oppress, but to defend the inhabitants from the in­ roads of thieves and robbers, and to promote the peace and happiness of the people. It was their duty to quell all riots and insurrections, to raise fines, secure forfeited estates for the use of the monarch, enquire into and suppress at the beginning all seditious, and to appear in arms whenever the State required. The account of the habits of the Fenians during the hunting season, as well as the qualifications necessary  

THE ANCIENT FENIANS 113

  to gain admittance into so distinguished a body, are mainly condensed or adopted from Keating. The method of dressing their meat was very particular ; when they had success in hunting, it was their custom in the forenoon to send their attendants, with what they had killed, to a proper place, where there was plenty of wood and water. There they kindled great fires, into which they threw a number of large stones, where they remained until they were red hot. Then they applied themselves to dig two great pits in the earth, into one of which, upon the bottom, they used to lay some of these hot stones as a pavement, upon which they would place the raw flesh, bound up hard in green sedge or bull-rushes; over these bundles was fixed another layer of hot stones, then a quantity of flesh, and this method was observed until the pit was full. In this manner the meat was stewed till it was fit to eat, and then they uncovered it; and, when the hole was emptied, they began their meal. This Irish militia, it must be observed, never eat but once in twenty-tour hours, and their meal-time was always in the evening. When they had a mind to alter their diet, instead of. stewing their meat, as described, they would roast it before these fires, and make it palatable and wholesome.

As an undisputed evidence of these fires, the marks of them continue deep in the earth, in many places of the island, to this day; for they were very large, and burned exceeding fierce, and the impression they left is now to be met with many feet deep in the ground. When any husbandman in Ireland turns up with his

114            FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

plough any black burnt earth, he immediately knows the occasion of it; and the soil of that color is known, with great propriety, by the name of Fulacht Fian, the cooking places or kitchens of the Fenians, to this time.

When the Irish militia came to these fires to dress their meat, before they went to eat they would strip themselves to their shirts, which they modestly tied about their middles, and go into the other pit dug in the ground, which was very large and filled with water. Here they would wash their heads and necks, and other parts of their bodies, till they had cleansed themselves from the sweat and dust occasioned by their hunting; and this custom was very wholesome and refreshing, for they would rub their limbs and their joints, till they had forgot all their fatigue, and became as sprightly and active as when they began their sport in the morn­ing: when they were perfectly clean, they would put on their clothes, and begin their meal.

After they had eaten they would apply themselves to build huts and tents, where they made their beds, and designed to repose themselves for the following night. These beds were composed and laid out with great exactness. They cut down branches trees, which they placed next the ground; upon these was laid a quantity of dry moss, and upon the top of all was strewed a bundle of green rushes, which made a very commodious lodging. These beds, in the ancient manuscripts, are called Tri cuilceadha na feine ; which, in English, signifies the three beddings of the Fenians.

The constant number of these standing forces, that were quartered upon the kingdom of Ireland, was three

 

THE ANCIENT FENIANS.      115

battalions, each battalion consisting of 3,000 able men. But this was the establishment only in time of peace,when there were no disturbances at home, or fear of any invasions from abroad. When the force was com plete, it consisted of seven Catha, that is, battalions or legions, making, according to O'Halloran and other historians, 21,000 men for each of the five provinces; or about 100,000 in time of war, for the whole country.

Finn, the commander-in-chief of the Irish militia, had several inferior officers, who, in their degrees, exercised an authority under him, by his commission. Every battalion or legion was commanded by a colonel; every hundred men were under the conduct of a cap­tain ; an officer, in the nature of a lieutenant, had fifty under him ; and a sergeant, resembling the Decurio of the Romans, was set over five-and-twenty; but when a hundred of these militia were drawn out, by ten in a rank, there was an officer appointed from that ten over the other nine.

Every soldier that was received into the militia of Ireland by Finn, was obliged, before he was enrolled, to subscribe to the following articles : the first, that, when he is disposed to marry, lie would not follow the mercenary custom of insisting upon a portion with a wife, but, without regard to her fortune, he should choose a woman for her virtue, her courtesy, and good manners. The second, that he would never offer vio­lence to a woman. The third, that he would be charitable and relieve the poor, who desired meat or drink, as far as his abilities would permit. The fourth, that lie would not turn his back, or refuse to fight with

FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS    116

 nine men of any other nation that set upon him, and offered to fight with him.

It must not be supposed that every person who was willing to be enlisted in the militia of Ireland, would be accepted; for Finn was very strict in his inquiry, and observed these rules in filling up the number of his troops, which were exactly followed by his succes­sors in command, when they had occasion to recruit their forces.

He ordained, therefore, that no person should be en­listed or received into the service, in the congregation or assembly of Uisneach, or in the celebrated fair of Tailtean, or at Feis Teamrach, unless his father and mother, and all the relatives of his family, would stipu­late and give proper security, that not one of them should attempt to revenge his death upon the person that slew him, but to leave the affair of his death wholly in the hands of his fellow-soldiers, who would take care to do hire justice as the case required; and it was ordained, likewise, that the relations of a soldier of this militia should not receive any damage or re­proach for any misbehavior committed by him.

The second qualification for admittance into these standing forces was, that no one should be received, unless he had a poetical genius, and could compose verses, and was well acquainted with the twelve books of poetry.

The third condition was, that he should be a perfect master of his weapons, and able to defend himself against all attacks; and to prove his dexterity in the management of his arms, he was placed in a plain field, 

THE ANCIENT FENIANS.      117

encompassed with green sedge, that reached above his knee; lie was to have a target by him, and a hazel stake in his hand of the length of a man's arm. Ten nine experienced soldiers of the militia were drawn out, and appointed to stand at the distance of nine ridges of land from him, and to throw all their jave­lins at him at once; if lie had the skill, with his target and his stake, to defend himself, and come off unhurt, he was admitted into the service; but if he had the mis­fortune to be wounded by one of those javelins, ho was rejected as unqualified, and turned off with reproach. This trial was to make sure that the claimant for ad­mission was competent to fill the post of leader of a file of nine men, in which position he was expected to ward off from his men, the javelins of an equal file of attacking enemies.

A fourth qualification was, that he should run well, and in his flight defend himself from his enemy ; and to make a trial of his activity lie had his hair plaited, and was obliged to run through a wood, with all the militia pursuing him, and was allowed but the breadth of a tree before the rest at the setting out ; if he was overtaken in the chase, or received a wound before he had ran through the wood, he was refused as too slug­gish and unskilful to fight with honor among those valiant troops.

It was required, in the fifth place, that whoever was a candidate for admission into the militia, should have a strong arm, and hold his weapon steady ; and if it was observed that his hands shook, he was rejected.

118            FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

The sixth requisite was, that when he ran through a wood his hair should continue tied up, during the chase if it fell loose, he could not be received.

The seventh qualification was, to be so swift and light of foot as not to break a withered branch by touching upon it.

The eighth condition was, that none should have the honor of being enrolled among the Irish militia, that was not so active as to leap over a tree as high as his forehead; or could not, by the agility of his body, stoop easily under a tree that was as low as his knee.

The ninth condition required was, that he could, without stopping or lessening his speed, draw a thorn out of leis foot.

The tenth and last qualification was, to take an oath of allegiance to be true and faithful to the command­ing officer of the army. These were the terms requir­ed for admission among these brave troops; which, so long as they were exactly insisted upon, the militia of Ireland were an invincible defence to their country, and a terror to rebels at home and enemies abroad.

The great Finn was slain by the cast of a javelin or the shot of an arrow, at a place called Ath Brea, on the river Boyne, A. D. 283. After his death, the Fenians were commanded by leis son Ossian, (pronounced Osheen,) the Celtic Homer, who was a famous warrior as well as a bard. At the great battle of Guara, the Fenian forces, numbering twenty thousand, eighteen thousand of whom fell, were commanded by Ossian's son Osgar, who was also killed. " The tremendous battle of Gaura is considered to have led to the subse­-.

THE ANCIENT FENIANS             119.

quent fall of the Irish monarchy, for, after the destruc­tion of the Fenian forces, the Irish kings never were able to muster a national army equal in valor and dis­cipline to those heroes, either to cope with foreign foes, or to reduce to subjection the rebellious provincial kings and princes ; hence the monarchy became weak and disorganized, and the ruling powers were unable to maintain their authority, or make a sufficient stand against the Danish and Anglo-Norman invaders of after tinges." 

The Ossianic Poems are replete with descriptions of the greatness, magnificence and glory of Finn, and the prowess of the Fenians. One of the poems gives a glimpse of the great fortress on the hill of Allen, in Kil­dare, the chief residence of the Fenian chief, and the troops under his immediate eye. It is thus versified:

When I supp'd in the halls of Finn, 
At ev'ry banquet there, I've seen 
A thousand costly goblets brimming, 
Their edges wreathed with golden rimming, 
Twelve habitations rose in state, 
Fill'd with the Fenian legions great.
In the son of the daughter of Teige's command, 
At fair Almhuin of the Fenian band.
Twelve great fires forever flamed, 
In each of the princely dwellings named, 
And round, to be but in death sund'red,
Were Fenian heroes by the hundred.

The Ossianic Society's publications are throwing great light and innumerable picturesque illustrations

* Annota, Connellan's and MacDermott's Four Masters.

120            FENIAN HEROES AND MARTYRS.

on the customs and habits, as well as the political his­tory of what is particularly distinguished as the Fenian era of Ireland. This society numbers among its members very distinguished, as well as some very loyal gentlemen; and it is not a little remarkable, that while they are sedulously employed in disentombing from the dust of ages, the history, literature, bravery and gallantry of the elder Fenian period; the Government are not less busily employed in consigning to the death of dungeons, and the obscurity of penal servitude, those who aspired to bring a new soul into Ireland, or revive the spirit of the old national guard, in the creation of the Fenian Brotherhood. The Ossianic Society ought to be encouraged in their efforts to illuminate the Fenian history of Ireland. Macpherson, in his manufac­tured Ossian, leads us to look upon Finn as a myth. The history brought to public view by the Ossianic So­ciety, show him to have been what lie was, a great pa­triot-general, of remarkable foresight, military genius, and heroism. There is no greater inspiration to heroism than the example afforded by the deeds of heroes. In picture, poem and story, they should be kept before the eye and heart of the people, to excite the imagina­tion to noble actions, and to strengthen the will to perform them.