Fenian Brotherhood

The unnamed secret society later to be known as the Fenian Brotherhood, whose members bind themselves by an oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic and swear to take up arms when called upon and to obey their superior officers, is founded by by John O'Mahony around 1858.

After the collapse of William Smith O'Brien's attempted rising in Ireland in 1848, O'Mahony and James Stephens had gone to the Continent to avoid arrest.

Impoverished in Paris, they had supported themselves by teaching and translation work and planned the next stage of "the fight to overthrow British rule in Ireland."

O'Mahony had emigrated to America in 1854, joining John Mitchel in New York City, and has taken part in the Emigrant Aid Association, the Emmet Monument Association, and other Irish organizations.

The secret Irish fraternal organization called the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish counterpart of the American Fenians, is founded in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day 1858, by James Stephens, one of the "Men of 1848," to foment armed revolt against the British state in Ireland.

Stephens had established himself in Paris, and was in correspondence with John O'Mahony in the United States and other radical nationalists at home and abroad.

He founds the Irish Republican Brotherhood following an organizing tour through the length and breadth of the country after his return to Ireland, and to which a committee including John O'Mahony had sent a delegate from New York City.

A club called the Phoenix National and Literary Society, with Jeremiah Donovan (afterwards known as O'Donovan Rossa) among its more prominent members, had recently been formed at Skibbereen, Ireland.

James Stephens and John O'Mahony had gone to the Continent to avoid arrest after the collapse of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.

In Paris, they had supported themselves by teaching and translation work and have planned the next stage of "the fight to overthrow British rule in Ireland."

O'Mahony had come to America in 1856, and founded the Fenian Brotherhood two years later.

Stephens had returned to Ireland and in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day 1858, following an organizing tour through the length and breadth of the country, had founded the Irish counterpart of the American Fenians, the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

The object of the association is to secure the freedom of Ireland.

The name was probably derived from O'Mahony's Gaelic studies, the Fenians having been a military body in pagan Ireland, celebrated in the songs of Ossian.

The early portion of Keating's History is occupied with the exploits of the ancient Fenians.

The organization of the new society had been completed at conventions held in Chicago in 1864, and in Cincinnati in January, 1865.

In the United States, O'Mahony's presidency over the Fenian Brotherhood is being increasingly challenged by William R. Roberts.

Both Fenian factions raise money by the issue of bonds in the name of the "Irish Republic," which are bought by the faithful in the expectation of their being honored when Ireland should be "a nation once again".

These bonds are to be redeemed "six months after the recognition of the independence of Ireland."

Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants subscribe.

Large quantities of arms have been purchased, and preparations openly made by the Roberts faction for a coordinated series of raids into Canada, which the United States government takes no major steps to prevent.

Many in the U.S. administration are not indisposed to the movement because of Britain's failure to support the Union during the civil war.

Roberts' "Secretary for War" is General T. W. Sweeny, who has been struck off the American army list from January 1866 to November 1866 to allow him to organize the raids.

The purpose of these raids is to seize the transportation network of Canada, with the idea that this will force the British to exchange Ireland's freedom for possession of their Province of Canada.

Before the invasion, the Fenians had received some intelligence from like-minded supporters within Canada but had not received support from all Irish Catholics there, who see the invasions as threatening the emerging Canadian sovereignty.

The command of the expedition in Buffalo, New York, has been entrusted by Roberts to Colonel John O'Neill, who crosses the Niagara River (the Niagara is the international border) at the head of at least eight hundred (O'Neill's figure; usually reported as up to fifteen hundred in Canadian sources) men on the night and morning of 31 May/1 June 1866, and briefly captures Fort Erie, defeating a Canadian force at Ridgeway.

Many of these men, including O'Neill, are battle-hardened veterans of the American Civil War.

In the end, the invasion is broken by the U.S. authorities’ subsequent interruption of Fenian supply lines across the Niagara River and the arrests of Fenian reinforcements attempting to cross the river into Canada.

It is unlikely that with such a small force that they would have ever achieved their goal.

Other Fenian attempts to invade Canada occur throughout the next week in the St. Lawrence Valley.

As many of the weapons have in the meantime been confiscated by the U.S. army, relatively few of these men actually become involved in the fighting.

There even is a small Fenian raid on a storage building that successfully retrieves some weapons that had been seized by the U.S. Army.

Many are eventually returned anyway by sympathetic officers.

To get the Fenians out of the area, both in the St. Lawrence and Buffalo, the U.S. government purchases rail tickets for the Fenians to return to their homes if the individuals involved will promise not to invade any more countries from the United States.

Many of the arms are returned later if the person claiming them can post bond that they are not going to be used to invade Canada again, although some are possibly used in the raids that follow.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, widely known as D'Arcy McGee, had participated in a parliamentary debate on April 7, 1868, that went on past midnight.

Afterward, he walks to his Sparks St. boarding house at 2:00 AM.

While trying to enter the boarding house (the door is locked from the inside and McGee is waiting for the landlady to open the door), McGee is purportedly assassinated by Patrick J. Whelan as the door is being opened.

Given a state funeral in Ottawa, he is interred in a crypt at the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges in Montreal.

His funeral procession in Montreal draws an estimated crowd of eighty thousand (out of a total city population of one hundred and five thousand).

Whelan, a Fenian sympathizer and a Catholic, will be accused, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime.

McGee, after achieving prominence in Irish American circles and founding and editing the New York Nation and the American Celt (Boston), had grown disillusioned with democracy and the American republic, and had emigrated to Canada in 1857.

McGeehad  remained a persistent critic of the U.S., of American institutions, and of the American way of life.

He accused the U.S. of hostile and expansionist motives toward Canada and of desiring to spread its republican ideas over all of North America.

McGee had worked energetically for continued Canadian devotion to the British Empire, seeing in imperialism the protection Canada needed from all American ills.

On arrival in Montreal, Quebec, he had set up the publication of the New Era.

In his editorials and pamphlets he had attacked the influence of the Orange Order and defended the Irish Catholic right to representation in the assembly.

In terms of economics, he had promoted modernization, calling for extensive economic development by means of railway construction, the fostering of immigration, and the application of a high protective tariff to encourage manufacturing.

Politically active, he had advocated a new nationality in Canada, to escape the sectarianism of Ireland.

In 1858, he had been elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and worked for the creation of an independent Canada.

McGee had become the minister of agriculture, immigration, and statistics in the Conservative government that was formed in 1863.

He had retained that office in the "Great Coalition", and had been a Canadian delegate to the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864.

At Quebec, McGee had introduced the resolution which called for a guarantee of the educational rights of religious minorities in the two Canadas.

Moderating his radical Irish nationalist views, McGee had denounced the Fenian Brotherhood in America, which had advocated a forcible takeover of Canada from Britain by the United States.

Following the Confederation of Canada, McGee had been elected to the 1st Canadian Parliament in 1867 as a Liberal-Conservative representing the riding of Montreal West.

On November 4, 1867, McGee had delivered an oration titled "The Mental Outfit of the New Dominion", survey of the literary status of Canada on the eve of the first Dominion Parliament.

McGee's views were a combination of Tory principle, revelation, and empirical method.

He had suggested a national literature inspired by the creativity and ingenuity of the Canadian people

Adams George Archibald had arrived on September 2 and set about the establishment of civil government.

The settlement now faces another threat, this time from cross-border Fenian raids coordinated by Riels’ former associate William Bernard O'Donoghue.

While the threat proves overstated, Archibald proclaims a general call to arms on October 4.

Companies of armed horsemen are raised, including one led by Riel.

When Archibald reviews the troops in St. Boniface, he makes the significant gesture of publicly shaking Riel's hand, signaling that a rapprochement had been affected.

This is not to be—when this news reaches Ontario, Mair and members of the Canada First movement will whip up a significant resurgence of anti-Riel (and anti-Archibald) sentiment.

Archibald appoints Smith to his Executive Council on October 20, 1870, although this decision will be subsequently overturned by the Canadian government, which will rule that Archibald had overstepped his legal authority.