Irish Republican Brotherhood

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.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood is reorganized at a convention in Manchester in July 1867.

An eleven man Supreme Council is elected to Govern the movement.

They will eventually be representatives from the seven districts in which the organization is organized: the Irish provinces of Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht, as well as Scotland, North England, and South England.

The remaining four members are co-opted.

The Council will meet twice a year, usually in the spring and the summer.

In Manchester, in August 1867, Thomas Kelly is declared Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic (COIR), in succession to Stephens.

The arrest and subsequent rescue of Kelly with Timothy Deasy in September 1867 results in the execution of the Manchester Martyrs.

The trio had been members of a group of thirty to forty Fenians who had attacked a horse-drawn police van transporting Kelly and Deasy, to Belle Vue Gaol.

Police Sergeant Charles Brett, traveling inside with the keys, had been shot and killed as the attackers attempted to force the van open by blowing the lock.

Kelly and Deasy had been released after another prisoner in the van took the keys from Brett's body and passed them to the group outside through a ventilation grill; the pair were never recaptured, despite an extensive search.

Two others were also charged and found guilty of Brett's murder, Thomas Maguire and Edward O'Meagher Condon, but their death sentences had been overturned: O'Meagher Condon through the intercession of the United States government —he is an American citizen—and Maguire because the evidence given against him was considered unsatisfactory.

Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien are publicly hanged on a temporary structure built on the wall of Salford Gaol, on November 23, 1867, in front of a crowd of eight thousand to ten thousand.

Brett is the first Manchester City Police officer to be killed on duty, and he is memorialized in a monument in St. Ann's Church.

Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien are also memorialized, both in Manchester—where the Irish community makes up more than ten percent of the population—and in Ireland, where they are regarded by many as inspirational heroes.

Kelly escapes to the United States and will remain associated with the IRB.

In the wake of the executions, membership in the Irish Republican Brotherhood begins to decline.

Many of the constitutional nationalists join Charles Stewart Parnell’s Home Rule Movement.

Penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends on January 9, 1868, with the arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia after an eighty-nine-day voyage from England.

There are sixty-two members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood among the transportees.