The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75

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Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to University of St Andrews - PalgraveConnect - 2011-09-24

THE CHURCH, THE STATE AND THE FENIAN THREAT, 1861-75

10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty

Also by Oliver P. Rajferty RECONCILIATION: Essays in Honour of Michael Hurley


CATHOLICISM IN ULSTER, 1603-1983: an Interpretative History


Oliver P. Rafferty Senior TutorCampion Hall Oxford



The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat 1861-75

© Oliver P. Rafferty 1999

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0-333-74962-6 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Transferred to digital printing 2001 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire



All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.


For my brother Francis with affection




Contents ix

Acknowledgements

xvi

List of Abbreviations

xviii

1

Fenianism Reconsidered The Problems Posed by Fenianism The Church and the Fenians The Fenians in America The Politics of Fenianism Interpretations of Fenianism Conclusion

1 1 5 7 8 10 14

2

Church and State Reactions to Fenianism, 1861-65 The Political Background Ecclesiastical Factors Agricultural Crisis and Politics Fenian Organization and Police Surveillance The MacManus Funeral: a Governmental and Ecclesiastical Problem The Foundation of The Irish People and the Growth of Fenianism The Trials of Fenianism

17 17 19 21 23 25

3

Fenianism in North America The Background The Church and Fenianism in North America The Fenians and North American Politics Conclusion

52 52 53 73 80

4

Fenianism Subdued and Authority Upheld? The Fenians Prepare The Rising Ecclesiastical Reaction Fenianism on Trial and the Continued Threat The Manchester and Clerkenwell Incidents A Scottish Interlude The Beginnings of Reform Elections and Continued Threat

83 83 89 94 96 99 105 108 111

vn 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty

36 41


Preface

Contents Conclusion

116

5

The Politics of Condemnation Amnesty, Reform and Coercion The Papal Condemnation The Road to Politics University Education and the Synod of Maynooth

120 120 126 133 139

6

Conclusion: the Church, the State and the Endurance of Fenianism The Fenians and the Church The Fenians and the State The Legacy of Fenianism

143 143 151 155

Notes

160

Bibliography

197

Index

221



viii

By September 1865 the British government in Ireland had determined to move decisively against the Fenian organization. Accordingly, it suppressed the most public manifestation of the movement: the Fenian newspaper, The Irish People. Why it had waited so long before attempting to act definitively against the revolutionaries, whom it had had under close surveillance for some time, must remain a matter of speculation. It is clear, however, that its miscalculation over the danger posed by the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the Irish Republican Brotherhood was also known, was a product of a combination of incompetence and disdain. The Catholic Church in Ireland, by contrast, was alive to the dangers of the Fenian movement since the first appearance, in 1861, of what became its front organization: the National Brotherhood of St Patrick. Although the movement had been started in 1858, it was not until 1861 that it made its first large-scale impact on Irish public opinion, owing to its involvement with the reburial in Ireland in November that year of the 1848 hero Terence Bellew McManus. Over the next 15 years, until the first Synod of Maynooth in 1875, when the 1870 papal condemnation of Fenianism was again commended to the Irish faithful, the Church waged a relentless campaign against the would-be revolutionaries. The Church regarded Fenianism as, essentially, a spiritual danger. It resisted revolution in Ireland since it believed such activity to be immoral and it was, moreover, opposed to any association whose members were involved in taking secret oaths, such oaths being contrary to Church teaching. The struggle between the Church and the Fenians in Ireland was part of a wider conflict about the relationship between Church and society, which had been going on since the beginning of the nineteenth century, but which was given fresh impetus by the attempts of Italian revolutionaries to deprive the Pope of the Papal States. Revolution in all its aspects, whether in Italy or in Ireland, was condemned since it threatened the Church's direct political aims. The question of social control was an issue for the Universal Church but that is not to say that there was a univocal policy on the part of Church leaders in the face of widespread disorder. Despite proclamations of unbending moral principle, the Church adapted its ix 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Preface

Preface

strategies to the circumstances in which it found itself. In Ireland Catholicism was the religion of the majority, but in Britain and North America it was very much the Church of the minority. The Roman authorities showed a remarkable sensitivity to the political geography of the Church's social setting and cut its ideological cloth accordingly. This had been the policy from the days of Gregory XVI (1831-46), who, while personally a legitimist, was pragmatic enough to recognize actual governments, particularly the emergent Latin American republics, without inquiring into the events which brought any particular government to power. At the same time he denounced liberalism and liberal doctrines such as the separation of church and state. Despite such denunciations, he tolerated exactly this situation in the United States and left the American bishops free to evolve their own pastoral and political practice in circumstances which the Church could not hope to control. This same attitude prevailed in the pontificate of Pius IX (1846-78). At the same time, Pius became more defiantly anti-liberal and revolutionary, and his Syllabus of Errors marks the nadir of the Church's opposition to nineteenth-century political developments. He, of course, had suffered most from the onrush of Italian nationalist designs and would finally lose the last of the Papal States in 1870. This explains his hostility to any manifestation of revolutionary fervour. He was therefore more than willing to condemn the Fenians, but his condemnation was greeted with less enthusiasm in the United States than in Britain and Ireland, precisely because most American bishops believed that he was not sufficiently alive to the changed political environment in which they operated. The Church's stance on Fenianism was, then, not simply a product of Catholic moral teaching. Institutional Catholicism in Ireland was, by the 1860s, anxious to promote the interests of the Catholic arriviste middle classes. It was a time of expansion and consolidation for the Church in Ireland. This was also true of the Church in the United States and in the British Empire as a whole. The contribution of Catholic Ireland to the Church's development in the English-speaking world was, even by that stage, enormous. In terms of its role in Irish society, the institutional Church felt itself to be undervalued and unappreciated by the Protestant British state. Anti-Catholicism was still, well into the late nineteenth century, very much a feature of the British political scene. Nevertheless, the expansion of the Catholic middle classes gave cause for optimism. As long as this expansion did not involve the rejection of orthodox



x

xi

Catholicism by upwardly mobile Catholics, the Church hoped it would, in time, come to exercise that degree of influence in Irish affairs commensurate with its confessional position in relation to the majority of the Irish people. The Church's political outlook was therefore reformist. It sought from the British parliament amelioration of Ireland's ills, the net effect of which it hoped would leave institutional Catholicism in much the same position, socially, as the established Church of Ireland. This is not to imply that it wanted endowment of any description; on the contrary, it opposed state intervention in ecclesiastical affairs as incompatible with its freedom. This position was not without attendant ironies, as some Irish bishops and British politicians realized: the Catholic Church in Ireland had more freedom from state political control than in almost any other country in the world. Fenianism, by its insistence that the Church should not have a corporate role in politics, represented a major stumbling-block to ecclesiastical social ambitions. Furthermore, the fact that one of its declared aims was the complete separation of church and state alarmed ecclesiastics. Should the Fenian cause triumph, their own role would be confined to the sacristy - a situation to which churchmen, keyed to the excitement and turmoil of nineteenth-century political debate on Ireland, were unwilling to be restricted. The Fenians insisted that, in the realm of politics, the opinions of a cleric properly had no more weight than those of any other individual. The problem they identified was that, too often, clerical opinion in politics was elided into the Church's spiritual and moral pronouncements, a tendency which confused the political thinking of lay Catholics. It was this desire to see the sacred and the secular confined to their distinct spheres that gave Fenianism its anti-clerical hue. That said, the organization was never anti-clerical in the strict sense and, in this regard, owed little to cognate movements in continental Europe. The Fenian model for church-state relations was, in many respects, that of the North American republic. Yet there, despite the fact that in the United States Fenianism was not an oath-bound secret society, the Church vigorously opposed the movement. One aspect of the Church's opposition to the organization in Canada and in the United States derived from the manner in which North American Fenianism provided monies for the promotion of revolution in Ireland. Some Irish churchmen were convinced of this question's centrality. Only when, they felt, the flow of American money was stopped could the Fenian menace be properly addressed. Undoubtedly, Irish



Preface

Preface

ecclesiastics pressured American bishops to curtail the threat from American Fenianism. The American Church had, by 1865, obtained a decree from Rome declaring that the Fenian Brotherhood was among those organizations condemned under pontifical regulations against secret societies; as such, adherence was incompatible with membership of the Roman Catholic Church. For a variety of reasons, the decree was, however, not made public. As the organization was an irritant to Britain, the United States government cast a relatively benevolent eye on Fenianism. Since the British had given both tacit and explicit support to the Confederacy during the Civil War, the United States was content not to move against any group troublesome to the British state. The Church's sensitivity to this consideration indicates a high degree of political acumen. With the rise of 'Nativism' and of the 'Know-Nothing' movement, the Catholic Church had already come under scrutiny from anti-Catholic opinion. It had no desire to further alienate itself from wider American society. There was, however, an internal problem for the Church in the United States. The high profile of Fenianism served to emphasize the Irish aspect of American Catholicism, threatening to identify the doctrines of Catholicism with the condition of Irishness. This implication was resented by other Catholic immigrant groups and by prominent converts to Catholicism from Protestant backgrounds. A combination of these factors led to much hostility on the part of many American bishops when the Irish hierarchy successfully petitioned Rome for a public condemnation of the Fenians in 1870. The effectiveness of the public condemnation of the organization may be judged by the fact that the Irish bishops found it necessary to reiterate the papal pronouncement as early as 1875. The Liberal government in London had, since 1869, embarked on a reform programme which it hoped would reconcile Ireland to its place in the Union. While the government would never admit that Fenianism was the cause of certain reforms, such as the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, it was, to put the point mildly, a catalyst for such legislation. This facet was one of the ironies of the situation posed by Fenianism: while the organization was opposed by the Catholic Church, it nonetheless helped bring about the changes which the Church most wanted in Ireland. The fact of the reforms served, paradoxically, to bolster Fenian self-confidence. The Brotherhood now claimed that Fenianism was responsible for the Church Act of 1869 and the Land Act of 1870. The 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


xii

xiii

reform legislation instituted by Gladstone's government also marked the beginning of the end of Liberal influence in Ireland. The disastrous nature of the 1867 rising demonstrated that Fenianism, as a revolutionary movement, was never likely to have much military success. On the other hand, its failure in the field gave way to triumphant displays of Fenian organization in the amnesty movement of the late 1860s and early 1870s. This experience may well have propelled Fenianism into a more direct political alliance with Isaac Butt and the Home Rule movement. Equally, one could interpret the temporary marriage of convenience as a belated recognition by the movement of the hopelessness of revolutionary enterprise in Ireland. Historians have been inclined to see Catholicism as an inextricable component in the development of Irish nationalism during the 1860s and 1870s. This study, however, offers an alternative account. What emerges, in the light of extensive archival research in Canada, England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and the United States, is not so much a picture of Catholicism as the champion of Irish nationalism; rather, the Church is best seen as the creator of what one might call 'Catholic nationalism'. The Church promoted its own interests by emphasizing the distinctness of Catholic Ireland in the Union. It was just such sectarian leanings that the Fenians attempted to counteract, urging Ireland to cherish equally, without distinction of creed, all of its inhabitants. Fenian activity notwithstanding, the Catholic Church still continued to have enormous influence in the Ireland of the early 1870s. The fact that it prevailed upon Liberal members of parliament to vote against Gladstone's university proposals, and thus helped bring down the Liberal government, testifies to its political muscle. From that point on, it is also clear that events moved in a direction that the Church was unable to control. Fenianism had radicalized political thinking. Home rule became the order of the day, forcing the Church, against its will, towards siding with radical political opinion. Thus from the 1880s onwards one can begin to regard the Church as virtually the Home Rule movement at prayer. It was precisely this espousal of constitutional nationalism by the institutional Church which caused Protestant opinion to swing from lukewarm support to outright opposition to Butt-inspired demands for a Dublin parliament. The lasting contribution of Fenianism to Irish political thought lies in its insistence that Catholicism could not - and should not - be allowed to set the parameters of political discourse about the country's destiny. It encouraged Catholics in the belief that it was 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Preface

Preface

possible to remain a faithful adherent of the Church in spiritual matters and yet reject the political analysis of priests and bishops. The Fenian movement was peculiarly aware of the role of official religion as an instrument which could be manipulated by government for political ends. Accordingly, the movement was resolved to resist both the British state in Ireland and institutional Catholicism in so far as the Church allowed itself to be used as a conduit for opinion determined upon the preservation of the Union. There is a tendency in contemporary historiography to denigrate the role of the Fenian organization in the development of Irish Nationalism. This is partly because of the declared violent intentions of the Brotherhood. This approach is typified by that doyen of Fenian studies Professor R.V. Comerford, in works such as Charles J. Kickham: A Biography (Dublin, 1979) and The Fenians in Context (Dublin, 1885). It is in my view a fact, however unpalatable, that violence or the threat of violence did, at the very least, condition the circumstances in which remedial legislation was introduced for the benefit of Irish affairs. The late Professor T.W. Moody's work on Fenianism and especially his Davitt and Irish Revolution, 1864-82 (Oxford, 1982) is perhaps too slanted by his conviction of the anti-clerical nature of the movement and by what he perceives as its lack of a distinct social programme. The Fenian Movement in the United States, 1858-1886 (Washington, DC, 1947) by William D'Arcy provides much valuable material but is restricted in the ecclesiastical perspective it offers on the Fenian activity in North America. The work of three other scholars casts a long shadow over my own labours. Virtually unreadable, but indispensable, E.R. Norman's The Catholic Church in Ireland in the Age of Rebellion, 1859-1873 (London, 1965) is a mine of information but has nothing so say of the comparative dimensions of the Church's dealings with Fenianism in North America, Britain and Ireland, and made no use of the Fenian papers in the Irish National Archives. Professor Emmet Larkin's The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland (Dublin, 1987) and The Roman Catholic Church and the Home Rule Movement in Ireland (Dublin, 1990), while excellent on ecclesiastical matters and issues of high politics, make use of no Fenian papers and are thus silent on the Fenian perspective and almost so on the American angle. Professor Patrick J. Corish provided a basic and brief, if useful, introduction to the political landscape of mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, and showed how the Church dealt with its social location in 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


xiv

Preface

xv


his 'Political Problems, 1860-1878', pp. 1-59 in A History of Irish Catholicism, vol. 5/3. This is to indicate the basic historiography among a perplexingly wide range of material, most, but by no means all, of which is indicated in the bibliography of this volume.


This work began life as a doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Oxford in 1996. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Professor R.F. Foster who, despite differences of temperament and approach, carefully supervised every step of my research. He gave me the benefit of his wide erudition and consummate mastery of Irish historical matters, for which I am most grateful. At an earlier stage, when I was casting around for a topic to research, I had the truly inspirational example of Professor H.C.G. Matthew as a proverbial guide, philosopher and friend. His exacting standards and enormous application to nineteenth-century affairs have heartened a generation of historians. The late Reverend Professor Peter Hinchliff was my moral tutor at Christ Church and exercised a benevolent influence over all my activities. He is greatly missed. Dr Jane Garnet and the Reverend Professor Donal A. Kerr examined my thesis and made many valuable suggestions. They treated with admirable forbearance the truculent responses I made to their critical remarks in the course of my viva. In the early stages of my research I was shown much kindness by the Reverend Professor Patrick J. Corish and by Professor R.V. Comerford of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Professor Comerford subsequently read the entire typescript, which, I regret to say, was not to his liking. Many of his strictures I am unable to take on board and we clearly disagree about the nature and the scope of Fenianism. I must thank the Dean and Students of Christ Church, Oxford, and the University Chest for various travel grants, and the Society of Jesus, which has provided the material and the companionable assistance that enabled me to conduct the research on which this book is based. An enormous number of institutions, libraries and archival deposits have provided me with access to material; it would be too much to list them here but they are fully acknowledged in the bibliography. For permission to reproduce copyright material I must thank the Earl of Clarendon, the National Trust, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, and Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. Some of the ideas here presented were aired in Recusant History, Bullan: an Irish Studies xvi 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Acknowledgements

xvii

Journal and History. I should like to thank the editors of these journals for permission to reproduce material which they first published. At a more personal level the friendship and interest of contemporaries and near-contemporaries at Oxford, Cambridge and Queen's University, Belfast, have made the sometimes lonely work of research and writing more bearable. I should like to mention in this regard Peter Smith, Patrick O'Sullivan, Caitriona Clutterbuck, Brendan Simms, Sean Hughes, Ronan McDonald, Katherine Forsyth, Raphaela Schmid, Michael Bordt, Ruth Wilkinson, the late Clive Ling, Ambrose Macaulay, Gill Macintosh, Elva Johnston, Nick Wilson and F.X. Ryan. John and Christine Kelly have entertained me at many social gatherings and deserve mention since the diversions they provided, along with all the above, have meant that this work has seen the light of day much later than it ought to have. Several fellow historians have greatly encouraged me, and I should like therefore to make special mention of Owen Dudley Edwards, Alvin Jackson and Gerard Moran. Finally my thanks, once more, to my family for all their support, and to Mike Griffin and Frank Shoulin for help with proofreading. OLIVER P. RAFFERTY, SJ

Campion Hall, Oxford



Acknowledgements

AAA AAB AAG ABSPR Add MS AICR ANA APF ARCAT ASHU AUND AVECR BCA BL CO CSORP DDA CUADMA FO HO IHS IRB LOC NAC NAI NBSP NLI NYPL PAHRC PRO PRONI SCA TCD

Archives of the Archdiocese of Armagh Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore Archives of the Archdiocese of Glasgow Archives of the Basilica of St Paul, Rome Additional Manuscript Archives of the Irish College, Rome American National Archives Archives of Propaganda Fide Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto Archives of Seton Hall University Archives of the University of Notre Dame Archives of the Venerable English College, Rome Boston College Archives British Library Colonial Office Chief Secretary's Office Registered Papers (Dublin) Dublin Diocesan Archives Catholic University of America Department of Manuscripts and Archives Foreign Office Home Office Irish Historical Studies Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood/Irish Republican Brotherhood Library of Congress National Archives of Canada National Archives of Ireland National Brotherhood of St Patrick National Library of Ireland New York Public Library Philadelphia Archdiocese Historical Research Centre Public Record Office Public Record Office of Northern Ireland Scottish Catholic Archives Trinity College Dublin xvi n



List of Abbreviations

THE PROBLEMS POSED BY FENIANISM It is tempting to see the phenomenon of Fenianism in the period 1861-75 as a symptom of a more general malaise in Irish society. The failure to move the political debate forward, in the direction of a greater sense of Irish control of Ireland's affairs, gave rise to frustration and recrimination. The recrimination was, in the first instance, directed by the radicals against the Church for what was perceived to be its toadying to the English government of Ireland. The state also came in for its fair share of criticism from both physical-force nationalists and constitutionalists. Following the collapse of the 1848 rising, the attempts to build on Catholic emancipation of two decades earlier by the creation of a united Irish voice in the Westminster parliament came to nothing, largely as the result of the opposition from the Catholic Church. For its part, the institutional Church had calculated that the social and political development of the Catholic middle classes could best be secured by close association with the established party system in London, and, following the lead given by, the Catholic 'Liberator' Daniel O'Connell, parliamentary agitation for the general improvement of Catholic fortunes in Ireland. While it is true that by the early 1870s the Catholic middle classes were beginning to exhibit a certain political savoir-faire, and adopt policies opposed by the Church, this was largely a symptom of the change in the political climate brought about by the experience of Fenianism over the previous ten years. Indeed, the active participation of Fenians in by-elections in the years 1869-72 was not only a harbinger of the 'new departure' of the late 1870s, but also an indication of the loss of clerical influence in the electoral process. Clergy and Fenians vied with one another to impose their respective views on the Irish electorate, at a time when Fenianism appeared to be re-thinking its commitment to armed resistance to English rule, and when the clergy had succeeded in having the Vatican condemn the Fenians by name. The early history of the government's dealings with Fenianism was such that it failed to take seriously the threat posed to the security of the 1 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


1 Fenianism Reconsidered

2

The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat

It has frequently been remarked how incapable English writers are of appreciating in the Irishman courage, daring, and personal sacrifice which they admire in the political agitator and revolutionist of any other country in the world.1 Such sentiments were also linked in the English mind with what was perceived as the Anglo-Saxon mission to civilize Ireland in the face of its obvious backwardness. It is also, of course, something of an irony that England could simultaneously be the refuge for many continental revolutionaries,2 and yet deprecate those same tendencies within the United Kingdom. Equally Ireland tended to serve as a focus of attention for English social Liberals such as John Stuart Mill and John Bright, as well as theoretical revolutionaries such as Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. It has been argued that it is of vital importance, in evaluating the significance and influence of Fenianism, not to neglect the fact that the Fenians did try to align themselves with British working-class radicals.3 Indeed, in the declaration of the Irish Republic issued at the beginning of the abortive rising in March 1867, the 'Provisional Government' declared: workmen of England, it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the oppression of labour. Remember the past, look well to the future, and avenge yourselves... .4 The 'social agenda' of Fenianism has long been one of the most contested aspects of the IRB's modus operandi. One of the leading historians of Fenianism has remarked that the social composition of the movement and its secrecy have frequently led to charges that it was communist in design. However, T.W. Moody concludes that a crucial fact about this largely working-class movement was that its thinking was simply nationalist. It had no specific social programme for the democratic Irish republic of its dreams: from a Marxist standpoint it was painfully naive.5 It would be misleading to give the impression that the organization had a fully comprehensive socialist programme, and one must also recognize that the Fenians were not disposed to engage in struggles 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


state by the Fenian menace. This was in part a function of the refusal to believe that the Irish were capable of offering armed resistance to London rule. As a near-contemporary commentator observed,

3

of the peasantry 'which had as their object anything less than the goal of national independence'.6 It is, however, important to take cognizance of the fact that, as Richard Pigott, himself closely associated with the Fenians, pointed out, the difference between the Fenians and the Land League of the 1880s was that the Fenians believed that the confiscation of the landlord's property should come in the wake of a revolution, while the land-leaguers thought it should precede a revolution.7 Perhaps the most helpful paradigm for understanding how Fenianism fits into the historiography of nineteenth-century Ireland is to see it as a focus for what David Thornley has described as the 'three great motivating factors' of the country in this period, namely: nationalism, religion and the soil.8 The interaction of these diverse elements provided Fenianism with both its motivating power, and its most direct opposition. In asserting that the soil of Ireland belonged to the people of Ireland, the Fenians were concerned to link ownership of the land inextricably with the question of national independence. Having rejected the idea of constitutional means for resolving Ireland's problems the Fenians turned, at least at a rhetorical level, in the early 1860s to the idea of revolution as the only means of settling Ireland's long-standing grievances with England. Thus, for example, the statement issued by the Fenian convention in Chicago in the autumn of 1863 asserted that the Fenians were 'thoroughly convinced of the utter futility of the legal and constitutional agitations, parliamentary "policies" and similar delusions. These things have brought more suffering upon our people than would have been caused by the most protracted and devastating war.'9 It was this commitment to subversion which the government underestimated in the early years of the existence of Fenianism. By the end of the first Fenian decade even Gladstone had come to see that Fenianism could not be contained by reformism alone. He wrote to Lord Acton testifying both to the influence of Fenianism, even on MPs, and its ability to prevent the government from effecting harmony between Britain and Ireland. Those MPs, he observed, who thought that the 1870 Land Bill was not strong enough are probably under pressure from knots of their constituents; those who are probably more or less affected by Fenian sympathies. And to Fenian pique it is absolutely vital to disturb and break up the remedial process. Hence probably the manifestations of violence at elections in Ireland.10 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Fenianism Reconsidered


Gladstone was also certain by this stage that violence in Ireland was no longer directed towards political purposes but had become an end in itself. Violence was, however, but one vignette of a more fulsome narrative of the extent to which Ireland, as a whole, was discontented with its part in the Union. Vincent Comerford has argued that public demonstrations in favour of monarchy during royal visits in 1861 and 1868 provide 'a salutary antidote to any notion that the nationalist enthusiasm of the time was an endorsement of militant Fenian principles'.11 Of itself an assertion of nationalism did not necessarily indicate a desire for a sundering of the Union. But, equally, not much weight can be given to grand public occasions as an indication of popular feeling in favour of monarchy and the link between the two countries. After all, the Lord Lieutenant could say of the Prince of Wales's visit to Dublin in 1865, The newspapers talk a great deal of nonsense about enthusiastic crowds etc., but the true account is this. I had the best means of observing, and I watched narrowly everything which took place. There were hisses upon his arrival at Kingston, many hissed, on the way from Westland Row to Phoenix park; much the same at the Exhibition ... the disaffected made their point on the two days when he appeared most publicly in Dublin....12 Fenianism attempted to capitalize on the prevalent discontent in the country, arising from social and economic factors, and direct this to political ends. But its programme was not simply negative. The Fenians saw the need to give militant Irish nationalism a broader base, so that it would not be seen merely as a product of Catholic Ireland. Finding its inspiration in the writings of Thomas Davis, one of the heroes of the 1848 insurrection, the Fenian organ The Irish People declared that both Protestants and Catholics must be fashioned by the nationalist mould. To make the achievement of her independence easy, Ireland requires the aid of all her sons.'13 It also regretted that religious intolerance was the rock on which Irish independence had foundered. Partly because of this advocacy of the irrelevance of denominational allegiance, and because it was also a secret society, the most formidable and sustained opposition to the Fenian organization, in its early years, came from the Catholic Church.



4


5

THE CHURCH AND THE FENIANS Patrick Leahy, the Archbishop of Cashel, could describe Fenianism to Cardinal Alexander Barnabo, the Prefect of Propaganda in Rome, as were widely held among the Irish Catholic hierarchy, since Fenianism threatened the very heart of the relationship between the Irish people and the Catholic Church, by its insistence on the need for the complete separation of church and state. In such a situation the Catholic Church in Ireland would be deprived of the influence for which it hoped.15 The Church was anxious to prevent any erosion of its authority, and many of its leaders had both a theological and temperamental predisposition to the political status quo. Thus, for example, Cardinal Cullen, the Archbishop of Dublin, once told Frederick Lucas, the Catholic convert and founder of The Tablet, that he did not see 'there was any harm in supporting the government; that if opposing government was a virtue, one ought in Italy to co-operate with Mazzini and in Hungary with Kossuth.... The first duty of every Catholic is to support the government unless it attacked the Church'.16 Such an attitude was at the heart of the dispute between the Fenians and the Church. The IRB accused the Church of evaluating the problems facing Ireland from the viewpoint of the state. In addition, it correctly analysed that the social ambitions of the Catholic middle classes inevitably coloured the perceptions of churchmen on the social and political problems facing the country. The Irish People, in April 1864, shrewdly observed that 'dining with Lords and gentlemen has a good deal to do with the opinions of bishops and priests concerning the state of Ireland'. However, such was the triumph of militant nationalism over clerical sentiment that, by the 1890s one prominent Fenian could write, 'thank heaven the reign of the "Castle bishops" in Ireland is at length ended'.17 A further problem for Catholic Ireland was that the government was largely Protestant, and was rarely well disposed to Catholicism. Politicians and the press regularly lambasted the Catholic clergy as the supposed instigators or abettors of treason and disorder in the country. The vituperation was not all in one direction. In one of his many broadsides against the national system of education, Cullen asserted that its whole tendency was 'to place in the hands of our Protestant rulers unlimited authority over the education of our Catholic children'.18 From the viewpoint of the Church, education 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


'directe et formaliter adversus religionem Catholicam9 .u Such views


was, perhaps, the most vital and bitterly contested issue facing Ireland. Even independent observers could see that, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, one of the main problems in Ireland was that the Catholic Church was not given the recognition that was its due. Matthew Arnold not only believed that the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was hardly a 'satisfaction of the equitable claims of Irish Catholicism upon us' but that 'justice to Irish Catholicism, and equal treatment with Anglicanism in England and with Presbyterianism in Scotland, your government could not give, because of the bigotry of the English and Scotch middle class'.19 Despite this however, the remarkable thing is that the Church resolutely opposed the Fenians and upheld the legitimacy of English rule in Ireland. The Church's defence of the state went largely unacknowledged, although both church and state worked for the eradication of Fenianism. It is, however, also true that the British state conferred great benefits on the Catholic Church in Ireland. Even churchmen otherwise hostile to the English rule of Ireland recognised this. Archbishop John Hughes, of New York, in the course of his sermon at the laying of the foundation stone of the Catholic university at Drumcondra in July 1862, remarked that the British Empire would in future require the services of cultured and well-educated Irish Catholics, for the government of its vast domains, and that the Catholic university would supply such individuals.20 The corollary of this was, as The Times indicated more than a decade later, throughout the Empire, 'the rapid and universal extension of the Roman Catholic Church, by Irish agency, under British protection, and by British means and appliances'.21 Ironically the Catholic Church had greater status and influence in the far-flung reaches of the Empire than it did in the United Kingdom. One element then in the Church's struggle with Fenianism was that the organization tended to detract from the Irish Church's ability to influence government policy both in Ireland and the Empire as a whole. These considerations led the Catholic weekly The Tablet to call for a church-state alignment to check disorder in Ireland.22 However, those Fenians who were practising Catholics resented what they took to be the Church's interference in politics, especially when such meddling was directed against them. Even such worldly-wise Fenians as John Devoy were anxious to defend the reputation of individual members of the IRB on the grounds that they always remained good Catholics.23 For its part the Church believed that Fenianism actually encouraged infidelity. Its convictions in this matter were further 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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1

confirmed by speeches such as that of the Reverend David Bell, a renegade Presbyterian minister and prominent Fenian, who during a discourse in Dublin in May 1864 opined that 'men should be free to follow what forms of religion they pleased;... free, unmolested even if they believed in no religion at all'.24 Such sentiments, while not representing all Fenian opinion, could not but strike terror into the hearts of even the most liberal nineteenth-century Catholic clergymen. The Church's distrust of the movement was also aroused by its obvious anti-clerical tendencies, as expressed through the pages of the Irish People. One of the most vociferous anti-clerical correspondents on the paper was James Francis O'Brien, who in later life was a nationalist MP, but it was the devout Catholic Charles Kickham, who wrote most of the editorials attacking the bishops and priests for their pro-establishment, 'anti-nationalist' views.25 At the same time the paper demonstrated a considerable degree of theological sophistication in defending its views on the relationship between church and state, and the involvement of priests in politics. It was able to resort to the authority of well-known, if somewhat marginalized, continental theologians such as J.J.I. Dollinger and H.D. Lacordaire, in attempting to refute the excoriations of Irish clergymen that the Church could have no part in revolutionary machinations.26 THE FENIANS IN AMERICA Ireland was but one focus for the contest between the Church and the Fenians. The other important centre was North America. Here the problems were complicated by the differences in political administration between Canada and the United States, and the fact that the separation of church and state was a touchstone of the American constitution. Still, the Church found much to complain of in the Fenian movement, despite the fact that it clearly could not be seen as a secret oath-bound society. The fortunes of the organization differed considerably between Canada and the United States, and one of the reasons for its failure to secure a strong foothold in Canada may well have been the sustained efforts to oppose it exhibited by Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the former 1848 revolutionary turned pillar of the colonial establishment.27 The Church was equally opposed to it, but was hampered in its struggle by so many differences of emphasis and nuance among bishops that it could rarely find a common voice of condemnation. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




In one sense the main purpose of Fenianism in North America was 'to keep a constant and ample supply of money flowing to the men working the revolutionary organization in Ireland'.28 Despite the importance of American support to the Fenian enterprise, it could not remain as a solid bloc; internal tensions over tactics leading to splits in the movement rendered it virtually useless for seriously assisting revolutionary activity in Ireland after the mid-1860s. The relative weakness of the United States administration in the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War, was both a help and hindrance to Fenianism and the inconsistencies of American government policy could both excite Fenian passions and dampen enthusiasm. It is essential then in coming to an understanding of Fenianism both in Ireland and in North America in the 1860s, that it be viewed as both a social and a religious challenge. Churchmen - as we shall come to see - at least in Ireland, feared that one aspect of government policy was to let Fenianism flourish in order that the Church's influence would be undermined. Such undermining was as much a menace in the New World as it was in Ireland, and American churchmen also regarded Fenianism as an essentially religious threat. Without question, however, the state was also determined to suppress Fenianism wherever and whenever it could. THE POLITICS OF FENIANISM The leitmotif for Fenianism was the determination not to refer the affairs of Ireland to a foreign parliament. At the same time the means which the organization adopted to achieve its aim varied in the course of the decade-and-a-half under consideration. By the late 1860s the Fenians were not the only group in Ireland that desired independence. As David Thornley has pointed out, there were broadly two motives for the rejection of English rule that of the conservative nationalist, who rejected Gladstone's reforms because they went too far, and that of the liberal nationalist, for whom they did not go far enough.29 Such was the adaptability of Fenianism that it temporarily, if not entirely wholeheartedly, threw in its lot with the forces of constitutional nationalism, in order to create a common purpose with a broad spectrum of Irish public opinion. Moody is inclined to see such a move as purely opportunistic on the part of those Fenians who could



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see that constitutionalism was becoming, by the early 1870s, the order of the day in Ireland.30 There were, however, differences of opinion within Fenianism as to the propriety of taking the constitutional path.31 Some Fenian leaders, such as John O'Connor Power and John Barry, were content to pledge themselves to constitutionalism even to the extent of standing for parliament. Others such as C.G. Doran and John Walsh, believed such changes in strategy were ill-suited to a revolutionary organization, and their commitment to the constitutional path was at best contingent.32 This is not to suggest that Fenianism was in some sense antidemocratic. Indeed the great political insight of James Stephens, the founder of Fenianism, was that political power came from the mass of the people.33 One prominent Fenian convert to constitutionalism believed that the change brought about by the movement to the political realities of Ireland meant that by the 1870s a mass 'constitutional movement might succeed'.34 In one sense the political mould in Ireland of Tory versus Liberal had been broken but what was to emerge from the new structure, in the early 1870s, remained unclear until later in the decade. The more militant nationalists had no reserve about what they expected. When the 1874 election returned 59 home rule members to Westminster, as opposed to only eleven Liberals, the editorial in the advanced nationalist journal The Irishman observed: It should be distinctly understood that something more than a mere vote in favour of self-government for Ireland is expected from the home rule members, and that a loyal adherence to their party and the course of action resolved upon, is an absolute necessity in redemption of their pledges to their constituents.35 The political dynamics then, occasioned by Fenianism made their influence felt in the wider political world. Maurice Cowling poses the interesting if somewhat convoluted question: did Fenian violence in Ireland and its threatened extension to England help to make English MP's so reactionary that they accepted from Disraeli a more extensive [reform] bill than they would have accepted from Gladstone?36 Disraeli, of course, was anxious to stress what he took to be the foreign nature of Fenianism, and that the people of Ireland 'as a people repudiated the conspiracy....'37 This peculiar reluctance to accept that Ireland was discontented with how she was governed may





well be one element in the explanation of why the government did not act sooner to curb Fenian activities. When the administration finally took steps against the conspiracy in 1865, the net effect of its measures contributed to the overall panic in the country. 'By its ridiculous display of force', The Tablet commented, the government did more to spread Fenian sentiment in two weeks than the organization itself had been able to achieve in many years.38 There was perhaps a tendency in some Catholic journals to attribute too many ulterior motives to government policy. The fact remained, however, that by the time Gladstone's government set to work to reconcile Ireland to the Union, the Fenians would maintain that remedial legislation had been forced on a reluctant London parliament by their revolutionary designs. Government hopes of saving Ireland for the Empire rested on a combination of concession and coercion. The part played by Fenianism in the development of Irish nationalism, especially in its physical force tradition, has long been a fascinating study - not least precisely because Fenians insisted that violence, or the threat of violence, brought about the amelioration of Ireland's situation. Contemporary commentators and subsequent historians have offered justifications or refutations of such a proposition, perhaps as much for ideological as for historical reasons. It is therefore to a consideration of these issues that we must now turn. INTERPRETATIONS OF FENIANISM By the middle of 1866, the Liberal Blackwood's Magazine could record that Fenianism had changed the terms of political discourse in Ireland.39 Such sentiments fed into the Fenians' self-understanding about their role in Irish politics and helped bolster the convictions of those such as John O'Leary that the Fenian spirit once released, jinnlike, could never be recaptured or exterminated.40 But whether Fenianism could ever have realized its goal of a mass revolutionary rising against English rule is a matter of some dispute. One of the first attempts to seriously investigate the raison d'etre of Fenianism came to the conclusion that Stephens never intended that the movement should be anything other than a thorn in the side of British administration in Ireland.41 Such a view was refuted by Fenians and non-Fenians alike, who, given the defeat of 1867, lighted on the fact that the autumn of 1865 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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was the optimum time at which a rising could have been successful.42 T.D. Sullivan, himself a constitutional nationalist, some forty years later commented on such a suggestion that 'After this Jules Verne may hide his diminished head; Baron Hieronymus Munchausen may be taken as a reputable historian, and one need not be sceptical about the experiences of Alice in Wonderland.'43 If violent uprising was not a success the Fenian mentality could at least draw comfort from the fact that even in the transfer of its resources to home rule, it demonstrated that there existed 'a great mass of desperate and irreconcilable disaffection'.44 John Mitchel's support of Fenianism was not always reliable, but his well-known quip that Fenianism was a great sack of gas has to be set alongside his assurance that he approved of the organization, although he had long lost confidence in James Stephens, the founder of Fenianism. In casting around for some explanation for the defeat of their designs, the Fenians had already anticipated that the Catholic clergy were a potential source for undermining the organization's endeavours. The Irish People took the view that the priests were content with British rule in Ireland because of the relative freedom the state afforded the Church, and would therefore oppose any change that threatened their position in society. On one reading of the situation, up to 1862, the fortunes of Irish nationalism seemed so entwined with Ultramontanism that contemporaries and historians have been moved to talk of the 'pro-papal enthusiasm' of Ireland.45 Vincent Comerford has extrapolated from this that Fenianism was a defender of the ancien regime in Italy, yet simultaneously orchestrating revolution in Ireland.46 It is true that up to a thousand Irish fought for the papal cause in 1860, and that many ex-papal Irish zouaves found their way into the ranks of the Fenians.47 At the same time, not only did the papal authorities find its Irish allies more than difficult to handle,48 but the whole tenor of Fenianism does not harmonize with the idea that Fenianism perse was antipathetic to democratic wishes. There is certainly no evidence that it supported the papal monarchy as apolitical institution, whatever the quasi-theological arguments in favour of the Papal States. Although the Fenians believed that they were acting in conformity with the physical-force endeavour of their 1848 predecessors, many contemporary observers repudiated such a notion as absurd. Sullivan maintained that Fenianism was 'strenuously reprehended by every one of the "Forty-eight" leaders with scarcely an exception'.49 Bishop David Moriarty of Kerry, in similar vein, declared that 'If we admired 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




a noble and unselfish band of rebels in '48 it does not follow that we should admire a set of cowards and swindlers who pretend[ed] to play rebellion in '68.'50 The glowing assessment of 1848 was equally subject to revisionist interpretations. The Times, reflecting on Daniel O'Connell's contribution to Irish nationalism, on the centenary of his birth, commented that he devoted his energies to an agitation which was mischievous instead of beneficial, and,... the natural, if not necessary consequence of his denunciations of the Union was an outburst of physical force like that identified with the name of Mr Smith O'Brien.51 Other voices had also been raised which gave an account of Irish history in very different terms from those prevalent in either Catholic or nationalist circles. Even the men of 1848 had imbibed Carlyle's doctrine that might and right were identical, as right would infallibly become might in the end. Such a view 'was very welcome teaching to men struggling against enormous odds, for what they believed to be intrinsic justice'.52 It was, however, the Tory and Orange Belfast News Letter which most explicitly articulated an alternative account of the Irish historical experience when it recorded that Next to the disgrace of being absolutely involved in the rebellious plot, we know of nothing more abominable than this effort to obtain further concessions from the government under cover of the treason which is being suppressed.... Disaffection has been too long a passport to favor; [sic] and the time has come for the inauguration of a new regime. Heretofore loyalty in Ireland has been rather an objection to any man who sought a position in the gift of the Crown.53 As against previous interpretations of the significance of the Fenian movement, Vincent Comerford has sought to play down its importance in the development of modern Irish nationalism. He maintains, for example, that it was not intrinsically given to the gun,54 and that it was in fact a reaction to changes taking place in Irish society in the late 1850s and early 1860s.55 He is also convinced that Fenianism of the middle years of the 1860s was converted to more innocuous uses, as young men joined the organization for social rather than revolutionary purposes.56 This perhaps neglects the fact that it may not have been simply a question of 'either/or' in young men's adherence to Fenianism. It is possible at an intellectual and 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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emotional level to join an organization for a variety of motives without detracting from one's idealism. There were also alternative social outlets in the 1860s, as we shall see, even in rural Ireland, such as the Catholic Young Men's Society, and it must surely be an important question to ask why young men chose Fenianism for their youthful pursuits. In contrast to Comerford's notion of the ephemeral nature of Fenianism, one cannot but be struck by its endurance and persistence, even when, by the mid-1870s, Ireland had experienced something of a political revolution with the home rule movement well in the ascent. It makes at least as much sense to see Fenianism as a movement which was 'bred out of poverty, famine and despair; but above all it was a national protest against the trampling on national pride'.57 Another striking aspect of the movement's development is that those same feelings of hostility to the English government of Ireland, which pervaded the organization in Ireland, were communicated to the Irish diaspora not only in North America, but also in Great Britain.58 It is also important to appreciate that in several instances of defeat for the Fenians, that very fact gained them considerable popularity in Ireland. The Fenian trials of 1865-66 cast many of the leaders in the role of reluctant heroes. As Moody rightly put it, they were in various ways quite unfitted to conduct a rebellion. They were writers, thinkers, and scholars rather than men of action. Kickham, 'the gentle Charles', the personification of the Fenian spirit at its highest, had been deaf and nearly blind since the age of thirteen... ,59 The execution of three of their members in Manchester in November 1867 probably did more for the organization's popularity than any other event in the early history of the movement. It is perhaps not entirely accurate to see that Fenianism makes sense only by reference to factors 'external both to Ireland and the United Kingdom'. Neither is it true to maintain that no one in Ireland in the 1860s 'imagined an Irish insurrection to be possible without an international crisis, or Irish-American aid or both'.60 Undoubtedly such sentiments were deeply held by the likes of John Mitchel,61 but Stephens had determined upon a different course and maintained that even without an American war with England, or indeed IrishAmerican help, risks had to be taken in order to further the revolutionary cause.62 The difficulty in dealing with Professor Comerford's view is that he refuses to countenance any explanation of the Fenian phenomenon 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




other than his own.63 On the other hand, as both Newsinger and Shin-ichi Takagami acknowledge, Comerford has provided a different framework within which to interpret Fenianism, in a historiography which for too long has been dominated by one particular understanding of the significance of the organization. The problem is that Comerford is determined that his ideas will become the basis for a new orthodoxy, an orthodoxy which in itself can be just as skewed as previous interpretations. The history of Fenianism is sufficiently complex not to be amenable to a single interpretative framework. This section of the discussion can perhaps best be brought to an end by adverting to Takagami's judgement (he is a man who cannot be accused of regional bias) that given the fact that the fiasco of 1867 was more one of leadership and planning than of popular readiness to take the field, the Fenians may need to be reassessed, and their place to be seen in a less romantic and more formidable light. In other words they may deserve more pages than they get in general accounts, and the Fenians and the sympathies they aroused among their supporters may emerge as a more central element in the context which changed Ireland in the succeeding two generations.64

CONCLUSION My aim in what follows is to try to show that Fenianism must be taken seriously on its own terms. Its effect as a revolutionary movement needs to be measured not so much by its achievements, since in many respects it was a colossal disaster, but by the fact that it forced politicians from the 1860s onwards to re-evaluate their attitude to Ireland, and at least make sustained efforts to ensure that such disaffection as there was did not do irreparable damage to the Union. The specifically religious threat which Fenianism posed to the workings of the Catholic Church in Ireland and in America65 has never really been examined, and I have made some attempts to redress the balance by grappling with that issue. The role that American Fenianism played in the movement in Ireland has to some extent been examined in the historiography over the last thirty years. Never before, however, has there been an attempt to examine the dynamic of the relationship between the Fenians, the American Church, and the governments in North America, and to 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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explore their collective impact on their respective opposite numbers in Britain and Ireland. Perhaps for the first time in the literature the social ambitions of the Church in Ireland are given proper weight, and this in turn is related to the Church's opposition to the Fenian movement, since that organization threatened the ambitions of ecclesiastics for Catholic Ireland. This is not to say that the opposition of priests and bishops was evoked simply by venial considerations. Points of principle and moral theology had their part, but the Church as a social institution was anxious for the advancement of its members, and Fenianism was an impediment to that progress. Some effort is made to examine why Catholicism saw itself at a disadvantage in Irish society in the 1860s, because of the fundamentally Protestant constitution of the state, and how, despite this, it was anxious to uphold the political status quo. The conclusion one must draw is that although it disliked and feared Protestantism, it feared Fenianism even more. This is also linked to the general question of nationalism in Ireland in the period under discussion. One cannot but be struck by the contrast between the political dispositions of leading churchmen in the mid-1860s, mostly pro-Union, and their leanings by the beginning of the 1880s, by which time one can perhaps begin to talk of a Nationalist/Catholic rapprochement. Beyond doubt what transformed both the political landscape and ecclesiastical opinion was the advent of Fenianism. The organization gave rise, sometimes, as we have seen, even in spite of itself, to powerful emotions which found expression in separatist sentiment. Those emotions the Church was unable to resist and it became sucked into a political confrontation with the state, which, throughout the decade-and-a-half here considered, it did its best to avoid. At the very least one is left with the impression that Fenianism was a greater force in the social and political realities of Britain, Ireland and North America than is allowed for in much current Irish historiography. It did, after all, occasion one of the most comprehensive and intensive intelligence-gathering operations in nineteenth-century Irish history. By contrast with the efforts of revolutionaries in the 1860s and 1870s, the 1848 rising attracts little hostility from most modern historians - partly because it was a much more hopeless affair, and partly because its leaders never really inspired a mass following on the scale of Fenianism. It is perhaps because Fenianism came closest in the nineteenth century to changing the political map of Ireland through the threat of violence that it now receives such 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




opprobrium at the hands of those historians who wish to show that the political geography of Ireland was changed by London governments in response to popular democratic demands. Such considerations are, however, ethical rather than historical. I have tried in what follows to see Fenianism within the framework of church-state relations in the 1860s and evaluate the disparate components of the Church, the state and Fenianism in their own historical setting.



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THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND The advent of Fenianism as a serious political threat in the 1860s coincided with a re-emergence of the 'Catholic question' in British politics. Developments in Italy determined the Whig-Liberal government upon a foreign policy antipathetic to the interests of Catholics in Britain and Ireland.1 Simultaneously a sustained campaign by influential sections of Catholic opinion in Britain sought to unite that body with the fortunes of the Conservative Party. This strategy found support among leading Conservatives, particularly with Disraeli.2 That this represented a great departure for both parties is evidenced by the fact that, less than a decade previously, anti-popery seemed to be the only Conservative policy propagated in the English towns.3 It was as an indirect result of his Italian policy that Palmerston had been forced from office in 1858,4 but the inability of the Tories to make any substantial gains in April 1859 saw Palmerston once more in Downing Street. However, 17 of the 25 new Tory seats were from Ireland, testifying to the strength of Catholic resentment at the Whig-Liberal attitude to the government of the Papal States. Palmerston's support of Italian revolutionaries was, then, something of a mixed blessing for English Liberal fortunes. Not only did it lend itself to accusations of hypocrisy, encouraging insurrection abroad while suppressing it at home,5 but it could lead to actual violence in English cities,6 and stimulate a general spirit of discontent among radical and militant sentiments in Britain. English public opinion was genuinely sympathetic to the struggles of the Italians, the Czechs and the Poles, but saw no correlation between those struggles and emergent 'nationalism' in Ireland. It may not be entirely coincidental that the Italian revolutionary leaders Garibaldi and Mazzini, who had received enormous support from the governing classes in Britain, tended to denigrate nationalism in Ireland. This is in contrast to an earlier generation of Italian nationalists. Thus Angelo 17 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


2 Church and State Reactions to Fenianism, 1861-65

The Churchy the State and the Fenian Threat

Brofferio, the Italian radical leader, speaking to the first elected chamber of deputies in Turin in May 1848, adverted to the great inspiration he derived from Ireland's struggles and especially from O'ConnelPs leadership in the Repeal movement.7 By the 1860s Italian nationalism was in some respects thoroughly anti-Catholic and this doubtless helped commend it to British tastes. However, the pervasive anti-Catholicism of much British political life also inadvertently played into the hands of the Fenians. Opposition from the Church to government policy on religious issues, over education for example, helped create a climate of opinion in which hostility to the English government of Ireland seemed generally acceptable, despite the injunctions of pastors to the contrary. David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, was inclined to blame Paul Cullen's too-spirited defence of Catholic interests as a factor in stirring up trouble.8 This is not to deny the deep aversion to Catholicism felt by many people in public life. Palmerston was convinced that Catholics had no right to hold political office in a Protestant country; he maintained that they did so only as a discretionary privilege granted to them by the state.9 He was also deeply suspicious of priests, a prejudice shared, over a considerable period of time, by other statesmen connected with Ireland.10 Equally of course Catholics were also prejudiced against the state religion. For the most part, however, they were powerless to give effect to their intolerance. Despite some evidence of deteriorating social conditions in Ireland much British opinion had about it a sense of self-satisfaction with relation to Irish affairs. Press and government combined to congratulate the enlightened way in which the country was governed. Such discontent as there might be was firmly attributed to the disgruntled and turbulent Irish themselves. Meanwhile the international situation began once again to have an impact on Britain's foreign and domestic policy. Palmerston, in a letter to Queen Victoria in January 1861, adverted to the 'approaching and virtually accomplished dissolution in America of the great Northern Confederation'. The American Civil War excited advanced nationalist hopes in Ireland. The 'Phoenix theory' envisaged an international conflict which would leave Britain weak and vulnerable, and give Ireland its opportunity for rebellion.11 One immediate effect, however, of the outbreak of the American war was to cause poor Irish migrants to seek a means of returning to the land of their birth in the hope of avoiding the conflict.12 The possibility of foreign assistance in staging a revolution in Ireland had been well known to the authorities for some time. By 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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1861 it was being widely debated in public by veteran revolutionaries of the 1848 rising. The authorities at Dublin Castle were amply supplied with information about the revolutionary bombast of Irish exiles in America, and as early as August 1859 knew that one plank in Fenian theory was the need for a major international conflict.13 There is no evidence to suggest that on the whole the government put much weight on the reports they received from America. On the other hand, the executive knew that revolvers were being imported from America to Ireland, that men associated with the Phoenix trials were directly involved with the American agitation and that those who were drilling and target-shooting in America had considerable contact with affairs in Ireland and agents in France. The calm self-assurance of officialdom in the face of revolutionary conspiracy could on occasion give way to uncontrolled panic. A chance interception by the post office in London,14 in December 1860, of a letter addressed to a Chicago gun-dealer ordering three hundred revolvers caused an intense investigation to be carried out, involving the police, the Irish Under-Secretary, Sir Thomas Larcom, and the Attorney-General's office. In the end Larcom concluded the whole thing was a hoax, but the incident is indicative of the sensitivity of the administration to indications of radical disaffection. Such disaffection had by then already shown itself even in the army. When Palmerston, fearing a possible attack on Canada15 soon after the outbreak of the American Civil War, ordered the reinforcement of the garrison there, he stipulated that no Irish troops should be sent, since their loyalty could not be relied upon.16 This is in contrast to the position at the height of the Fenian excitement in 1865 when Irish troops were routinely dispatched to British North America. ECCLESIASTICAL FACTORS The political climate in Ireland in the 1850s had been dominated by the attempt to form an independent opposition at Westminster, of Irish MPs who would not give their allegiance to any particular party but who would always vote and act solely in Irish interests. Ultimately the experiment floundered because of the opposition of Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, who perhaps wanted Catholics to take government office as a means of trying from the inside to forward his politico-ecclesiastical policies. In addition, the Cardinal Secretary of State at the Vatican, Giacomo Antonelli, had told Cullen that 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Church and State Reactions to Fenianism


independent opposition might too easily turn into Mazzinianism.17 By the end of 1860 the lack of political progress had caused one of the leading Catholic Liberal MPs, Daniel O'Donoghue (The O'Donoghue), to launch a national petition, demanding the restoration of the Irish Parliament.18 In O'Donoghue's scheme of things it was essential to have the Church's support, which was not always enthusiastically given. He had written to Cullen in January, asking for his help, indicating that Bishop Cantwell of Meath had already signed the national petition, and, undiplomatically, reminding Cullen that the bishops had failed to give their blessing to independent opposition.19 Much more to Cullen's tastes were the sentiments expressed by Aubrey de Vere in February 1861. 'It has struck me very strongly of late', de Vere observed, 'that, the Religious question being obviously the Irish cause, until our efforts are united with that cause Irish politicians will never be able to effect anything.'20 Despite recent attempts to portray Cullen in a decidedly more political and nationalist light,21 the judgement of Edward Norman that Cullen's politics must be seen as essentially religious has about it a ring of truth.22 His primary concern was for the advancement of the Catholic Church in Ireland and he was prepared to align himself with whatever political institutions best served the interests of the Church. He was distrustful of the English, whom he disliked, and had an intense aversion to the workings of what he took to be a Protestant government in Ireland, which he suspected on more than one occasion of systematically trying to undermine Catholicism. Cullen's political outlook was to some extent shaped by Pius IX's tendency to see in Liberal governments principles at work which, of their nature, he regarded as inimical to Catholicism. However, an obsessive distaste for Irish Tories, in whom Cullen saw nothing but Orangeism, mitigated any leanings he may have had towards the Conservative camp. The penchant for the Conservative Party displayed by some English Catholics can only have underlined Cullen's distrust of his co-religionist's on the other side of the Irish Sea, whom he in any case regarded as unreliable in Irish political affairs. Cullen's undoubted dominance over the Irish hierarchy set the tone for much of the political outlook of Irish Catholicism in the Fenian period. As the movement was to unfold in the course of the 1860s it was clear that Fenianism presented both a political and a religious challenge to the Irish Church.23 It competed with the Church for influence over the mass of the rural and urban working class, and



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questioned the Church's right to any say in the political arena. Although Edward Norman is convinced that the political vacuum of the 1850s and 1860s was filled not by Fenianism but by the clergy,24 it is equally apparent that the Fenians posed a serious challenge to the political pretensions of the priesthood. Time and again the Fenian newspaper The Irish People questioned the right of the clergy to any direct involvement in Irish political affairs.25 Emmet Larkin is therefore mistaken in his view that the Fenians, along with in their turn Parnellites and Republicans, confined themselves to complaining that the Church was exceeding its limits of legitimate power and influence in condemning them, but never went so far as to maintain that the Church had no claim to power and influence.26 On the contrary, the Irish People regularly and bitterly complained that the clergy overstepped their proper role in society by presuming to extend their domain into political matters.27 It was this rejection of clerical political activity, coupled with the desire for a complete separation of church and state,28 that generated such alarm in Cullen and his supporters, and caused them to view the Fenians in the same light as anti-clerical Italian revolutionaries. There were, at the very least, some intellectual affinities with the latter but the Fenians were not anti-clerical in the strict sense, and although as a movement Fenianism contributed to the breakdown of the identification of nationalism with Catholicism,29 this is not to say that all Fenians were well-disposed to Protestants. AGRICULTURAL CRISIS AND POLITICS The Ireland of 1859-63 experienced something of an agricultural crisis.30 Catholic clergy emphasised at every opportunity the extent of distress. Government officials more often than not rejected the clerical analysis of the social circumstances then prevailing.31 One factor in the government assessment was the comparatively low level of agrarian crime, which traditionally had been regarded as a barometer of agricultural exigency and food shortage. If there was distress, so the argument went, this would be reflected in the crime figures. This of course did not always follow. The number of agrarian outrages fell from 1362 incidents in 1852 to 232 in I860.32 In 1870 there were, outside Dublin, 4351 reported crimes of which it was estimated that 1329 were of an agrarian nature. This compared with 123 in 1867 and 4439 in 1881 at the height of the land war. Furthermore it was clear 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




that the post-famine years were a period of relative economic prosperity for the country. Between 1841 and 1871 cattle production rose from 1.8 million to 4.0 million.33 By 1861 there were 158000 holdings which exceeded more than 30 acres. As many as 105 000 were occupied by Catholics. This growing sector of Irish society was both more politicized and homogenized than at any previous period in Irish history. The distress of these years had less effect on this relatively prosperous group and it was on them that the government tended to focus its attention when rebutting allegations of political neglect of those in penury. This is not to say they escaped the economic hardship of the period. Thus, for example, bank deposits fell from £16 million pounds in 1859 to £13 million in 1863. Crop yields were also depleted. Potato output in 1861 was at its lowest since the famine at 1.6 million tons. The lack of potatoes was felt most acutely by the poorest, and hunger was an everyday occurrence. Continuous rain affected not only harvests, but also waterlogged peat supplies, the only source of fuel for many. For the most part the government tended to regard representation on these matters as simply an attempt to cause trouble: a sentiment which found a resonance in the hearts of some Irish landlords. The Earl of Leitrim told the House of Lords in February 1861 that the principal source of trouble was got up by the clergy who orchestrated quarrels between landlords and tenants.34 The government protestations of the tranquillity of the country notwithstanding, it was found necessary to introduce yet another Peace Preservation Bill in May 1862. The measure was greeted with howls of protests from the Irish Liberal members35 of the government's own side, and even Irish Tories talked of distress giving rise to 'crimes of unusual atrocity'.36 Such violence as was exhibited in response to social distress was a consistent feature of nineteenthcentury Ireland, and is taken by some historians as indicative of the fact that Ireland at this period was not a 'modern society'.37 If this is true of agricultural violence, then a fortiori one must regard Fenianism as an essentially pre-modern phenomenon. Clearly, however, at this period violence or the threat of violence had more than one source, and in time the Fenians were to try to counteract the more gratuitous aspects of agrarian disorder.38 A characterization of violence in Irish society in the Fenian period might be systematized as (i) rural, ad hoc and unwarranted, (ii) Fenian-inspired and intended, (iii) in some instances tenant-right inspired and non-Fenian.39 An explanation of the growth of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Fenianism in Ireland cannot be divorced from the background of violent protest against grievances, real or imagined, experienced on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand this of itself is insufficient to account for the whole phenomenon. After all, one of the striking features of early Fenianism was its urban base, especially in Dublin, and many of the towns were saved from the harsher aspects of agricultural distress in the period under discussion. J.J. Lee has tellingly observed that in examining the social background of Fenians in Cork and Dublin we find that a very large number were first-generation rural migrants 'who found in Fenianism the camaraderie that helped them integrate into their new urban environment'.40 However, this should not detract from the fact that such a class could engage in radical political movements as part of the general politicization of the culture, as has been demonstrated for the English context,41 but downplayed for Irish affairs.42 FENIAN ORGANIZATION AND POLICE SURVEILLANCE From his tour of the country in late 1856 James Stephens was convinced that Ireland was ready to begin to accept the necessity of completing the unfinished business of 1848. The immediate aim Stephens set himself was to secure an independent Ireland by force of arms. His observations, in his three-thousand mile journey, confirmed what he termed 'the hostility of the farmers, the pigheadedness of the bourgeoisie: but the labourers and tradesmen were on the right track, and the sons of the peasantry very sympathetic'.43 Stephens's desire for revolution found an echo among diverse groups in Ireland and the United States. Owen Considine, in the autumn of 1857, brought Stephens a message from the 1848 exiles in America John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny that they were prepared to form a revolutionary group there as a counterpart to any such organization in Ireland. Thus was born the organization which in Ireland became known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood and in the United States the Fenian Brotherhood. By May the following year Stephens had incorporated into the movement the Phoenix Society of Skibbereen which had been founded by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. The early fortunes of the movement did not give much grounds for optimism that Stephens's hopes would be realized. American financial assistance was almost negligible, and the arrests of members of the organization in the winter of 1858-59 almost paralysed the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




movement in Ireland before it got off the ground. The government had not only rounded up Rossa and his associates but had demonstrated the comparative ease with which it could monitor dissident groups. With the release of the Thoenix conspirators' in July 1859 police and government agents kept up their surveillance of known trouble-makers, as is evidenced by frequent letters from the Undersecretary in Dublin to the Treasury Secretary in London requesting funds for 'secret service'.44 However, even after his release from prison, Rossa attracted much police attention since he insisted on keeping armaments on display in his shop in Skibbereen, and tried to encourage others similarly to keep arms.45 Meanwhile Sub-Inspector Doyle's reports enabled the Dublin administration to build up a fairly complex profile of the 'parties in the U.S. whose aid appeared to have been relied on by the conspirators in Ireland'.46 Much subsequent comment has tended to stress that Fenianism had political rather than social aims.47 It is also clear, however, that Stephens himself and some at least of his associates envisaged a social as well as a political revolution in Ireland.48 Even those in the Fenian movement who are normally taken to be agnostic about social issues had some harsh things to say about the lack of nationalist fervour among the better-off sections of Irish society. John O'Leary records Kickham's remark that the well-to-do farmers 'As a class ... have no more souls than the brutes they fatten for the tables of our English masters'.49 Other contemporary indications of the social programme of Fenians are given in police reports from America which suggest that the aim of the would-be revolutionaries was to 'root out the government, to cut down the landlords, and to confiscate the land of Ireland'.50 By the time of the state trials against the Fenians in 1865 the prosecution was to claim that their plans had about them 'the character of socialism in its most pernicious and wicked phase', and that the lower classes were taught to expect a redistribution of property in a post-revolutionary Ireland,51 a charge which the Fenian prisoners did not deny. Most persistently and consistently the Fenian newspaper The Irish People, in its brief existence from November 1863 to September 1865, frequently addressed itself to the land question and social conditions in the country. From the first issue onwards the paper called for the social and national regeneration of Ireland.52 It also alleged that the government used the self-interest of the landlord class (which it described as an 'enormous evil') as a means of keeping Ireland in 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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subjection to British rule.53 It rejected Thomas Davis's view of twenty years previously that the upper classes ought to lead the people, describing them rather as 'willing tools of an alien government', and 'an obstacle which no false delicacy must prevent us from trampling upon, if need be'.54 The upper and middle classes in 1848 were 'useless as nationalists', in what was 'a disgraceful attempt at insurrection', and it was these same classes which were trying to obstruct those preparing for revolution.55 More particularly, the paper asserted that the land was the inheritance of the whole people and 'should be parcelled out by the state on such terms as are most conducive to promote the interests of all'.56 By August 1864 the Irish People adverted to what it took to be the favourable social conditions of Prussia and France, where there was peasant proprietorship, and where in the latter 'the crow-bar brigade has never operated, never can operate, because the righteous fury of the revolution of 1789 swept away the aristocracy and substituted for worthless nobles "a bold peasantry'".57 This was a theme to which it was to return the following month when declaring that in midnineteenth-century Ireland, as with eighteenth-century France, 'the existence of an aristocracy is incompatible with national prosperity'.58 Historians generally are reluctant to concede that early Fenianism had in mind a systematic programme of social reorganization in the aftermath of a successful revolution. Indeed a number of the pronouncements of the Irish People suggest that the Fenians believed that in a revolutionary situation the middle class would rally to support them, and there is some indication they suppressed discussion of social issues to use their energies 'for only one thing'.59 Nonetheless it is a mistake to believe that the Fenians shelved internal debate on these matters for the sake of national unity among all the classes in the country. An editorial discussing the question in May 1864 thundered: 'God knows how anxious we are to lessen the number of Irish-born men who must be treated as foes to their country ... [but] there are limits to forbearance.'60 THE M A C M A N U S FUNERAL: A GOVERNMENTAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL PROBLEM The fortunes of the Fenian organization61 were by early 1861 at a low ebb. O'Mahony on his visit to Ireland in the spring of that year had discussed with Stephens how to set up a public demonstration 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




which could be used as a means of rallying support for the cause. By that time there were other forces of an advanced nationalist variety at work. The Strabane Presbyterian Thomas Neilson Underwood had founded in March that year the National Brotherhood of St Patrick which quickly became a cover organization for Fenianism amid much ecclesiastical talk about secret societies. The death of Terence Bellew MacManus, one of the leaders of the 1848 rising, on 15 January 1861, and the decision taken by the Fenians in San Francisco to bury him in his native land provided the stimulus which helped to change the scope of the Fenian organization in Ireland. Although there is some suggestion that Stephens may have been opposed to the funeral in Ireland, possibly because it was rumoured it could become the occasion for a rising, he nonetheless took a prominent part in the arrangements, and the committee charged with organizing the event was dominated by Fenian members of the Brotherhood of St Patrick. The need to include MacManus's former Young Irelander colleagues presented enormous difficulties for the Fenian orchestration of the funeral arrangements. A major row broke out between Fr John Keynon, himself a veteran of 1848, on one side, and Stephens and Thomas Luby, on the other, soon after the body arrived in Dublin. There is some evidence that Keynon was requested to deliver the oration at the cemetery by MacManus's sister. Having heard what Keynon proposed to say, Stephens vetoed it and insisted that Captain Michael Smith of the Californian delegation deliver the oration which Stephens then prepared. The O'Donoghue MP on this occasion sided with the opponents of the Fenians, much to the chagrin of Stephens and company. Keynon and John Martin tried to persuade Isabella MacManus to have her brother's remains taken away from the funeral committee, a suggestion she refused to countenance.62 The O'Donoghue's role in all this is most intriguing. He clearly wanted to appear as the herald of constitutional nationalism, in O'Connellite tradition, feted by the general public and the Church. At the same time he kept close contact with the NBSP and the Fenian movement. The following March, Canon John Farrell, of Thomas Street Dublin, attempted to call his bluff by urging him not to attend the St Patrick's Day banquet of the NBSP. Farrell told him that the NBSP, however patriotic, was a condemned society, that it had the same principles as the Carbonari and it attempted to separate nationality from Catholicism to the detriment of both. More ominously he told O'Donoghue that his attendance at the banquet would be 'injur10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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ious to your future influence in Catholic Councils'.63 Farrell suggested that O'Donoghue use the pretext of his wife's illness to excuse himself from the banquet. In this instance he followed the Canon's advice.64 However, such is the ambiguity of clerical influence at this stage in Irish politics that, in the letter explaining his wife's illness, O'Donoghue went on to remark: As I look upon the members of your association as young enthusiastic hearts, animated with the purest patriotism, and the most uncompromising hostility to English supremacy; as I know full well the great object which they seek to obtain / am drawn towards them by the most irresistible sympathy.65

Such duplicity could not long endure as the basis of a political career and in time the Fenians denounced O'Donoghue, claiming that he belonged to a political class which was hopelessly corrupt.66 The funeral undoubtedly gave an enormous boost to Fenian morale but it also illustrated the tensions within advanced nationalist circles, and provoked the ecclesiastical authorities into systematically trying to deal with the growing problem of secret societies. In particular it also exposed the divisions within the Irish Catholic Church on the question of how best to deal with, on the one hand, a hostile government and, on the other, extreme nationalist groups, and the clergy who supported them. Although there was some divergence of opinion among the bishops, the Irish hierarchy on the whole regarded the events surrounding the funeral as an attempt to incite enthusiasm for anticlerical and revolutionary ideas. Archbishop Cullen told Bishop Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham that the expressed purpose of the funeral organizers was to 'proclaim their adhesion to the principles of revolution, for which [MacManus] suffered, and their admiration for his conduct in taking up arms against the government in 1848'.67 Professor Comerford is in error in his assertion that Cullen was neutral with regard to the funeral, and that he would have allowed a religious service provided that he received some reassurance that it would not be exploited for political purposes.68 Amid talk of doing honour to the 1848 rising, Cullen made clear that he was not going to ally himself with sentiments which smacked of rebellion. In a letter to Bishop Laurence Gillooly of Elphin he reiterated his conviction that the whole affair was orchestrated to 'turn away people's minds, and fill them with a wild and revolutionary spirit'. He subsequently wrote to Gillooly: 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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Cullen realized that by taking the stand he did, he would make himself unpopular in the country at large. He told the rector of the Irish College, Rome, Dr Tobias Kirby, 'I suspect that informers & spies are engaged in this work to divert public attention from real grievances & to get up odium against me if I refused a funeral... I will do nothing to approve of the folly of [William] S[mith] O'Brien and forty eight whatever odium I may incur.'70 This is a point he stressed to several correspondents, including Ullathorne. By opposing revolutionary sentiments, Cullen believed he would have to 'encounter the hostility of the multitudes, but nothing will induce me, I trust in God, to go against the dictates of conscience, or to sanction a revolutionary spirit'.71 Cullen's attitude was compounded by the fact that MacManus had been given the last rites of the Church by the Archbishop of San Francisco, Dr Joseph Alemany. Alemany had also conducted a funeral service for him, as had Archbishop John Hughes of New York. Even in Ireland the Bishop of Cloyne, William Keane, had allowed the body to rest in the chapel of the hospital run by the Sister of Mercy in Queenstown. Furthermore, the students at St Patrick's College, Maynooth gathered to chant a requiem office for the dead patriot. In addition eleven priests from the Ennis area of Co. Clare wrote to their local ecclesiastical superior asking him to call all the clergy together to offer a High Mass and the office of the dead for MacManus. Most notoriously of all Fr Patrick Lavelle, parish priest of Partry Co. Mayo contributed to the funeral expenses. Lavelle also wrote an ill-tempered letter amounting to a denunciation of Cullen, observing that MacManus was being denied 'the honours acceded to every Castle-slave, time-serving hypocrite, and whigling sycophant'.72 We need now to examine a number of difficulties surrounding the funeral which have tended to cause confusion. As we have seen above, it is quite clear that Cullen did not at any point intend to provide a funeral service for MacManus: however, neither did he refuse the request outright. The first letter Cullen received from EJ. Ryan, secretary of the MacManus funeral committee, asked him 'to order a solemn funeral service' for the dead patriot and, if it met with his 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Everyone here knew that the funeral was intended as a declaration in favour of the rebellion of '48. One of the gentlemen who came to ask for a High Mass stated distinctly that the object was to proclaim that we adopted the principles for which MacManus had suffered.... How could I in such circumstance order a Mass.69

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approval, to receive a delegation to discuss the details. Initially inclined to refuse to meet a delegation, Cullen thought better of it. He wanted to know on what grounds they had requested a public funeral. When the committee was unable to provide a statisfactory answer to this question the archbishop refused to permit a Catholic burial. One possible explanation for his equivocation was that the burial was a private family affair as well as being a public event. Cullen had no wish to hurt or cause offence to MacManus's sole surviving relative, but neither did he wish to encourage political extremism. Although often portrayed as a hard-faced ecclesiastical politician, which doubtless he was, Cullen was also a pastor of souls. Isabella MacManus had personally appealed to Cullen, asking that her brother's remains might be given the final blessing of the Church. She wrote to the archbishop on 15 October, saying she had heard a rumour 'that your Grace declines to give the use of one of the churches in Dublin for the celebration of the funeral obsequies.... I cannot bring myself to believe unless I hear it from your Grace that the sacred services are ... to be denied to my poor brother' whom she claimed had always been a good Catholic.73 This obviously caused Cullen to pause for thought and he tried to avoid answering it. Having heard nothing, possibly because of Cullen's negotiations with the funeral committee, Isabella wrote again on the 21st, repeating her request. Cullen replied eight days later, telling her that it was unusual for a bishop to order such a funeral as had been requested, except in the most extraordinary cases, 'and where the Church w[oul]d be anxious to honour one who had rendered signal service to religion or his country'. These condition did not apply to Terence MacManus.74 The MacManus committee, however, was persistent. They wrote to the chaplain at Glasneivn cemetery and asked him to conduct the graveside ceremony. The priest there, Fr Brendan Delany, referred the matter to Dr Murray, Cullen's secretary, who drafted the response: 'before I give a definite answer it is necessary for me to know whether there will be an oration at the interment, and if so by whom it is to be delivered'. Comerford, using as his source T.N. Underwood, interprets this to mean that the chaplain would have conducted the service provided no oration was given. He comments, 'This move must have been inspired by Cullen; in any case it shows the over-simplicity of the notion that the archbishop had from the outset placed a ban on all ecclesiastical involvement in the MacManus obsequies.'75 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




One can in fact argue that this was a delaying tactic. Cullen had already made himself unpopular by the refusal of a church service, and clearly wanted a damage-limitation exercise in relation to the actual burial. There was no need to announce what would take place at the cemetery until he had to. Delany was approached by two members of the committee on the morning of the funeral and they gave him the details of what was to take place in the cemetery. He wrote to Murray at 9.45 a.m. that the oration would be given by Captain Smith who would be introduced by Fr Lavelle.76 At this point Cullen forbade the graveside ceremony, which, in the event, was performed by Lavelle and Fr P. Courtney, a priest of the Birmingham diocese. MacManus's funeral gives us a key to understanding Cullen's view of the relationship between church and state, and more specifically his attitude to revolution. At a meeting in Dublin's pro-cathedral in January 1860 to sympathize with the plight of Pius IX, Cullen declared that Catholics 'repudiate and condemn resistance to lawful authority and denounce treason and rebellion wherever they may spring up'. He emphasized this point in a letter to Kirby in the wake of the MacManus funeral, claiming that the whole affair was 'apronounciamento in favour of revolutionary principles'. Furthermore, he told his Roman correspondent that to have supported MacManus's funeral would be to have condemned 'all our doings in favour of the Pope, and in support of established authority'.77 Unlike the British government, Cullen was not prepared to resist revolution at home and support it abroad. On 29 November he wrote to Gillooly in Sligo that in rejecting the request for a funeral he did so in order to demonstrate a repudiation of those 'revolutionary principles which are destroying religion everywhere they prevail'. The police reports on MacManus's funeral are detailed both with regard to the numbers of those participating and the identity of those whom they regarded as the more noteworthy characters. There is some controversy over the exact size of the crowd that turned out on the day and more particularly over the significance of the event. The police report indicates that 40 000 assembled in Lower Abbey Street at the beginning of the funeral and that the procession numbered seven to eight thousand.78 At the same time it also states that 'the line of the route was crowded the whole way by onlookers'. Stephens was to claim that 30000 people walked in the cortege and 150000 turned out to witness the spectacle.79 It has been estimated that in the week before the funeral about 30000 filed past MacManus's coffin in the Mechanics Institute.80 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Equally one cannot draw too many hard and fast conclusions from these figures, impressive as they are. The mere attendance at the funeral did not signify, despite the invitation of the funeral committee to do so, that the participants 'supported the cause for which [MacManus] suffered'. The significant thing is not whether the funeral was a 'turning point' in the history of Irish nationalism,81 but the fact that both church and state began to deal with the movement behind the funeral as a serious threat to the stability of Irish society. Not only were the activities of the prominent American participants closely watched in the days after the funeral, but Superintendent Daniel Ryan carried out an investigation into the Brotherhood of St Patrick, and his report of 5 December describes it as a society which has 'for its object; the organization of members, to support Nationalists, and for the redemption of Ireland'.82 A further report from Ryan on 19 December deserves careful attention for the light it sheds on the extent of government knowledge of the Brotherhood at that time, and especially of its seditious nature. Here he submits that the movement is said to exist in all 'the great towns of America, Great Britain and Ireland', that its object 'is the establishment of the independence of Ireland', and that though the numbers involved are a matter of conjecture 'it is stated to comprise of many thousands, including all (with very few exceptions) who attended the funeral of MacManus'.83 He goes on to outline the structure of the organization, which sounds suspiciously like the Fenian circles, how secrecy is an essential element in the affairs of the group, and reiterates the 'Phoenix theory'. It is also suggested that members are strongly urged to say nothing to priests 'even going so far as to persuade them from attending confession, alleging that, by so doing their scheme is certain to be upset by the clergy as in 1848'. Ryan ends the report by complaining that the public at large seem just then to be very reticent and guarded in their conversations with the police. Interesting and revealing as this report is, not too much reliance can be placed upon it as an indicator to government thinking about the NBSP, and early Fenianism. A little over a month later Ryan was reporting that the organization in Dublin was 'fast approaching complete dissolution'. On the other hand, there is a sufficient trickle of reports preserved in the Dublin archives for the year 1862 to indicate that the police were well aware of the treasonable activities of the NBSP at this early stage. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




If the government response to Fenianism at this time was somewhat muted, the Church, as we have seen, showed no such reticence. Cullen and his supporters in the hierarchy had been launched into action by the defiance of Fr Patrick Lavelle and his role in the MacManus funeral. By the end of December Cullen had written three times to Rome denouncing Lavelle,84 he had been in contact with MacHale asking him to discipline the turbulent priest, had written a pastoral denouncing secret societies, and had begun a correspondence with bishops and other clergy in Britain and Ireland in an attempt to gauge the extent of the influence of the NBSP, a organization that he was convinced was headed by Protestants and some at least of whose members were 'administering illegal oaths'.85 Cullen's obsession with the operation of secret societies in Ireland had been further fed by a report from Rome telling him that Cardinal Antonelli was convinced that French agents were in Ireland stirring up trouble. The Archbishop of Dublin was not alone in drawing attention to the existence of secret societies in Ireland. John O'Sullivan, the Archdeacon of Kenmare, warned his congregation on the first Sunday of Advent 1861 that those who had recently opened a reading room in the town were 'disaffected young men', whose disregard for the Queen and the law would end with some of them being hanged, 'and hanged without pity'.86 O'Sullivan returned to the attack on a 'secret society' in the town four weeks later, linking it with a Dublin-based group and the MacManus funeral. William Smith O'Brien had also warned of a secret society operating in Ireland and infiltrating 'open and legal organizations'. He further stated his conviction that the government was fully informed of all its operations. The Dublin News carried a letter on 31 December from one James Plunkett, saying there was a rumour that a secret society was operating in the country, the authorities knew about it and asking 'Can it be possible?' By then, other Dublin newspapers such as the Evening Packet and the Dublin Evening Post had made similar allegations. The political situation had been further complicated by the 'Trent affair'87 and many observers confidently expected war between Britain and the Union States. This expectation occasioned a meeting in the Round Room of the Rotunda in Dublin on 5 December. Although ostensibly a meeting organized by John Martin, George Henry Moore and suchlike, it was virtually hijacked by the NBSP and the Fenians. Some time later, in referring to the meeting, the London-based Catholic and Liberal Dublin Review commented that in 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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to hold a crowded and enthusiastic meeting to express in language, however guarded, the sympathies of those assembled with the aggressor and the adversary. There is not perhaps a town in Ireland, in which a meeting of the like character might not be called.88 The O'Donoghue's remarks at the Rotunda meeting caused the Lord Chancellor some concern. His secretary wrote to O'Donoghue on 9 December asking for some clarification. Five days later he responded, stating it was his conviction 'that an overwhelming majority of the Irish people feel they have more reason to be grateful to the American nation than to the British Government5.89 As a result of such demagogy, O'Donoghue was dismissed from his post as a Justice of the Peace in counties Cork and Kerry. The 'national organization' founded at the Rotunda meeting was soon in a state of disarray, with the O'Donoghue, A.M. Sullivan, and Sir John Gray all resigning from the committee. The Times of 28 December said they resigned rather than be puppets moved by the leaders of the Brotherhood of St Patrick, 'a secret organization which may soon require attention'. These very public concerns about the Brotherhood of St Patrick kept Cullen busy writing to Rome and to fellow bishops. The problems of the Brotherhood were compounded by the fact that the Irish-American newspaper Mooney's California Express carried on 11 January an address from the California branch to their Dublin comrades, advocating the need to acquire military discipline and knowledge of the use of weapons.90 It also recommended that Irishmen should fight neither for the Queen nor the Pope. But its most venomous remarks were reserved for an attack on the clergy. 'The Irish priesthood' it declared, 'is, for the sake of thirty thousand pounds a year [a reference to the Maynooth grant]... sworn in as a species of police force for England. Our eyes are opened by the MacManus funeral to the sickening fruits of this alliance between church and state.' In an attempt singlehandedly to shatter such alliance, Lavelle on 11 February delivered a lecture in Dublin on 'The Catholic Doctrine of Right Revolution'. In this he claimed that the government of Ireland was so corrupt that revolution was justified and that the Church could not refuse to sanction it. Cullen could not let such effrontery go unchecked since by this time membership of the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


view of the possibility of impending war with the United States, it had been possible given sixty years of Union


Brotherhood in Dublin was a reserved sin. Cullen, in company with several other bishops,91 took the opportunity in his Lenten pastoral to attack secret societies, and in particular he implied that the Brotherhood of St Patrick was one such.92 He also suggested that the organization was filled with Protestants who were 'dangerous leaders and guides' and the enemies of religion and the Catholic faith.93 Thomas N. Underwood, the President of the NBSP, because he had been alluded to in the pastoral, wrote to Cullen94 rebutting his charges that the Brotherhood was a secret society or hostile to Catholicism. He did concede that there might be members of secret societies in the NBSP, but the Brotherhood could not be held responsible for that, just as the archbishop could not be blamed if, unknown to himself, he happened to be in the company of Freemasons. Cullen did not deign to reply and Underwood made public his refutation at the St Patrick's Day banquet of the Brotherhood in Dublin. Cullen was not to be outdone, and in another pastoral letter issued in late April he once again returned to the attack. On this occasion the archbishop exhorted pastors to 'caution your flocks against secret societies and dangerous brotherhoods'. This time Lavelle responded with a letter on 29 April to the Irishman denying that the NBSP was a 'dangerous brotherhood' or a secret society, and that its members thereby fell under the ban of the Church. He also wrote privately to Cullen95 telling him that his letter was not intended in any way to be offensive 'to your Grace', nor to interfere with the manner in which Cullen ran his diocese. Cullen was not to be so easily mollified. He took the opportunity of the bishops' meeting in May to seek for an authoritative pronouncement by the whole hierarchy on the NBSP, secret societies and Lavelle's role in stirring up revolutionary fervour. He wrote a letter to all the bishops on 5 April telling them that the Pope wanted them to meet on the education question, and that 'besides, it seems desirable to examine the nature and tendency of some societies or brotherhoods now spreading in the country ...'. After some heated discussion and opposition from John MacHale and Bishop John Derry of Clonfert, the bishops resolved to warn against individuals who 'have been known to administer unlawful oaths, and to entice foolish men to enter secret associations dangerous to religion and society'. Not content with this general declaration it was also stated that Several bishops having represented to the Meeting that a Society exists called the Brotherhood of St Patrick, having for its object the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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support and defence by arms of what is called in the oath of membership, the Irish Republic, or proposing to itself other such illegal ends, and that societies of the same character, though sometimes not bound by oaths, exist in some dioceses, it was resolved to condemn all such associations; and the assembled Bishops do hereby condemn them and the publication of any defence of them under any pretext.96 It was also decided that Lavelle should publicly apologise for insulting Cullen and that he should resign from the NBSP of which he had been Vice-President since April. Cullen hoped these measures would see the end of the Brotherhood, which had become 'a very dangerous organization'. None of this deterred either the Brotherhood or Lavelle. By September Cullen was again writing to Lavelle's ecclesiastical superior, Archbishop MacHale, suggesting that the bishops' May resolution on Lavelle should perhaps be published so that 'the public w[oul]d more readily understand the real state of things'. The steps which Cullen and his fellow bishops deemed necessary for dealing with the NBSP, were taken not simply because of what was believed to be the occult nature of the organization. One other factor was that members of the Brotherhood were also intruding themselves into the Catholic Young Men's Society in both Ireland and Britain, and thus propagating their revolutionary ideas in a specifically Catholic organization. Dean Richard O'Brien of Limerick, founder of the CYMS, had already written letters to Martin Rankin and Michael Cunningham, the secretaries of the CYMS in Liverpool and Woolwich respectively,97 condemning the NBSP and forbidding members of CMYS from joining the Brotherhood. These letters were carried in the Irish radical paper Liverpool Northern Press and in The Tablet. O'Brien characterized the NBSP as 'a cover of a secret combination... aiming at objects accursed of society... [and it] covers a number of men who are excommunicated by [virtue of] immoral oaths and immoral obligations or objects'.98 These remarks gave great offence to Underwood, who threatened to sue O'Brien, and they caused enormous controversy in the CYMS in Britain and Ireland. A number of bishops rallied to O'Brien's side and published denunciations of the Brotherhood's supposed infiltration in the Young Men's Society. By mid-April O'Brien was convinced that the worst was over and those of a more revolutionary inclination were being forced out of the CYMS or had been persuaded to give up their membership of the Brotherhood of St Patrick. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Archbishop Cullen had, by the end of 1862, a wealth of information on the nature and the extent of the operations of secret societies and the National Brotherhood of St Patrick in Ireland and Great Britain. From his clerical correspondents and newspaper accounts he knew that the Brotherhood of St Patrick had a nationwide organization and that much of its activity was at the very least suspect, the public denials to the contrary notwithstanding. Despite all his efforts, he had been unable to restrain its growth, and for its part the government seemed unconcerned with the dangers that faced both church and state from that source. THE FOUNDATION OF THE IRISH PEOPLE AND THE GROWTH OF FENIANISM By 1865 the IRB was probably at the very height of its strength and popularity in Ireland. Its membership may have been in the region of some 100 000 and it had infiltrated both the ranks of the British Army and the police." The extent of the organization's sway was such that the period from 1865 on has been characterized as one of 'Fenian Fever'. The popularity of Fenianism is attributable in part to the influence of its newspaper The Irish People founded in November 1863. Historians have been struck by the incongruity of a supposedly secret organization broadcasting its revolutionary doctrines in this way. The secrecy required by a political conspiracy does not consort well with the atmosphere of a newspaper: yet Stephens founded the Irish People partly to raise funds (in which it failed completely) and partly to enlist the force of opinion on the side of physical force (in which it had considerable success).100 However, there are grounds for questioning the appellation 'secret conspiracy' to the Fenian movement by the summer and autumn of 1863. By that stage the IRB's sister organization in America had abandoned all pretence to be clandestine, and its revolutionary designs were well-known in Britain and Ireland. Police surveillance of individuals who promoted revolutionary doctrine was kept up, and by the end of 1863 it had been recommended to the government to recruit more 'local and native spies' to estimate the full extent of the threat posed by the Fenians. In that same month the magistrate for Tipperary, William Pennefeather, sent an ill-tempered letter to 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Dublin Castle, complaining about the activities of the 'Fenian Brotherhood' and their ringleader Charles Kickham. Pennefeather outlined the 'rebellious' nature of the association and the general feeling of disloyalty among the 'lower orders', and recommended firm and decisive action.101 There were at least three other police dispatches from Clonmel and Tipperary the same month complaining about Fenian activity. By the time of the Pennefeather-Larcom correspondence Kickham's name was already well-known to the Dublin authorities. A lengthy report had been sent to Dublin Castle concerning an address he had given at a meeting on Slievnamon, on 15 August 1863, attended by some 700 people, the object of which was 'to renew our vows never to cease till we have achieved the independence of Ireland'. On that occasion he also advised Irish patriots to 'begin in earnest to woo the goddess Freedom, in the only way in which she can ever be won'. The meeting is significant for the fact that the Lord Lieutenant saw the report on it and forwarded a copy of it to Palmerston. Furthermore, at a meeting of the Kilkenny Agricultural Society on 25 August he made reference to the Slievnamon meeting, saying that it represented a set of 'those principles and influences [which] finds its vent in shrill and ill-omened shrieks for strife, for discord and for the bloodshed of those who possess and those who till the soil'.102 Initially at least, the only thing which distinguished the seditious effusions of The Irish People from similar publications in Ireland was that it was much better-written. The appearance of the paper, coupled with the increased intelligence from America and concern for 'secret societies' in Britain, and (it would also seem) pressure from the London authorities, caused the Irish executive to seek an opinion from the Law Officers respecting both the Fenians and the Irish People, on 12 January 1864.103 The seven numbers of the paper, which had by then been issued, were examined by the Attorney General, Thomas O'Hagan, and the Solicitor General, James Lawson, who were asked what steps the Crown should take in the matter. By the beginning of the next month they indicated that We do not think it desirable that any steps should be taken for the moment: save that the police should be very vigilant in watching the proceedings of the persons who are alleged to form illegal combinations & procure trustworthy evidence with reference to these proceedings.104





This reserve was in keeping with similar restraint shown, at least by O'Hagan, the previous March. It is clear at that time that the government had not only considered prosecutions against the Nation, Irishman, Dundalk Democratic, Tipperary Vindicator, and Connaught Patriot,1®5 but also a proclamation against the NBSP. The SolicitorGeneral had then adverted to the work of secret organizations in fermenting disaffection, and newspapers which openly taught disloyalty to the British Crown. He advised that these should be checked by 'prompt action on the part of the authorities'. O'Hagan, by contrast, urged caution, and stressed the difficulties of obtaining conviction in political cases. He furthermore rejected Lawson's view that the teachings of these newspapers encouraged assassinations of landlords.106 An editorial in The Irish People on 13 February 1864, under the heading 'The Approaching Crisis', caused the government further concern. This time, the paper suggested that an Irish revolution would necessarily involve the overthrow of an imperial and tyrannical system greater than any the world has seen since the fall of Rome. The article stressed the need to be prepared for the approaching crisis. Peel was outraged and again consulted Lawson and O'Hagan. Lawson had no doubt that the piece was treasonable and would sustain a prosecution for 'treason felony'. He also stated that it was 'a question of policy whether it be more expedient to continue to allow such articles to remain unnoticed, or to put the law in force'.107 He again reiterated his conviction that it was best to proceed against all such papers, or otherwise 'to allow matters to take their course'. Lawson also adverted to the fact that this was the advice he had given the previous year, and Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, had not deemed it expedient to institute proceedings. O'Hagan, for his part, wrote to Sir Robert that the article was plainly seditious and gave grounds for a prosecution. However, he believed such a course should not be followed since it would merely inflame an already difficult situation, give further publicity to an obscure publication, and there could be no guarantee that such a prosecution would be successful. Such newspapers had been printed every week for twenty years and government tactics had been to let well enough alone. The Attorney General was also convinced that there was reason to believe that the circulation of the Irish People was falling and that it could not long survive.108 O'Hagan's view with regard to circulation was doubtless informed by constabulary reports on the matter. On 30 November the police had decided to take a copy of the paper each week for monitoring 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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purposes. At that stage Superintendent Daniel Ryan reported that the owners of the paper could not afford to pay their printing bills, owing to the very limited commercial appeal of the venture. In a more fulsome report the following month he again observed that the paper was attracting a very limited interest and was printing less than five hundred copies. He was also in a position to state who the owners were, and the fact that they received money from an American committee to keep the paper going. The American committee wanted to have 'news of meetings of the Fenian Brotherhood circulated in Ireland'.109 The important thing in all this was the extent of the police knowledge of what was going on. Ryan was able to provide a list of 24 agents for the Irish People in locations as dispersed as Belfast, Cork, Derry, Limerick and Roscommon. Much of this information was supplied by the newspaper itself. The irony, of course, is that when the government came to suppress the newspaper they were not in a legally more advantageous position in September 1865 than they had been in December 1863. Indeed it was not until Fortescue's Coercion Act of 1870 that a statutory power was given to the government to enable it formally to subjugate 'treasonable or seditious' newspapers, and to close down their printing presses.110 The power and necessity to control the press was henceforth regarded as an essential element in British administration in Ireland. In an undated memo found in 'the late Chief Secretary's office', in the early twentieth century, a brief history of police seizures of newspapers in Ireland is outlined.111 Having stated the circumstances of the suppression of the Irish People and the prosecution of the leading Fenians in 1865 it goes on to profile subsequent action taken against the press up until 11 May 1901. The case of the Fenian newspaper and its suppression had enormous significance in both the history of the movement and as an indication of the government's resolve to grapple with the problems posed by revolutionary groups. The paper was not simply a vehicle for revolutionary verbosity. In the tradition of 1848 it sought to present a serious cultural face and encouraged the work of essayists and poets. In a sense this is true of the Fenian movement as a whole. One of its most gifted poets was John Boyle O'Reilly, a Hussar whose superior officer described him as the 'finest trooper and most active traitor' in his regiment.112 It has been impossible to identify any of the poems published in the Irish People as O'Reilly's. Not so good a poet, but one of the more intriguing scribblers of verse for the paper was 'Aleria', Fanny Parnell. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Opinions vary as to the significance of the appearance of Fanny's work in the Irish People. Barry O'Brien saw it as an important early indication of Fenian sympathy in the Parnell household.113 Her sister, Anna, claimed that it had nothing to do with politics and that Fanny wrote only for money since they were lacking 'some of the necessaries of life' of which the Parnell sisters were deprived.114 Whatever the motivation, three of the manuscripts of her poems, 'Masada', 'The Death Bed Farewell' and 'Song', were among 71 'manuscripts selected by reason of their seditious tendency' by the Dublin Castle authorities in the preparation for the case against the Fenians in the autumn of 1865.115 There is no indication that the police ever knew the identity of Aleria. Its literary pretensions notwithstanding, the paper's primary aim was to expound the doctrines of Fenianism and disseminate revolutionary ideas. In doing so, of course, Fenianism not only came into conflict with the Church but it also exposed itself even more to the attention of the police and Dublin Castle authorities.116 In particular it left itself open to infiltration, with the result that the paper and the organization were systematically betrayed by one of its employees, Pierce Nagle. Other contemporaries within the nationalist camp, if not disposed to treachery, were nonetheless scathing. T.D. Sullivan, in the biography of his brother, points out that the Fenians had previously castigated newspapers as a hindrance to the 'liberation of Ireland'. Their own efforts, both in terms of location of the office, in Parliament Street near Dublin Castle, and the seditious content of the paper, Sullivan took as indications of recklessness.117 Nagle seems to have given information to the police from about March 1864. The quality of the intelligence was such that by the beginning of June, Inspector Ryan felt sufficiently confident to be in a position to make a raid on the offices of the newspaper upon Stephens's return from America.118 Quite why this did not happen is unclear. Meanwhile the Irish People continued its campaign to win support for Fenian views. Among those who seemed only too willing to support Fenian doctrine was Fr Christopher Mullen, a curate of Taghmon near Mullingar in the diocese of Meath. By March 1864 he was urging all members of the NBSP to become Fenians,119 and he gives interesting indications of the number of priests in Meath who either subscribed to the Irish People, or were sympathetic to the Fenians.120 Mullen suffered various censures from his bishop, Dr John Cantwell, and was forbidden, at different periods, from visiting either Mullingar or 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Dublin. He was, however, not quite the crank Emmet Larkin has suggested.121 Doubtless he does not represent much clerical opinion in his diocese but Cullen was deeply concerned about the rebellious propensities of the clergy in Meath, a quality praised by the Fenians.122 By contrast with Mullen, many of the clergy roundly denounced the Irish People and attempted to prevent its sale in their parishes, as numerous letters to the paper from its agents testify. Such actions brought further condemnation of the clergy and ridicule of their attempts to make it appear a mortal sin even to read the paper. Cullen, in his pastoral for St Patrick's Day, 1864, attacked the paper, as well as government indifference over the spread of Fenianism.123 THE TRIALS OF FENIANISM Although Cullen was to see that the main lifeline for Fenianism in Ireland was the support that it received from America, James Stephens was somewhat equivocal about the role of American Fenianism, beyond its ability to supply funds for Fenian purposes.124 He told his wife that the American mores ate away at the soul of the Irish in that country and made them selfish. 'As God liveth there is no spiritual life in this people.... It might consequently, be fairly asserted that there is not - in the high & holy sense of the word - a single patriot amongst all the millions of these States!'125 Although the government continued to receive intelligence reports about the nature and extent of Fenianism in America, it was also clearly worried about the scope of the activities of the organization in Britain and Ireland. Captain J. Petrie informed Sir Robert Peel at the end of 1863 that the Fenians in Ireland then numbered 80 000 and that they were better armed than one would suppose.126 The military authorities now began to evolve an almost contradictory attitude to the Fenian problem in Ireland. By 1865 the commander of the army, Sir Hugh Rose, later Lord Strathnairn, was confident that any rising could be easily suppressed,127 and he told the Lord Lieutenant that Fenianism was 'an absurdity'.128 The^4mzy and Navy Gazette in September 1865 outlined official military thinking. It estimated that at most there were 100 000 Fenians in Ireland, and pointed out that the combined police and army strength was 36 000. Furthermore, within a week of any outbreak, military numbers could easily be reinforced to 60 000 men. In such circumstances a revolution 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




'should be repressed, as it easily can be, with firmness, but without severity'. At the same time Strathnairn complained to Cambridge that he was in error in underestimating the influence of Fenianism in the country.129 The army commander took the view that only with military help from America, and then only in the context of hostilities between the United States and Britain, could Fenianism possibly succeed in its aim. This, of course, perfectly accorded with Fenian doctrine. Sir Frederick Bruce, the British Minister in Washington, also believed that the real threat of Fenianism to British interests came from America. This was not just because of the direct military dangers but also because the Irish in America exercised such enormous political influence.130 In early 1864 the Cincinnati diocesan newspaper the Catholic Telegraph could report the comments of Sergeant Howley, at the opening of the quarter-sessions in Cashel that everyone knew that the object of Fenianism was the severance of Ireland from the Empire.131 For its part the Dublin Review was inclined to believe that Fenianism was really part of a greater malaise, namely that Ireland was not really treated as if it were part of the United Kingdom. The review alleged that most British politicians saw Ireland, if not as an enemy, then as 'a nuisance, a reproach, a cause of incomprehensible annoyance and occasional danger'.132 The key element it suggested in the government's attempts to pacify Ireland was emigration. This argument had been anticipated some time earlier by the Edinburgh Review, which argued that Ireland's population was still, even given a drop of some two millions in twenty-five years, too large. The main problem in Ireland, as the Review saw it, was the onrush of 'modern civilisation' and the transition of the economy from 'a cottier to a capitalist regime'.133 As we have seen, it is possible to see Fenianism as essentially a product of a pre-modern romanticism,134 with its appeals to a continuity with the revolutionary struggles of Ireland's past, and its refusal to believe that the revolutionary spirit itself could be crushed.135 Equally it would be a mistake to neglect the fact that by the mid-1860s what one witnesses is an ideological clash between a government which for the most part merely wanted to maintain the status quo in Ireland, the Catholic Church which was pursing an essentially reformist programme, and the Fenians, who demanded a complete restructuring of social and political relations in the country and the severing of the bonds between Ireland and Great Britain. As the conspiracy continued even after the arrests of 1865, government 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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officials came to see it as part of a wider social threat, given its links with trade unionism in England and with 'advanced reformers' such as Charles Bradlaugh, the future radical MP, and even feared that it had links with 'all the revolutionary committees of Europe'.136 This was a point that Cardinal Cullen had often stressed and hence his own incredulity when he saw that Garibaldi was treated with such deference during his visit to England in April 1864. For Cullen, Fenianism was clearly from the same stable as continental revolutionary organizations, whose aim was the overthrow of the established order, an order appointed by God. He reiterated in his pastoral letter for St Patrick's Day 1864 that membership of the Fenian organization was sinful, and that its schemes of armed resistance and violence, leading to a Utopian Ireland, could never be realized.137 He also took the opportunity of castigating the government for not taking the Fenians seriously enough. It therefore came as a great relief to Cullen that the government moved against the Fenians in 1865. He described the suppression of the Irish People as 'a mercy to themselves and to others'. He was also struck by the fact that no resistance had been offered to the move against the Fenians,138 a point that was not lost on the army commander Lord Strathnairn.139 A meeting of 150 magistrates in Cork, under the chairmanship of Lord Fermoy on Thursday 14 September, which expressed grave concern at the state of the country and asked for troop reinforcements, may have been the catalyst that caused the Irish administration to act in such a preemptive fashion. John Louis Cronin, the resident magistrate in Cork, had reported in May to Dublin Castle the general state of alarm which existed in the county even at that stage, and how the clergy in particular thought that they had lost all influence over the Fenians, and feared that in a rising 'they would be the first to be injured'.140 It was also reported from Carrick-on-Suir that at a meeting of Centres in Dublin towards the end of March it had been 'unanimously voted that the first night [of the rising] is to be a black one or in other words it is to be a night ... entirely spent killing Protestants'.141 This is at variance with what we generally know of the non-sectarian nature of Fenianism, but it is a view which found expression in the more vociferously Orange and Protestant press. The government was already aware of the fact that the American Fenians had sent two delegations that year to determine the state of readiness for revolution, and of the fact that Stephens had clashed with the American Fenian leaders over the exact timing of the rising. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




The Americans were inclined to postpone a revolt until 1866, but Stephens 'says he has pledged himself to his country that it will occur in the present year and he must keep his word'.142 The action against the Irish People on the night of 15 September, which resulted in the arrests of, among others Kickham, Luby, O'Donovan Rossa and O'Leary, was by no means the first move the authorities had taken with respect to the conspiracy. Patrick (Pagan) O'Leary had been arrested the previous November in Mullingar and was eventually convicted for perverting soldiers from the allegiance. Fenians had been arrested in Queen's County in March,143 three were successfully prosecuted for minor offences in Dublin, having been arrested for obstructing a footpath where they had, in the company of others, been marching 'in military order'. Also in Dublin, Michael Farrell was fined 2s 6d for drunkenness; a copy 'of written instructions for cleaning a rifle, and twenty-one percussion caps for a rifle', which he had in his possession were confiscated.144 Most seriously of all, the government had recruited in Ireland and America spies whose testimony was essential to the prosecution case against the Fenians. Pierce Nagle, who had been employed as a paper-folder in the Irish People office, had passed on information to the police since March 1864. He had been associated with the Fenians since just before MacManus's funeral in 1861 but was never formally sworn. Two other witnesses were especially helpful. Herman Schoffield, a German who had been well-known in Fenian circles in Ireland as a lecturer on the Polish situation before going to New York in 1863 where he was recruited by the British consul, E.M. Archibald,145 was able to identify John O'Mahony's handwriting and thus link the American and Irish conspirators. Francis Pettit, an Englishman and former soldier, had been recruited in Manchester where he had already begun to pass information on to the War Office, before coming to Ireland in August 1865. He helped to show the extent of the conspiracy in England, even if his testimony in the witness box was not always consistent.146 One of the most damning statements made at the trials were the opening remarks of the prosecutor Charles R. Barry, QC, the MP for Dungarvan, in which he stated that 'The operations of this revolution, as it is called, were to be commenced by an indiscriminate massacre by the assassination of all above the lower classes, including the Roman Catholic clergy (here the prisoners O'Donovan Rossa and O'Leary looked at each other and smiled)... ,'147 These accusations, of course, were subsequently dropped. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Nonetheless this opening speech, along with the so-called 'executive document' by which Stephens gave control of the organization in Ireland to O'Leary, Luby and Kickham, during his absence in America,148 and a letter from Christopher Manus O'Keffe found in Luby's house which advocated killing prominent members of Irish society after the model of the French revolution,149 together with the remarks of the presiding magistrate, Mr John Calvert Stronge, Divisional Magistrate of the Dublin Police District, at the committal proceedings when he made something of a faux pas by telling the defendants that 'the government assumes you to have been guilty of high treason' caused enormous public outrage against the Fenians and all they stood for and may have prejudiced the case against them. Of equal significance in this regard was a pastoral letter from Archbishop Cullen addressed To the Clergy of Dublin on Orangeism and Fenianism issued in October. Taking up Barry's observations Cullen declared that the Fenian leaders are said to have proposed nothing less than to destroy the faith of our people by circulating works like those of the impious Voltaire, to preach up socialism, to seize on the property of those who have any, and to exterminate both the gentry of the country and the Catholic clergy.150 Cullen's intervention was in itself bad enough, but prior to its official publication he had made the letter available to Sir John Gray who decided to serialize it in his Freeman's Journal, and extracts appeared in that paper on 2, 18 and 20 October. At this point the Fenians decided to take an action for libel against Gray. Cullen, imperious as ever, told his nephew, Dr P.J. Moran, 'I dare say the whole affair will end in smoke. Everything I wrote was quite correct.'151 The courts took a somewhat different view. Isaac Butt, appearing on behalf of the prisoner's before the Queen's Bench division of the High Court on 8 November, argued that the publication of the pastoral was 'a very grievous obstruction to the course of public justice' and asserted that such effusions were 'seriously damaging the prisoners' hopes of a fair trial'.152 A conditional order against Sir John was granted, preventing him publishing any more on the pastoral or its contents. Another incident which served to turn the public mind against the Fenian prisoners was the attempt to assassinate acting inspectors Edward Hughes and William Doyle, who had been involved in the surveillance and arrest of the prisoners. The official police account of the incident, which took place at the corner of Dame Street and 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Exchange Street, Dublin, observed that the police believed the shots were fired from the home of George Hooper 'at present in custody for High Treason'. The report also stated that 'The person who fired these shots... is evidently not a bad marksman, as, if the shots had taken effect both would have been fatal. The balls must have been fired from too long a range and consequently were spent when they reached the officers.'153 If the Fenians were responsible for the attempt on the lives of the policemen, it was a singularly inept and irresponsible operation given the fact of the trials.154 The coincidence of all these circumstances proved too much for the defence lawyers, who applied for a writ of certiorari, demanding that the prisoners be discharged by proclamation. It is not possible here to go into all the details, but among the points raised by John Lawless, the solicitor for Luby, O'Leary and Rossa, was that many documents seized from Luby's house were purely personal and could form no part of any case for treason against him, that press coverage prejudiced any chance of a fair trial before an impartial jury, and that the report of the attempt to assassinate the police was used to substantiate Barry's assertions of 2 October. Furthermore, Lawless argued that despite the accounts of the assassination attempt, no one had been apprehended, no investigation had been instituted, the government had offered no reward for the apprehension of the perpetrators of the crime, and he believed the whole account was an invention.155 The High Court rejected the application and the state trials before the special commission began on 30 November. At both the Dublin and Cork sittings of the commission the defence objected to the jury selection. In Dublin it took three hours to empanel the jury which consisted of three Catholics and nine Protestants. The special correspondent of the Nation reported that every juror challenged by the Crown was a Catholic; the challenges on behalf of the prisoners were against both Catholics and Protestants.156 At the Cork trials three weeks later, Isaac Butt pointed out that although three-quarters of all would-be jurors were Catholics, of the 310 empanelled all but 40 were Protestants. He believed this gave the lie to the idea that the jury had been selected impartially. For his part the Attorney General, J.A. Lawson, while conceding that Butt's observation as to the religious composition of the jury was correct, would not admit that there was a religious or loyalty bias in the selection.157 Although it might seem that such allegations of 'jury packing' are too much the product of Irish nationalist 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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historiographical imagination, nevertheless by 1871 the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Spencer, did admit that 'in political & important trials the Sheriff takes care to secure the most loyal & trustworthy persons on the jury... & it happened that the same people repeatedly served on the Dublin juries when the political prisoners were tried'.158 The spectacular success of the government in apprehending the Fenian leaders was further underlined with the arrest of Stephens. His escape from Richmond gaol was therefore not only a tremendous propaganda coup for the Fenians, but led to much self-questioning in the Executive about the extent of Fenian infiltration in all the operations of government. Amid reports that the Dublin Metropolitan Police, the prison service, the post office and even Dublin Castle were all compromised by Fenianism, Cullen was convinced that the government would use this pretext to further reduce Catholic participation in the public service on the grounds of disloyalty.159 Meanwhile, having taken advice, Wodehouse dismissed the governor of Richmond Bridewell.160 The government then offered £2000 for Stephens's recapture and there were many reported sightings in places as far apart as Carnarvon and Paris. He finally fled from Ireland to the French capital in March 1866. Stephens's escape emboldened the Fenians to ridicule the sentences passed on the prisoners and to think of trying to rescue their other comrades from Mountjoy and Kilmainham to which many had been transferred because it was thought safer.161 Despite what was obviously a body-blow to Fenian aspirations, the immediate threat was far from over. Larcom, however, had written to Strathnairn's assistant, Colonel Curzon, in the aftermath of the arrests, that Fenianism was 'defeated and put down'. But the government was not entirely sure that this was so. Wodehouse had already asked for troop reinforcements and then changed his mind. Such was the uncertainty, however, that troop reinforcements were ordered to Ireland by December in the face of reports that Fenianism had extended west of the Shannon and persistent rumours that there would be a rising before Christmas.162 The intelligence received by the government in the months after the arrests, coupled with several seizures of arms in Ireland and Britain, indicated that some aspects of the Fenian conspiracy were carried on without interruption. Larcom, though, continued to insist that for the present Fenianism was a spent force. Thus he informed J. McCanice, the resident magistrate for Dungannon, 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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Reports were also received from Liege, Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Nantes, in September and October, concerning the manufacture of arms and their importation to Ireland for Fenian purposes, but these reports did not seem to unduly worry the government, except in the case of Liverpool where extensive enquiry was carried out to determine the strength of Fenianism in that city. The Head Constable reported that apart from George Archdeacon, who had been arrested on 23 September for high treason, he was convinced 'there is no ground for thinking that there is any Fenian organization in Liverpool ... and there are very few persons holding such opinions'.164 In Ireland there were accounts from Donegal in October and Dublin and Tipperary as late as December that the Fenians were continuing to land men from America and preparations were still being made for a rising. The tone for the police attitude was probably set by Superintendent Ryan who reported in October that, at least so far as Dublin was concerned, the drilling and swearing-in of new members was suspended because of the arrests of the head centres, and the fact that no one was available who could pay for the operations involved in any prospective rising.165 This, of course, was not strictly the case, since Thomas J. Kelly had taken over operations on Stephens's arrest, but there can be little doubt that the arrests and trials, for all the Fenian bravado to the contrary, had taken their toll on the morale of the organization. The Attorney-General had also come to the conclusion that the police should exercize a great degree of circumspection in the number of suspects whom they arrested. Larcom circulated a memo from Lawson in early October that the police should guard against arrests being made, for alleged complicity in the Fenian conspiracy, upon insufficient grounds. I advise that the Resident Magistrates and Constabulary will make no further arrests upon suspicion without my special direction.... This, of course, is not to apply to cases were there is evidence of actual offence....166 In the overall campaign against Fenianism the Church and the state took much the same attitude to the threat the organization posed to 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


The danger of the moment is over, and there is no need for any special interference with the arms coming into the country unless they come in unusual numbers or in irregular consignments, such as casks full of pistols marked 'nails' as has happened.163

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Irish society. State officials such as Strathnairn saw in the Catholic clergy a natural ally against the Fenians. This alliance between the government and the priests against disaffection he believed to be a new phenomenon in Irish politics.167 However, he also expressed his conviction that the existence and growth of Fenianism snowed that the clergy had lost some of their power to direct affairs in Ireland.168 He was also extremely perceptive in observing that the Fenians were to the Irish clergy what the Sardinians were to the clergy of Rome. For his part Cullen was quite consistent in his attitude that Fenianism was both a product of irreligion and encouraged infidelity.169 In the Irish context, he believed, the National School system and the Queen's Colleges produced indifferentism, which inexorably led the graduates of those institutions to conspire against both church and state. He pointed to, among others, the example of John O'Leary and his brother who he believed had abandoned religion owing to the education that they received at the Queen's College Cork.170 He often drew attention to parallels between the Fenians and Mazzinism and Carbonarism. By 1864 the Irish Church's struggle with Fenianism had been given something of a boost by Pius IX's encyclical Quanta Cura, to which was attached the notorious Syllabus of Errors. These documents represented the defiance of the Church in the face of social and political change that it could not control. The 'indifferentism' and 'naturalism' of much mid-nineteenth-century thinking gave rise in the Pope's view to revolutionary violence which was the plague of both church and state.171 In refusing to be reconciled and harmonized with 'progress, with liberalism and with modern civilization', the Pope was giving a lead to the Catholic Church at large that in its dealings with secular society the Church would not conform to the 'spirit of the age'.172 This was music to the ears of the Irish bishops in their struggles with Fenianism and with the Protestant state in Ireland. Pope Pius IX proclaimed a Jubilee for 1865 in connection with the Syllabus and bishops in Ireland saw this as a major opportunity to do spiritual warfare against the influence of the Fenian movement. In his pastoral letter on the Jubilee, Cullen stressed that Fenians could only be absolved in the confessional if they promised to give up their association with the revolutionaries. Archbishop Joseph Dixon of Armagh emphasized that secret societies such as the Fenians were the product of a materialism which was indifferent to the means whereby temporal happiness was secured. Such organizations and their adherents had been repeatedly condemned by the Church.173





Convinced of the spiritual benefits to be derived from it, several of the bishops applied to the Holy See to have the time of the Jubilee extended in their respective dioceses. The Bishop of Down and Connor, Patrick Dorrian, was able to tell Archbishop Dixon, that in Belfast 'we are reaping wonderful fruits during this Jubilee.... Your Grace will rejoice to know that the Fenians have surrendered en masse. The leaders have gone to confession and to Holy Communion.'174 The bishops were not the only clergy who thought that Fenianism was a direct challenge to the authority of the priests. John O'Beirne, a curate in Longford, believed that the Fenians had been 'busily engaged in sowing the seeds of rebellion against clerical authority'.175 By the end of 1865 some priests and bishops were beginning to think that the worst was over and Archbishop Leahy was able to write to Kirby that the Fenian bubble had burst.176 The confidence of the institutional Church about its position in Irish society had been marginally increased by the results of the general election in July 1865. It was by Irish standards a 'quiet election'. Despite the inability of the bishops to influence the results in exactly the way they wished in such places as Tipperary, Dundalk and Galway, the results were on the whole to their liking. Nicholas Power, the co-adjutor Bishop of Kilaloe, though that 'the result everywhere is most satisfactory',177 and Cullen believed that Ireland had now better representation at Westminster than for many years. By the end of the year, then, from the perspective of the Church, the biggest obstacle to clerical influence had been definitively dealt with, not by the Church but by the state, and Cullen could derive some satisfaction from the fact that he had, from 1861, given the lead in robustly trying to counter Fenian influence. Despite government panic in expectation of a rising at Christmas 1865, Cullen was able to dismiss the alarm as 'groundless'.178 However, by the end of January 1866 he too thought that the Fenians were on the increase again and that the scene of operations had shifted to America. This was also Wodehouse's view, who was sure that the American-Irish were desperate and 'ready for any mischief.179 The Lord Lieutenant had complained to Larcom that Strathnairn had tended to play down the American element in the conspiracy. Wodehouse by contrast asserted that the existence of so many Fenian supporters in America 'for the purpose of stirring up rebellion in Ireland is unprecedented in the history of Irish rebellious movements'.180 On the other hand, the Irish administration had known since early October that no 'invasion force' had set sail from the United States, 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


50

51

but they were informed by Sub-Inspector Doyle, now back in America and writing under the name of D. Thomas, that it was believed in Irish-American circles that 'the event is certain to come on soon, and that the men are under orders of readiness at a day's notice'.181 Doyle was convinced that the presence of a squadron keeping a look-out on the Irish coast, a fact widely reported in the American press, caused the Fenians to hesitate. He also recommended that a naval display off the Irish coast would further frighten the Fenians. The significance of the American dimension for Fenian fortunes in Ireland may have had a more symbolic than practical significance. We have seen that the actual amount of money contributed by the Americans for Fenian purposes was not astoundingly large. This can in part be accounted for by the split in American Fenianism and the fact that the Fenians in the United States turned their attention to Canada rather than Ireland, as the centre for their struggle with Britain. For its part the British government feared both the actual physical threat that American Fenianism posed to the security and integrity of the United Kingdom, and also the political influence of the Irish in the United States, which it feared was being used to destabilize the relationship between the two powers. This was partly a product of Britain's support for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and that America was demanding compensation from Britain owing to the fact that ships built for the Confederacy in Britain during the war had inflicted considerable damage to the Union navy. Fenian influence in America was also of concern to the Church in that country and, encouraged by their Irish brethren, the American bishops were at loggerheads with the Fenians, and sought to curtail their influence. At the same time the American Church also felt, to some extent, constrained by the Fenian influence on American political life in general, and its own somewhat ambivalent position in American society made it more cautious than its Irish counterpart in confronting Fenianism head-on. It is therefore to a consideration of Fenianism in North America, and the inter-relationship of these various components that we must now turn our attention.




THE BACKGROUND That North America should by the 1860s be a centre of Irish discontent can hardly have come as a surprise to the British government. As early as the mid-1850s the British Minister in Washington had found it necessary to report to London on the nefarious activities of various Irish groups in cities as far apart as Boston, New York, Chicago and Cincinnati.1 The treasonable sentiments of the Irish emigrants to America were bound up not only with the often harsh experiences of the circumstances which caused them to flee Ireland in the first place, but also with the less-than-ideal situations in which they found themselves in the great American republic. On the other hand it would be a mistake to assume that Irish nationalist sentiment was simply a feature of the emigrant experience. As Thomas Brown has forcefully argued, some of the more die-hard Fenians were the sons of immigrants.2 Assertions of Irish nationalism in the North American context were, however, often no more than expressions of a desire to 'achieve and maintain dignity in hostile environments'.3 One aspect of that perceived hostility was undoubtedly a widespread anti-Catholicism, some features of which did not outlast the Civil War.4 Although one of the stated aims of the Know-Nothing party was to 'resist the insidious policy of the Church of Rome, and all other foreign influence against our republican institutions', one can also see that some circles of American nativist thought did try to draw a distinction between the Catholic faith as such, and Catholicism as a political force in American life.5 Such distinctions were often lost on Irish Catholic immigrants as they struggled in adverse circumstances for a better life in the New World. The Catholic Irish were not alone in confronting hostile nativist dispositions. German Catholics also laboured under not-dissimilar prejudices. The Irish, however, exacerbated the confrontation with the anti-immigrant ethos of American society in the 1840s and 1850s, by intruding specifically Irish political considerations into United 52 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


3 Fenianism in North America

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States politics. Thus, for example, the Irish did try to make the repeal of the Union between Britain and Ireland an issue in the 1852 presidential election.6 This prompted some observers, including the prominent Catholic convert Orestes Brownson, to comment that if the Irish suffered hostility in the United States they did so as a result of their own offensive attitude to American society. Brownson tried to insist that there was a clear differentiation between anti-Irishness and anti-Catholicism in American life. Of the latter he once argued that 'behind the anti-Catholic agitation in the United States stood British ideology and British financial resources'.7 Irish marginalization, or separatism, in American society was also encouraged by radical elements in the Irish press. Newspapers such as the Irish American and the Citizen served not only to keep immigrants in touch with events in Ireland, but were a focus for Irish discontent about the position and role of the Irish in American society. The ghetto experience helped to intensify a sense of nationality, and the press portrayed the English in the worst possible light, often accusing the British government of trying to 'systematically persecute and depopulate their homeland'.8 Even the New York Freeman's Journal could on occasion blame the Orange Order and Irish Presbyterians for orchestrating anti-Catholic hostility. In accounting for the growth and popularity of Fenianism among the Irish in the United States, one must take into account not only residual feelings of attachment to a romantic idea of Ireland, itself a product of the immigrant experience, but also the inability of the Irish, in the pre-Civil War era, to integrate fully into the American ethos. This inability also reinforced a sense of alienation from the host country, and underlined a lingering hostility to Britain, which was seen to be the cause of all wrongs, at home and abroad. THE CHURCH AND FENIANISM IN NORTH AMERICA Of all the institutions which offered continuity for the immigrant between life at home and in the New World, none was more important or powerful than the Church. Bereft of other means of social support, immigrants looked to the Church for reassurance, and for a focus to preserve and express a sense of identity. The immigrants often also hoped that the Church would play the role of Irish nationalism at prayer,9 but not only was the Church as a whole unwilling to play such a role, it was deeply distrusted by the more radical Irish 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Fenianism in North America


nationalist spirit in the United States.10 The struggle between the Church and Fenianism in the United States was something of an unequal contest. Much of the Church's concern was not with the rights and wrongs of the situation in Ireland, or the circumstances which give rise to Fenianism, but rather with its own position in the wider American culture. This involved not simply, as we have seen, struggles over 'Know-Nothingism', but also the need for acceptance of Catholicism as a legitimate force in the United States during and in the aftermath of the Civil War. Fenianism highlighted tension within the Church, over such issues as support for the Confederacy or the Union, and the legitimate exercise of authority by bishops and clergy over the political opinions of practising Catholics. The Fenian Convention in Chicago in November 1863 had already railed against all 'interference with the legitimate exercise of our civil and social privileges... under the American constitution on the part of any man, or class of men,... [or] those who may claim to represent or receive instructions from any foreign potentate'.11 It is arguable that the ultimate cause of the failure of Fenianism in the United States, as in Ireland, was not the opposition of the Church but the internal disintegration within Fenianism itself. The Church hierarchy did, however, work tirelessly to undermine the very foundation of Fenianism, and from an early stage of the organization's evolution in America maintained that it was under the ban of proscribed societies, despite the fact that, whatever its status in Ireland, it was clearly not a 'secret society' in the United States. Even Cardinal Cullen was prepared to concede that the aim of the Fenians in America and Ireland might not exactly coincide. He wrote to Archbishop Martin Spalding of Baltimore that 'the case of the brothers in America may be different from that of the brothers in Ireland. Here the object is treasonable as they propose nothing less than the overthrow of the English government.'12 One of the problems facing the institutional Church as it sought to grapple with the Fenian problem was the fact that some members in the lower ranks of the clergy made their sympathies with the movement all too clear. Indeed it was this very close association of some priests with Fenianism that served to weaken the effect of the denunciations hurled at the Brotherhood by the Catholic hierarchy. With some priests, although few in number, active in Fenian circles, it was argued that the opposition of the bishops in the United States was prompted, not by religious motives, but by the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Among the priests who gave explicit support to the Fenian movement was the Augustinian Patrick Moriarty, sometime President of Villanova College, Pennsylvania. Moriarty, a former assistant at the Augustinian Headquarters in Rome, had long been regarded as an ardent Irish nationalist, and was something of a controversial figure even within his own order. By the time he agreed to deliver a lecture on 'What Right has England to Rule Ireland?' for the Father Patrick Lavelle fund in May 1864, the scene was set for a clash between Moriarty and James F. Wood, Bishop of Philadelphia. Wood had already denounced the Fenians in a pastoral letter of 19 January 1864, deriding them as a secret society under the ban of the Church. Moriarty's speech, which ran to 26 printed pages, not only objected to British rule in Ireland as tyranny, and justified the possibility of revolution, but also reproached certain 'spiritual' Judases in 'Chicago, Dublin and Philadelphia' who had set their faces against the possibility of armed insurrection. Before he had given the lecture, Wood had written to Moriarty forbidding him 'absolutely' from delivering it, and warning that should he go ahead with the enterprise his faculties to function as a priest in the diocese would be withdrawn. At the same time Wood assured Moriarty that he was 'sorry to be compelled to make this communication... but I trust you will do me the justice to believe that I am actuated only by... convictions of duty'.14 Although a convert and of English extraction there is no evidence, despite suggestions to the contrary, that Wood was in any sense hostile to Irish grievances. His main concern was to uphold what he took to be the teaching of the Catholic Church both with regard to revolution and membership of secret societies. His principled stance did not make him popular with Irish Catholics in Philadelphia. As the French Catholic and prominent local business man M.A. Frenaye told Wood, '3/4 of our Irish population ... are now arraigned in opposition to you. God alone can be your counsel and your personal prudence your guide.'15 There followed a series of letters and visits between Wood and Moriarty, in which the bishop acknowledged that he might have been more harsh on the errant priest than the circumstance demanded. At the same time he maintained that unless Moriarty made some reparation for 'the support practically given by his lecture to the Fenian Brotherhood', there could be no reconciliation. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


instigation of Archbishop Cullen, who was regarded by the Fenians as being very acceptable to the British Government.13

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I solemnly declare that I had not the most remote idea to give any sanction or encouragement to the Fenian Brotherhood, as I esteemed that organization as I do now unworthy of my countenance. I hold it a mere folly... and of course I most fully yield assent and obedience to every order of the Church in their regard.16 By this time Moriarty's case had become something of a cause celebre in both North America and Ireland. That Moriarty had now chosen to submit himself to Wood's authority came as a great relief to the American hierarchy. Wood wrote immediately to Archbishop Spalding informing him of Moriarty's submission, and commenting that the 'whole matter is most satisfactorily settled'.17 Several days later he communicated the same intelligence to James Bayley, the Bishop of Newark, expressing his sincere joy 'that this momentary difficulty has been brought to so happy and satisfactory a solution'.18 The solution does not seem to have been entirely satisfactory. The following year, Moriarty returned to the fray in another public lecture in the course of which he repudiated his earlier retraction, and went on to commend the Fenians as 'good, honest, upright and honourable citizens'. On this occasion Wood chose not to make any public response. When, however, in August 1866 the authorities of the Augustinian order decided to appoint Moriarty as its CommissaryGeneral in the United States both Wood and Spalding objected on the grounds that he was a Fenian supporter.19 By then the Holy See, at the request of the American bishops, had issued a rescript implying in effect that the Fenians were a condemned organization under the terms of the decree on secret societies issued by the Roman Inquisition on 5 August 1846. Cardinal Alexander Barnabo, the Prefect of Propaganda, in a letter to Bishop Bayley, also adverted to an instruction of the Inquisition issued on the 18 February 1846, to the same effect.20 The attitude which the American bishops took in regard to the Fenians varied from outright hostility to a desire to let well enough alone, in the hopes that Fenianism would simply die of its own accord. In June 1864 the Catholic newspaper in Philadelphia carried an article which served to embarrass the bishops over their obvious differences concerning the Fenian question. In a taunting manner the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


By December Moriarty had decided to patch things up with Wood and wrote apologizing for his behaviour. In particular he expressed regret for having insulted Cullen, Wood 'and other dignitaries of the Church'. Rather surprisingly, of his lecture he asserted:

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editor remarked, 'One Bishop says it is a secret society; another patronizes it by a contribution; and a third illustrates in a letter to Bishops that it has the freedom of Ireland in its hand. What is it? That is the question.' As the bishops themselves were aware, such differences of approach did more harm than good. For his part John Duggan, the Bishop of Chicago, had already condemned the organization following the Chicago convention of November 1863.21 Bishop Wood issued a pastoral letter on 19 January 1864 saying that the Fenians were a condemned secret group, and Archbishop Purcell confirmed his view that if the Fenians succeeded in Ireland they would give her a government worse than the one she already possessed.22 Archbishop Spalding, on the other hand, regarded such outbursts from his episcopal colleagues, in advance of the judgement of the Holy See, as both 'foolish and mischievous'.23 Most of the bishops throughout the years 1863-64 were content to follow the practice of the bishops of the New York province, as explained by Archbishop John McCloskey to Spalding: With regard to the Fenians, it was considered best to preserve the course we have thus far been pursuing of making no public denunciation, nor any final decision, further than to advise our clergy, to use every effort to discourage them, & to prevent our people joining them.24 When the matter was finally submitted to Rome, there was a good deal of hesitation both there and in the United States about the propriety of an authoritative public pronouncement against the Fenians. Bishop Michael Domenec thought it better not to have a public condemnation, and that individual Fenians should be approached privately and urged to abandon the organization.25 In writing to Duggan in Chicago and Archbishop Peter Kenrick of St Louis, asking for more information on the Fenians, Cardinal Barnabo acknowledged that the Brotherhood was treated as a proscribed organization in those dioceses. At the same time he observed that in Ireland it was sometimes treated in this manner, and sometimes 'in a different light'.26 Spalding, in his petition to Rome in October 1864, briefly indicated what he took to be the history of the organization, and how he believed it was linked to the 'Juvenis Hibernia' movement which had opposed O'Connell and had staged the 1848 rising. He also pointed out that the stated aim of the organization was to overthrow by military means the union of Britain and Ireland. More important, from 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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the viewpoint of moral theology, he alleged that Fenians were bound When he had drawn up the petition and sent copies of it to all the American bishops, Spalding invited them to write their own comments on it to Rome. Most of them also responded to Spalding that he had presented a reasonable assessment of the state of the question.27 This official approach was in addition to a number of individual applications from bishops and priests which the Holy See had received that year, asking for a ruling on whether or not the Fenians were a proscribed organization. There was considerable delay at Rome, since as Spalding explained 'Roma, mora, amor\ But he was equally convinced that the decision when it finally arrived would be unfavourable to the Brotherhood.28 Both Bayley and Purcell complained to Spalding about the damage the Fenians continued to do and how impatient they were with Rome. The Archbishop of Cincinnati complained that the members of the Brotherhood 'were indefatigable [in] abusing bishops and priests'. Bayley remarked that the Fenians were a cancer which needed to be cut out, and that the only reason he did not condemn them publicly was because the matter had been referred to Rome. In the meanwhile, the Fenians continued to cause pastoral and other difficulties for the Church in the United States. In Louisville, the Brotherhood, in association with other Irish groups, arranged enormous celebrations for St Patrick's Day, 1865, including a Mass at St Patrick's church in the city. This occasioned an angry exchange of letters among several bishops, complaining that measures ought to be taken to prevent such a scandal. On 14 January the Philadelphia liberal Catholic newspaper The Universe published a report in which it claimed that Rome had written to the American bishops saying that 'Feniani non sunt inquistandV. The report was picked up by the Catholic Telegraph on 22 February, and Bishop Wood had a statement inserted in the Public Ledger on 28 February describing the account as a 'falsehood and a forgery', a point he also made to Bishop Bayley who had written asking if the report were true. Wood added that the forgery was further evidence of 'the desperate and unscrupulous character of the leaders of the Fenians'. Despite his confidence as to the forged nature of the document, Wood and Bishop Duggan of Chicago wrote to Cardinal Barnabo asking if there was any truth in the rumours. Barnabo drew this and other reports, following an article in the Connaught Patriot, which he 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


under a signa secreta to an 'obedientiam promptam Praesidi, dicto Capiti CentraW.

59

had from Ireland on the same matter, to the attention of Mgr Raffaele La Valleta, the Assessor of the Holy Office.29 In this as in other matters Rome reacted very slowly, and it was not until 13 July that Barnabo wrote to say that the reports were false. In the same letter the Holy Office gave its judgement on the Fenian organization in the United States. 'By order of His Holiness' it agreed with those bishops who were of the opinion that the Fenians fell under the terms of the decree of the Holy Office of 5 August 1846, which prohibited membership of secret societies. However it decided that this intelligence should not be published at large but merely communicated to confessors, the implication being that priests were to use their influence through the confessional to prevent people from joining the organization, or to get them to leave if they were already members. Barnabo also indicated that should there be any difficulties applying the judgement further recourse could be had to the Holy See. Although the American bishops received the rescript with their customary deference to the wishes of the Holy See their reaction was somewhat mixed. Purcell, who himself had suggested to the Holy See that, if it was found necessary to publicly censure the Fenian leaders, no mention should be made of their 'zeal' for collecting funds for Church purposes, was now quite confused. He complained that the Fenians were rampant everywhere and yet Rome was prepared to treat them 'gingerly, tenderly, paternally'. He was also of the opinion that Fenians seldom went to confession, but if the decision had to be communicated to confessors it had to be for a definite purpose 'and with some instruction for their guidance in the confessional'.30 Bishop John McGill of Richmond could merely infer from the document that the Fenians were not to be admitted to the sacraments, but did not see how this information could be kept private. The Bishop of Philadelphia, who, as we have seen, had previously publicly condemned the Fenians, now wrote to Spalding to say that the rescript was 'very prudent', and that a public condemnation at that time was inexpedient, and after a while would be 'entirely unnecessary'. In communicating the decision to Archbishop John M. Odin of New Orleans, Spalding remarked that Odin would find it 'cautious, somewhat non-committal, & like everything else from Rome wise. I think the Fenians, if left alone will soon die out themselves.'31 The exact status of Fenians within the Church was, notwithstanding Barnabo's letter, still far from clear, and the decision itself seems to 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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We decided provisorie et donee aliterprovideatur, that while confes-

sors should do everything in their power to dissuade penitents from joining or remaining in this society, they may absolve them on their solemn promise to abide by the decision of the Church.32 Whatever disappointment the American hierarchy may have had over the fact that there was not to be a public condemnation of the Fenians, the bishops tried to take comfort from the fact that, as they supposed, the organization was doomed to an early demise over internal difficulties. In Spalding's view there was some advantage to the Church in not having a public condemnation since then, when the collapse finally came, the blame for it could not be laid at the Church's door. That the Roman authorities were prepared to tolerate very different approaches to the Fenian organization in Ireland and in America is indicative of the different political circumstances facing the Church in both countries. It remained true, at least in Cullen's eyes, that Fenianism in Ireland would not finally be stopped until the financial support from America had been cut off. Before considering the specific political dimension in the American Church's attitude to the Fenian problem it is perhaps worth saying that the bishops were also aware of a more directly religious aspect to the question. Many American Catholics, both clerical and lay, regarded Fenianism as a manifestation of an anti-clerical and secularist tendency widely prevalent in mid-nineteenth-century Europe. Bishop Henry Juncker of Alton, Illinois, commented that all the principal Fenians in his diocese were 'infidels', and that anyone drawn into the organization soon lost all respect for, and obedience to, their pastors and bishop.33 Given the popularity of Fenianism in the United States34 there was some concern that too strident an attitude to the Fenians on the part of the Church might further encourage anti-clericalism and scepticism among Irish-Americans, especially given a growing indifference to religion in even traditionally strong Irish Catholic areas such as New York. It was the more directly political sensitivity of the bishops which made their public posturing on the Fenian issue at best ambiguous, if not blatantly contradictory. The American Civil War was a source of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


have been treated as a provisional judgement. Writing to Fr John Early, the President of Georgetown College, Washington, DC, informing him that the Fenians were not to be publicly condemned, Spalding remarked:

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immense tension for the American Catholic Church, given that bishops and priests differed so widely in their attitude to the main issues, the secession of the Southern states and the abolition of slavery. During the war, and in its aftermath, both Union and Confederate politicians tried to exploit the Irish elements within American society for their own respective ends. By May 1866 Spalding was explaining to Cullen that it was impossible publicly to condemn Fenianism because of 'current government influence setting so strongly in their favour', and that any such public disapproval would have aided rather than injured the Fenian cause.35 Spalding had confided to his diary in February 1864 that the United States government had 'interfered' at Rome in the appointments to the archbishoprics of New York and Baltimore.36 Clearly the government was anxious to ensure that any appointments to northern sees would be filled by men who were not hostile to Union political sentiment. When Archbishop Hughes of New York had undertaken his mission to Europe on behalf of the Federal government at the early stages of the war he had been severely criticized by some southern bishops for having placed them in a difficult position. Despite Hughes's optimistic account of the reception he received at the Vatican37 it is clear that the Roman authorities were unhappy about his direct role in the political difficulties of the United States. Hughes's trip to Ireland in the summer and autumn of 1862 was undertaken at the behest of the American government, in the hope that Hughes would generate some enthusiasm for the Union side in the Civil War, which in turn would make the British government more circumspect in its support for the Confederacy.38 These considerations doubtless antagonized the Holy See, and complicated its relations with the American hierarchy and with the activities of Fenians in the Union and Confederate states. Rome was increasingly uneasy about the extent of overt involvement by American clerics in what it took to be directly political issues.39 It was precisely these same political considerations which conditioned Rome's attitude to the Fenian question in North America. Indeed as Spalding explained to Cullen, As the organization waxed strong during the war under government influence or encouragement & as political motives would be likely to foster it for sometime yet, as a sort of standing menace to England, we thought that any public condemnation would tend to stimulate its growth, perhaps to irritate the government.40 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




For its part the Confederate government had its own reason for an interest in both the Fenian and Catholic dimensions of the Civil War. Federal recruitment in Ireland had long been a matter of concern to the Confederate authorities - so much so that Judah P. Benjamin, the South's Secretary of State, had dispatched A. Dudley Mann to Rome in November 1863 to complain about the practice. Pius IX, apparently, was duly horrified by the tales of what he described as such 'unscrupulous operations'.41 The Fenians, at least in the early stages of the war, were content to encourage Federal recruitment because it enabled individuals to gain valuable military experience, and because it was hoped that a grateful Federal government would, at the end of the war, be disposed to show itself favourable to Fenian aims in Ireland. The Confederate agent in Cork, Robert Dowling, reported in November 1863 that enlistment in the Federal army was 'rife', despite its illegality under the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act.42 Fr John Bannon was also sent to Ireland in 1863 by the Confederate government to help stem the tide of emigration. Bannon's despatches make fascinating reading for the light they shed on attitudes of nationalist and Fenian opinion with relation to the war in America. A series of letters in the public prints by William Smith O'Brien, John Martin, and most importantly of all, John Mitchel, writing from the Confederate states, helped to turn Irish opinion from sympathy with the North, to seeing the justice of the Southern cause as it sought to free itself from Northern rule.43 The parallels with Fenian desires for Irish independence were not lost on advanced nationalist emotions. Bannon's mission was followed up in 1864 by that of Bishop Patrick Lynch of Charleston, South Carolina. Lynch was commissioned by Benjamin to represent the views of the Confederacy to the Vatican. In reporting on the situation in Ireland, on his way to Rome, Lynch was inclined to believe that the North had no recruiting agents in the country. On the other hand, he pointed out that such was the relationship between Fenianism in the United States and Ireland, 'the former can easily be acted on by the government and politicians of the United States who can attain their purposes more safely and more effectively than could be done by the employment of direct emissaries'. Lynch then added, 'The Feenian [sic] newspapers however deny this and oppose the Emigration.'44 That the Fenians now chose to oppose emigration from Ireland was in part a device with which to divide Catholic episcopal opinion.45 There is no doubt, as The Irish People pointed out, that Catholic 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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bishops tended, until then, to welcome emigration partly because it enhanced the strength of Catholicism in the New World and in the British Empire. In April 1864 Bishop John Joseph Lynch of Toronto sent a printed letter to 'The Clergy of Ireland Only' in which he drew attention to the evils of mass emigration from Ireland. He indicated that Irish Catholics were over-represented in the criminal classes throughout North America, and that even in Toronto two-thirds 'of the bad women confined there were Catholics'. He also suggested following a report in the New York Times that many of the prostitutes in that city were Irish Catholics. The Bishop of Toronto's remarks provoked an uproar in Ireland, and led to complaints about him to Rome. He was forced to write to the Irish archbishops in June apologizing for, among other things, the impression he had given that 'any large number of adults had defected to other denominations in Canada'. And while he regretted the publication of his letter, he now hoped that the publicity surrounding it might achieve some good.46 From Rome, Cardinal Barnabo wrote to him on 8 September, expressing concern that the issues Lynch raised had now become a matter of newspaper controversy. In response to Barnabo, Lynch again regretted that the matter had been taken up by the press, but emphasized that his concern was simply with the pastoral care of Irish immigrants whom he felt were often in great moral danger in the New World.47 Nor was he prepared to take a Roman rebuke lying down. Contrasting the situations in Poland and Ireland, he remarked, The persecution of the Polish Nation excites commiserations because done with the sword but is the destruction of the tens of thousands of Irish both body and soul brought about by unjust laws and the oppressing of the poor that cries to heaven for vengeance to be looked on as a casualty that need not be heeded? Although unaware of this particular exchange, the Fenians were ready to seize upon any division among the hierarchy over the matter for propaganda purposes. The Irish People accused the bishops of encouraging emigration and thus abetting a phenomenon which 'ruins souls', and, using the statistics from Canada and elsewhere, emphasized that the net effect of emigration was that Irish women swelled the ranks of prostitutes.48 Archbishop Cullen had preached a sermon on the benefits of emigration at Clonea, Co. Waterford on 16 October, which added fuel to the Fenians' fire. The archbishop pointed out that one of the benefits of the Irish abroad was the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




assistance they rendered in propagating the teachings of the Catholic Church throughout the British Empire. An editorial in the Irish People thundered, 'How strange these words of the Archbishop of Dublin will be read side by side with the appalling revelations of the Bishop of Toronto.'49 The Fenians would doubtless have also been appalled had they realized that on this particular point Lynch, himself a native of Co. Fermanagh, shared Cullen's views. As he explained to Archbishop Leahy of Tuam, it was in the interests of all English-speaking countries that Ireland should be kept tranquil and without the extremes of poverty or wealth so that it might be 'the source of a healthy stream of ecclesiastics & people going abroad to spread the gospel'. Principled as was Lynch's stand on the issue, Gerald Stortz is convinced that one element in his opposition to immigration was his inability to control the political activity of the diverse Irish nationalist groups within his diocese.50 Lynch had already been apprised of the fact that the Ontario chapter of the Hibernians was but 'a Fenian elementary school', and over the years Lynch was to clash with the Hibernians on a number of occasions, as well as denouncing the Fenians. Towards the end of 1864 the Toronto Daily Globe, a newspaper of Liberal but Orange tastes, had given a fairly comprehensive account of Fenianism in the British Provinces and elsewhere in North America. The Fenians would be exploited, it declared, by both parties south of the border, and warned that if Canada continued to tolerate Confederate raids into the United States, the Fenians might be encouraged to launch similar raids in the opposite direction.51 The parish priest of Barrie, Ontario, was sufficiently distressed by such reports that he invited Thomas D'Arcy Magee to give a lecture refuting the suggestion that the Fenians were involved in a conspiracy 'to murder out and out all the Protestants of Upper Canada'. For his part, Magee opined that so long as the laity were properly instructed by the clergy concerning 'secret and seditious societies' then the Fenians posed little danger.52 Whatever difficulties Fenianism posed for the Church in Canada in the early-to-mid-1860s, its main focus of concentration was in the United States. Despite the rescript of the summer of 1865, perhaps even because of it, American Catholicism remained quite ambiguous in its attitude to Fenianism. Indeed, Cardinal Barnabo wrote to Mgr La Vallelta that although the American bishops had been advised of the judgement of the Inquisition, Propaganda Fide had 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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received intelligence that 'because of the silence of the bishops', except Kenrick of St Louis, Duggan of Chicago and Wood of Philadelphia, the American clergy still admitted Fenians to the sacraments. Even such stalwarts of the Catholic Church in America as James A. McMaster, the convert editor of the New York Freeman's Journal, could appear to be on both sides of the argument, with Fenians and bishops equally claiming him as a champion for their respective views. McMaster's ambiguity is reflected in a number of editorials. Thus, for example, in February 1864 he could write that 'if the Catholic Church condemned anything in the form or the objects of the Fenians, that Brotherhood will do well to change it'.53 Yet by January 1866 he warned that it would be unwise to denigrate the movement entirely since it attracted such large measure of support from individuals who were willing to undergo prison in defence of its aims.54 The attempts to curb the movement nothwithstanding, it was clear that Fenianism was not going to disappear. Purcell had already suggested to Spalding in February 1865 that even if the Pope did condemn the movement the condemnation would be ignored.55 An article had appeared to this effect in his diocesan newspaper the Catholic Telegraph, much to the chagrin of the local Head Centre who was anxious to show that all Fenians were loyal Catholics. A similar attitude had been exhibited by John O'Mahony in his spirited refutations of the criticism levelled against the Brotherhood by Bishop Duggan of Chicago. He objected to Duggan condemning in an ex cathedra fashion an organization which was purely political, in a manner which he believed to be outside the ecclesiastical competence of any one bishop. He furthermore resented the 'gratuitous and uncharitable aspersions' that Duggan had 'cast upon the officers of the Fenian Brotherhood'. Equally Spalding was prepared to believe after the events in Ireland in September and October 1865 that Fenianism was dead there, and that its sister organization in America would soon follow it to the grave. These observations were in response to a letter he had from Cullen describing the situation of the Fenians in Ireland as defunct but adding that 'it may be kept up in America, and continue to do mischief.56 The split in the movement in America by November 1865 seemed to confirm Spalding's diagnosis. Subsequently, Spalding admitted that his predictions had been 'partly mistaken'. For his part Cullen tried to impress upon his American correspondents the specifically religious dimension of the Fenian threat. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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This aspect of the affair continued to haunt the American hierarchy and again Purcell complained to Spalding that 'we are in danger of losing a vast number of Irish Catholics by Fenianism'.58 The American Church's battle with Fenianism fed into selfquestioning about North American Catholic identity. Spalding, for example, records in his Acta Episcopalia 1864-1871 6, that he received a letter on 1 December 1864 from a Catholic in Erie who complained that the bishop, Josue Young, 'denounces the Irish as scarcely equal to the Negroes'. A local dispute between Fr M.A.M. Weizfeld, the Dutch pastor of the Catholic parish in Elizabeth Port, New Jersey, and his largely Irish parish soon degenerated into a series of allegations whereby the pastor accused his opponents of all being Fenians, who he claimed were very numerous there.59 Judge G.H. Hilton of Cincinnati could also complain of Archbishop Purcell that 'A mitre & years of contact & American attrition never could remove the Divine Paddy out of [him].... Not that I am prejudiced to the Irish or Irishman in his proper place.... But out of its proper place it is abominable. Narrow, provincial & hateful.'60 Similar sentiments were expressed to Brownson's daughter Sara by the Benedictine priest Edward Hipelins. Thanks be to God', he declared, 'those times have passed away when Catholicity and Hibernianism used to be looked upon as pretty near identical, and a younger generation, [is] emancipated from the shackles of a conceited, empty nationalism.'61 Spalding, in writing to John Francis Maguire MP, who was doing research for his book on the Irish in America, tended also to stress this dimension. He urged Maguire to 'avoid any expression which might indicate that [the Irish] constitute a class apart with interests different from that of their fellow citizens'.62 Prelates continued to lambast Fenianism in this period, while confidently talking about its demise. Bayley thus recorded in his diary in June 1866, 'Lectured at Orange [New Jersey] on St. Patrick & the mission of the Irish people - good audience - gave a good strong rap at Fenianism.'63 On the other hand, at times the bishops expressed a sense of helplessness in the face of the Fenian threat. Timon could write to Bishop Jean Lefevere that 'I wished from the beginning that some joint action of the bishops, regarding the Fenians would be 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


The worst of all is that great evil is inflicted on religion. The American Fenians have paid for the support of a newspaper, and for the spreading of a system, which pretending to assail England, was immediately and powerfully directed against the Catholic Church.57

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taken.... For one or two to act can do no good. The society is getting to be very dangerous.'64 He also made the interesting observation that the bishops avoided a head-on collision with Fenianism because such an encounter ran the risk of being ineffective and thus would lead to loss of episcopal prestige. Contemporary commentators were inclined to observe that the Irish in America were generally less reverent to the clergy than those who remained in Ireland, and this may well have been one factor in the American Church's 'softly, softly' approach to the whole problem.65 Not all senior churchmen were prepared merely to caution their flocks. One of those who insisted on ploughing a sometimes lonely furrow in robust opposition to the growing influence of Fenianism was John McCloskey, Archbishop of New York. In the face of a proposed Fenian meeting at Jones's Wood, New York, on Sunday 4 March 1866, the archbishop issued a letter urging pastors to instruct their parishioners not to take part in what was clearly a 'profanation of the Lord's Day', and a demonstration that would provoke 'the anger of God, no less than the sorrow and indignation of all sincere Christians'. The New York Times, praising McCloskey's stance as expressing the sentiment of most Irish-Americans, none the less censured the 'misgovernment of Ireland [which] deserves all the denunciations that can be heaped upon it by liberals of every creed'.66 Despite the archbishop's words the meeting went ahead and was by all accounts an 'enormous assemblage', thus underlining the difficulties faced by the hierarchy in trying to curb Irish nationalist sentiment by appeals to religious conviction. However, neither McCloskey nor the New York Times gave up, as is clear from the continued coverage it gave to his attacks on Fenianism. Not all sections of the press gave such devoted attention to the pennings of senior divines. The pro-Fenian Irish Canadian could not but hope that the Church's opposition to Fenianism was but a temporary blip. 'As she perceives the worthy aims, and orderly intentions and conduct [of the Fenians] a new light will break in upon her Hierarchy and Clergy, and win encouraging words from her lips.'67 A note of ridicule could also at times creep into American Catholic attitudes to Fenianism, and was apparent even in those sections of the press disposed to the Fenians. Don Emile Longnemare, a freelance correspondent for the New York Freeman's Journal, wrote to the editor, following the raids on Canada, 'I did hope the Fenians would have made a more respectable row, so as to have justified my visiting them in their new country.'68 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




The American hierarchy decided to make an authoritative joint statement on the question of Fenianism in the course of the plenary Synod of Baltimore in 1866, no doubt partly in response to the isolation felt by Bishops Timon, McCloskey and others. It is equally clear, however, that they felt themselves obliged not to name the Fenians as such. Their statement was therefore a model of abstruseness. Assembled in Synod the bishops warned American Catholics to 'avoid secret societies and all associations which we deem unlawful'.69 Whatever result they may have hoped for from such a milk-and-water statement it made little impact on Fenian fortunes. As William D'Arcy has observed, I t is certain that the opposition of the Catholic clergy had little effect in dampening the enthusiasm of most Irish-Americans for Fenianism'.70 The struggle against Fenianism, if it was to succeed at all, required sustained effort at the local diocesan and parish level. In forbidding a Fenian funeral in his diocese in August 1865, Kenrick of St Louis declared in no uncertain terms that 'members of the Fenian Brotherhood, men or women, are not admissible to the sacraments of the Church, as long as they are united with that association'. The archbishop proceeded to state that he regarded the object of the organization, 'the exciting of rebellion in Ireland', as immoral.71 Almost simultaneously with this occurrence, John Farrell, Bishop of Hamilton, Ontario, took the opportunity of the proclamation of the Jubilee in connection with the encyclical Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors12 to 'warn all confessors not to administer the sacraments to members of societies calling themselves Fenians or Hibernians of Canada, but to treat them as ipso facto excommunicated'.73 Such sentiments did not win much influence for Farrell with Hibernian and Fenian circles, and when the President of the Toronto Hibernians, John Murphy, attacked Farrell for his stance, the Bishop of Toronto felt compelled to write to Farrell apologizing for the speech, saying that it contained 'untruths, and was highly offensive to your Lordships' high character and dignity'.74 One embarrassing aspect of this affair was that the President of the Toronto Hibernians actually praised Lynch for his enlightened treatment of the Hibernians in his diocese. By this time there was already an enormous row brewing in the Canadian Church between Lynch and the Archbishop of Halifax, Thomas Connolly, owing to Lynch's effusions on the question of immigration. Connolly was concerned that too much emphasis on the wrongs of Ireland not only encouraged Fenianism, but could also adversely effect the position of Catholics in British North America. In particular he warned Lynch that if, in the context of a possible Fenian



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invasion of Canada, there was any hint of support from Catholic prelates for the Fenian cause, the whole Canadian Catholic people would be 'attended by disastrous results'. Stressing his contempt for Fenianism, Connolly added there was 'Not a day in the last 600 years when Ireland could have risen successfully and never was there so little chance as at the present moment.... I cannot approve of the impossible and I abominate whining and screeching and contemptible threats against the Bloody Saxon'15 The tone of this exchange was mild compared with the vitriol that Connolly reserved for a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick in December 1865. There he was not only laudatory about the position of Catholics in the provinces, in contrast to Lynch, who thought they were hard done by, but he described the Fenians as 'that pitiable knot of knaves and fools', who merely wanted to add another Ballingarry to the history of Ireland. Of the Fenians' attitude to religion he remarked that 'Table-turning and rapperism... are to take the place of the old religion in Ireland, and the priests... are to be exterminated under the aegis of the new republic' This letter, which appeared in the press, provoked nine foolscap pages of response from Lynch. He repudiated the notion that the Irish could reproduce the scenes of the French revolution, but at the same time drew attention to the 'sad' fact, as reported by some, that the estrangement of vast numbers of Irish Catholics from their pastors was accompanied by clerical denunciations of Fenianism but with 'scarcely a word of reproof for the exterminators of the poor'.76 With such potentially divisive and contradictory attitudes among senior churchmen it is perhaps understandable that the American prelates wanted to avoid open wrangling over Fenianism, and why even some of their most public declarations were hedged with so much ambiguity. As time went on, the issue for the Fenians and the Church also changed. In the light of the Fenian raids on Canada, Purcell wanted to know if it was permissible to give Christian burial to Fenians killed 'fighting against England'. Even Spalding continued to be circumspect in his public pronouncements. In January 1868 he informed Purcell that he had lectured on Ireland for the benefit of the poor, and that while he endeavoured to do 'full justice to poor Ireland, I gave a decided opinion against Fenianism, but in such terms as were explicit without being irritating'. The Church in Ireland felt perhaps more acutely the menace posed by Fenianism, and to some extent saw the American element as the main problem. As Cullen explained to Spalding, 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




If the Fenians in America were to succeed in driving our half starved and unarmed people to revolt, the massacres of Cromwell w[oul]d be renewed and all that religion has gained during the present century would be lost in six months. I think we are rather in a dangerous position, and that measures ought to be taken to check the progress of Fenianism.77 Cullen kept up a relentless barrage of complaints about American Fenianism. He again told Spalding that if the American-Irish avoided secret societies it would be of great benefit, since the violent speeches of American Fenians produced such bad effects in Ireland.78 Notwithstanding the degree of ecclesiastical opposition, by 1869 the Fenians were sufficiently self-confident to appeal directly to Spalding for a greater understanding between themselves and the Church. John Brophy wrote from Fenian Headquarters to the archbishop saying that the O'Neill faction of the Brotherhood was made up of men who were 'practical Christians' anxious to obey the teachings of the Church, and that Hf there is anything in our organization which is in conflict with the doctrines of the church as taught by the proper authorities, it shall be so changed as to be in harmony with such doctrines'.19

Not only could there be no understanding between the Church and the Fenians but by the following year a Papal condemnation had been issued, making explicit what for more than a decade had been implicit, namely that membership of the Catholic Church and the Fenian Brotherhood was incompatible. It is clear that there was a good deal of incredulity in the United States over the 1870 condemnation. When McMaster announced the terms of the condemnation in the pages of the New York Freeman's Journal he was roundly attacked by an angry correspondent, who informed him that the Vicar General of the Brooklyn diocese, Dr Gardner, preaching in Brooklyn cathedral on 13 March, asserted that no such document had been issued. Gardner is reported to have said that 'it was bad enough to have England oppressing Ireland without having her afflicted by the Church'.80 This was not the only difficulty. In August, Barnabo wrote to Purcell of Cincinnati, complaining about Bishop Casper Borgess of Detroit that he had rebuked a priest for saying the Fenians could not be absolved in the confessional. It was further drawn to Barnabo's attention that PurcelPs brother Fr Edward Purcell, the Vicar General of Cincinnati, had written in the pages of the Catholic Telegraph that the decree on the Fenians was 'a dead letter'.81 Propaganda also wrote



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directly to Borgess asking him why he was not implementing the decree against the Fenians. Before responding to Barnabo, Borgess explained his position to Purcell. He had received the letter from Barnabo on the Fenians, but he had been given to understand by PurcelPs brother that the condemnation from Rome was to apply only to Ireland and England. In America, as he understood the matter, it was to be left to the discretion of the individual bishops whether to promulgate it or not. In his diocese Fr P.H. Selbaere of Ann Arbour had published the decree which had raised a storm among the Irish. Borgess wrote telling him to be prudent 'and to defer the publications of decrees until he was advised to do so'.82 The Roman authorities, in contrast to their 1865 approach, were now determined to ensure that the decree was given as much publicity as possible. Cardinal Barnabo sent copies of the declaration against Fenianism to, among others, the rectors of the American, English, Irish and Scots Colleges in Rome, and to the College of Propaganda, as well as to the Superiors General of eight religious orders, who had missionaries in English-speaking countries, with the request to instruct their members on the Church's position on Fenianism.83 Notwithstanding the formal condemnation and this process of dissemination, there seemed to be some remaining ambiguity about the exact status of the Fenians. Spalding wrote again to Rome in 1870 asking for further clarification as to whether the Fenians could be admitted to the sacraments. For his part, Eugene O'Connell, Bishop of Grass Valley, asked the Sacred Congregation for an exemption from promulgating the decree against the Fenians in his diocese, owing to the local conditions: most of the Catholics there were Irish and the Fenians strong.84 It is also clear that in spite of Rome's desire for uniformity in the observance of the terms of the decree, there was considerable variation in the way it was implemented. Thomas Walsh, the pastor of St Mary's parish Florence, Oneida county, New York, informed Rome in June 1874 that even at that late stage he had not seen a copy of the decree, and wondered whether or not it was still in force.85 In the same year the Vicar Apostolic of Colorado and Utah, Joseph P. Machebeuf, issued a pastoral letter directed to the clergy and laity of north Colorado warning them of the fact that the Fenians were a condemned society, whose members could not be admitted to the sacraments, until they had withdrawn from the organization and had applied to the bishop for absolution. This seems to have occasioned much resentment among clergy and laity alike, as a number of letters of complaint were 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Fenian ism in North America


sent to Rome. Machebeuf was then forced to write to Rome justifying his actions by emphasizing that there had been much Fenian infiltration and expansion in the Denver area.86 Perhaps the most flamboyant dispute of all concerned a controversy in May 1873 between Bishop William G. McCloskey and the Dominican Priory in Louisville, Kentucky. The bishop alleged that the friary was infested with Fenianism', and accordingly complained to Rome. The secretary of Propaganda wrote to the Master General of the Dominicans asking him to investigate the matter. Giuseppe Sanvito, the Vicar General of the Order, replied to the Roman authorities, authoritatively denying that there was any truth in the allegation, and suggesting that the charge of Fenianism was a smokescreen, the real problem being a territorial and financial dispute.87 Some further light is shed on this extraordinary episode by a letter from Fr N.T. Burke, who had been Apostolic Visitor to the Dominicans in the United States from October 1871 to February 1873. Burke, writing from Cork in August 1873 to Fr Joseph Maloney, prior of San Clemente, Rome, remarks that As for the charge of Feinianism [sic], that was put forward as a kind of scarecrow. The Vicar General can deny it... but the less said in Rome about the Irish Nationalist spirit in America the better. Rome's opposition cannot destroy it, but it can put the faith of many in danger.88 Burke went on to say in a postscript that the charge of Fenianism originated in an incident when the Fathers celebrated a Mass for the repose of the souls of some Irish patriots who had been executed by the British in Manchester. More than their Irish counterparts, the American bishops when faced with the threat of Irish Catholic disaffection in the shape of Fenianism were, on the whole, wary of direct and open confrontation with a movement they could not hope to control. The Church was also aware of the direct influence of advanced nationalist opinion in the internal dynamics of United States politics. This was especially true of the period during and directly after the American Civil War. It is also possible to detect on the part of several bishops some resentment of the Roman intervention in 187089 at a time when a number of American prelates were already showing signs of disaffection at the prospect of the proclamation of Papal Infallibility. It was, however, the tensions which Fenianism evoked in the area of Anglo-American relations which enabled it to have such an impact on the American 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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domestic scene, and it is to those tensions that we must now direct our consideration.

The Church's inability to control Fenianism in North America was matched only by the unwillingness of the United States to take decisive action against the movement, and the lack of resources on the part of the government of British North America to deal resolutely with the problem. So far as the United States was concerned, it regarded Fenianism as an essentially British problem and was only troubled, as President Andrew Johnson's Secretary of State, William H. Seward, explained, as to whether in promoting their designs the Fenians had violated the laws of the American Republic.90 For the Canadians the difficulties with Fenianism were more immediate and menacing. Although the movement may not have been especially widespread in British North America it none the less posed a serious threat to the territorial integrity of Canada. Here the Fenian threat provoked both cynicism from Disraeli,91 and aggression from the United States, amid talk of 'the manifest destiny' of the unity of all English-speaking North America, and in no small way contributed to the confederation of the Provinces. The split in the Fenian movement in the United States, over the question of whether or not an invasion of Canada could forward the cause of Irish freedom, led to the bizarre spectacle of the O'Mahony faction actually launching the first attack. Rumours of such a possible incursion circulated for weeks and by early March 1866 the Canadian authorities had called up 14 000 volunteers in a move to repel any assault on the Provinces. The invasion of the island of Campo Bello, at the mouth of the St Croix river on the boundary between New Brunswick and Maine, was clearly designed to provoke a confrontation between the United States and Canada, since the island had long been a subject of dispute between the two countries. In the event the Americans, in conformity with the neutrality laws, impounded at Eastport the ship carrying Fenian arms, and thus brought the expedition to an end. This action in part fulfilled the predictions of Frederick Bruce, the British Minister at Washington, who in writing to the Governor General of Canada, Lord Monck, told him that in any Fenian raid the Americans would act to uphold their own domestic law,92 provided the Canadians showed themselves 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


THE FENIANS AND NORTH AMERICAN POLITICS


resolutely determined to resist Fenian aggression. Bruce also believed that the failure of any raid on Canada would strengthen the O'Mahony faction of the Fenian movement and thus the focus for operations would shift once more to Ireland, where the government had greater facility for dealing with the Fenian crisis. At the same time Bruce was convinced that Fenianism could only be decisively countered not by force, but by remedial legislation in Ireland. Bruce had, however, miscalculated the divisions within the American organization, and it was O'Mahony himself who was to be the main victim of the Campo Bello extravaganza. The plan was conceived by Bernard Doran Killian, one of O'Mahony's chief assistants, possibly to outmanoeuvre the Senate wing of the movement, but in the event both Killian and O'Mahony were temporarily expelled from the Brotherhood, and when Stephens arrived in New York on 10 May he insisted that O'Mahony formally resign as the head of the American section of the organization. In complying with the request, O'Mahony admitted that he had violated his duty 'not alone to the Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Republic, but to the best interests of the Irish race'. Stephens felt 'bound to say' that in sanctioning 'the late most deplorable divergence from the true path, you ... committed a crime less excusable in you than any other man'. The primary duty of American Fenianism was direct assistance to 'the men in the gap'.93 The Fenian designs were systematically betrayed to the Canadian government and to British diplomatic representatives in the United States, so that the authorities were well aware that the real threat to Canadian security came from the Roberts-Sweeny grouping in American Fenianism. Monck, however, despite the intelligence he had to hand, tended to underrate Fenianism as a military force though he was conscious of the relatively large sums spent trying to counteract it in Canada.94 The raid staged by the Senate branch in early June was a formidable foray into Canadian territory, but despite the small success of the Fenian general John O'Neill at the battle of the Ridgeway, it was as hopeless an affair as Killian's expedition. However, the result potentially had much greater diplomatic impact than the previous raid. Although, again, the Americans acted to uphold the neutrality laws, it is also clear that President Johnson wanted to give the Canadians a fright, and allowed the Fenians almost free rein for five days before calling a halt to their proceedings on the American side of the frontier.95 The considerations here were to some extent strategic. The 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Alabama claims were still outstanding, and the United States was beginning to experience difficulties with Great Britain over the treatment of American citizens imprisoned in the United Kingdom for Fenian activities. Britain held to the doctrine of inalienable citizenship' and refused to recognize former British subjects as naturalized American citizens. Many Americans were also held under the terms of the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act, which the American adminstration believed was contrary to the due process of law,96 and furthermore regarded the Fenian outrages as political offences which it deemed demanded different treatment from violation of the ordinary criminal law. In the light of the June raids these issues were exacerbated, from the American perspective, by the prospect of the Fenian trials of American citizens in Canada, where there was considerable confusion over what crime the Fenians had actually committed on Canadian soil. Chief Justice Drayer, following a legal opinion he had given as Solicitor General in 1838, was determined that an alien invader could not be tried for high treason.97 Monck thought the Fenians ought to be charged with treason. Following advice from both London and Sir John A. MacDonald, the future Prime Minister but at that time the Attorney General of Lower Canada, it was decided to charge them with the felony of 'hostile invasion'. The problem here was that the act providing for such a crime was only given the Royal Assent on 8 June, and although Chapter Three of the act provided for a retrospective application of this offence, it could not be used against British subjects. Despite the desire of Carnarvon, the Colonial Secretary, to prevent bloodshed, the death penalty was imposed in several cases, including that of Fr John McMahon and Robert Lynch. The decision to commute the capital sentence was announced one week after the Congressional elections in November. Although the Americans had put pressure on the British to ensure such a contingency, the Canadian authorities did not want to be seen simply as responding to President Johnson's initiatives in the matter, nor did they wish to assist the electoral fortunes of the Republican party.98 By this stage however, Johnson was increasingly dependent on Democratic support in Congress, struggling as he was with the more radical elements in his own party as he tried to pursue a moderate policy of conciliating the Southern states during reconstruction. On the whole Bruce urged the government in London not to be too harsh in dealing with the Fenians since he felt that the treatment of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




the prisoners would determine the future relations between Canada and the United States. Monck was persuaded by this argument and determined to fix the average sentence of the prisoners to a five-year term. He was overruled in this by the London government who thought an average of twenty years was more appropriate. As Carnarvon explained: 'looking at the atrocious nature of the offence I do not think that a less penalty w[oul]d have been adequate or understood'.99 Despite such sentiments, and following an enormous campaign on their behalf, the Canadian authorities began to release the prisoners and most of them had been liberated by 1872. There were some instances of unnecessary cruelty in dealing with the prisoners, but on the whole they were well treated, especially after the appointment of John Creighton as the governor of Kingston prison, Ontario, where most of them were kept.100 The issues confronting the Canadians in the face of the second Fenian invasion were remarkably similar to those of the 1866 raid. On the other hand, the Canadians had determined on a much tougher stance against the invaders and were prepared indiscriminately to shoot all the raiders on the field of battle, a proposal which was overruled by London. O'Neill, by now the President of the Senate wing, wanted to repeat his limited success of the battle of the Ridgeway in the previous incursion. By 1870 the government of President Ulysses S. Grant was not disposed to allow Fenianism to interfere with the relations between Britain and the United States, and his cabinet decided upon a proclamation on 24 May, warning Americans that they would forfeit the protection of the United States if they participated in any invasion of Canada. The raid was a grotesque failure and more of a fiasco than that of four years earlier. O'Neill tried again the following year to launch yet another attack on Canada. The focus this time was the Red River colony south of Winnipeg in Manitoba. The Fenian leader sought to exploit resentments between the Metis inhabitants, led by Louis Riel, and the Canadian federation over land distribution in the area. In fact the grievances, which gave rise to the Metis rebellion of 1869-70, had largely, if temporarily, been settled, by the Manitoba Act 1870 and Riel, instead of coming to O'Neill's aid, actually raised a company to fight against the Fenians. This final Fenian attempt on Canada was then, also, doomed to failure, although there is evidence that they had been contemplating such a move for several years.101 Such endeavours would have made more strategic sense in 1869-70 than in 1871.



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That Fenianism should figure so prominently in the history of Canada in the late 1860s is perhaps not so surprising, given the stated aim of the Brotherhood of resisting English rule wherever it could. T.W. Sweeny's address to the 'People of British America' in June 1866 made clear, however, that their quarrel was not with the people of Canada per se. 'We come among you as the foes of British rule in Ireland. We have taken up the sword to strike down the oppressor's rod to deliver Ireland from the tyrant, the despoiler the robber....'102 The fact that Fenianism should play such an important role in the affairs of the United States is, on the surface, more of a puzzle and cannot simply be explained on the basis of the fact that the Irish were, in some States, a relatively important voting bloc.103 Given the difficulties in Anglo-American relations arising out of Britain's attitude to the Confederate states during the Civil War, Fenianism became, for the United States, a convenient hook on which to hang its lingering sense of grievance. This is not to say that America did not have a genuine feeling for what were perceived as the injustices in the British administration of Ireland, but America's interests were dictated by its own internal policy, and whatever the Fenians might hope for, there is no evidence that the United States ever seriously contemplated hostilities with the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the Civil War.104 America's principal interest in Irish affairs arose from the treatment of those of its citizens who had been arrested in the United Kingdom for Fenian activities, and many of the diplomatic exchanges in the period 1866 to 1870 were concerned with the attempts to obtain the liberty of such prisoners. By the same token the British government thought it had legitimate grounds for complaint against the Americans for the obvious tolerance shown to the conspirators in the territorial United States. When the Senate faction set up its 'government in exile' Clarendon complained to Bruce that it 'must surely be looked upon by the government of the United States as a proceeding not only unheard of in the history of the world, but one incompatible with the dignity of the United States and their international obligations towards Great Britain'. British officials were also inclined to see that the attention paid to Fenianism by American politicians was largely for party political considerations.105 Not that all American opinion was well disposed to the Fenians. The New York Times in particular conducted what amounted virtually to a campaign against the Fenians, often referring to what it termed the 'blather' of the Fenian leadership. It complained bitterly of the use of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




the 94th National Guard regiment to protect the Fenian Congress in New York, and observed that such proceedings brought the state's military organization into disrepute.106 The paper also warned of the danger that the American government might be giving the impression that it was 'winking' at Fenianism, as a means of paying back England for her violations of neutrality during the Civil War.107 However, so long as prominent politicians such as Samuel Tilden,108 Fernando Wood,109 and Schuyler Coifax110 continued to associate with Fenianism, for whatever motive, its role in political life in the United States was assured. Some politicians were, by contrast, openly hostile to the movement, and there is even some suggestion that Hamilton Fish, when Secretary of State, constantly sought to betray the movement and was one of the main sources of intelligence for the British government on the Brotherhood's North American operations.111 But equally Edward Thornton, the British Minister in Washington, could complain that an official in the State Department was leaking information to the Fenians on the nature of British-American cooperation on the Fenian issue.112 The main threat to Fenianism in North America may not have been from any external source, but rather from its own divisions and a certain lack of direction which set in after the split in 1865. John Mitchel was obviously impressed with the political strength of Fenianism, especially when the Fenians had secured his release from Fort Monroe at the end of the Civil War, through direct contact with Andrew Johnson. Like many, he initially thought that the Johnson administration would at least connive at American Fenianism. After having agreed to become the financial agent in Paris in 1865, he quickly became disillusioned with the movement and believed that the rupture in the organization put paid to its revolutionary designs, and effectively marked the end of its American operations. Although invited to be the instrument by which American Fenianism might be re-united he declined to play that part, on the basis of the fact that no insurrection in Ireland could be successful while America and England remained at peace.113 While it is tempting to see American Fenianism as a spent force from 1867 on, its actual strength ought not to be underestimated. In securing the return of their arms which had been seized by the American government after the June raid on Canada, the Senate wing had to indemnify the government to the amount of $246 000.114 Even at an organizational level, Roberts continued to urge the buying of uniforms and the infiltration of regiments of state troopers, in the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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aftermath of the Canadian failure.115 On the other hand, the lavish amount of money spent on the Senate headquarters in New York, and the failure to make serious efforts to reunite the movement caused the whole Fenian enterprise to attract to itself a reputation as something of a comic opera. Equally Roberts thought that his own efforts in Paris in July 1867 had actually secured a reunion and that the Fenians could once again turn to their main task of fighting the English rather than one another. Such hopes proved delusory, and yet the notion that nothing could be achieved by Fenianism in America unless there was unity was to linger long in Fenian deliberations in that country.116 When Mitchel was sent to Paris in 1865 O'Mahony instructed him that one of his functions was to examine the 'practicability of an invasion of Ireland from America'.117 The events surrounding the 'Erin's Hope' affair showed that such a proposal was a sheer chimera, and caused Fenian stalwarts such as General F.F. Millen to conclude that Ireland 'must depend almost entirely for her freedom [on] her own sons on her own soil'.118 With the arrival in America in 1871 of the released Fenians, Luby, O'Leary, Rossa and their companions, there was some optimism that their status and influence, building on the work of Clan-na-Gael, might achieve the longed for cohesion of the organization. However, their advent and the prestige attaching to them notwithstanding, this proved not to be the stimulus to a reunited Fenianism. In any event Rossa, for one, quickly became interested in other matters, such as the rescue of the Fenian prisoners from Australia, and the systematic terrorism of English cities under the rubric of the 'skirmishing campaign'. Following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, there was some optimism in America that conditions in Europe were such that England might begin to find itself involved in a conflict with her European neighbours. This prospect once again revived both general recruitment in America, and further talk of unification, and once again such confidence proved equally short-lived.119 Within two years even O'Mahony could only speak of the 'present weak condition of Fenianism' and what an uphill task it would be to keep it alive.120 Even renowned members of the organization who had suffered for its ideals began to repudiate their interests in it. James Gibbons, a former Vice President and sometime acting President, who quarrelled with O'Neill, could write that he had given his time and wasted his energies 'under the delusion I was serving Ireland', only to end up by being regarded as an enemy of the cause.121 Despite having written 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




to the 'Officers and members of the Fenian Brotherhood of Boston', in July 1871 assuring them of his continued good will towards Fenianism, John Boyle O'Reilly was to tell O'Donovan Rossa a little later that he could no longer believe in Fenianism, and that the American organization was 'as big a humbug as Mormonism'.122 John Devoy wrote to O'Reilly that 'most of us are sick of the very issue of Fenianism, though as resolved as ever to work for the attainment of Irish independence'. At the same time O'Reilly liked to pose as the ideal of the Irish romantic freedom fighter, and some of his success as the editor of the Boston Pilot was in part due to the aura which attached to him as a Fenian who had escaped from the clutches of the British. Nonetheless, with the defection of individuals such as O'Reilly from its ranks, Fenianism's greatest achievements, at least in this phase of its existence, were by now in the past. Still, the fear of Fenianism could haunt the deliberations of British officials in North America. When the United States government decided to pardon those Fenians who had been arrested on the American side of the frontier during the 1870 raid, Lord Lisgar protested that such actions merely encouraged the re-grouping of Fenian forces, despite the humiliations they had suffered in being repulsed yet again from Canada. The settlement of the Alabama claims through the Treaty of Washington 1871, and the Geneva arbitration in 1872 not only considerably reduced the tensions between the United States and Britain, but removed from the scene a bone of contention which the Fenians had to some extent exploited to gain popularity, or at least sympathy, for the cause. However, as long as Fenianism continued in Ireland it would always command support in North America, and the efforts made by church and state to curb its activities would meet, at most, with only limited success. CONCLUSION It can be argued that the role played by Fenianism in North America in the 1860s was, as much as anything else, that of giving some social cohesion to Irish immigrant classes and their descendants, who were bewildered by their life in the New World. This should not, however, blind us to the fact that radical political dispositions could also be indicative of sincerely held political resentments at the treatment of Ireland at the hands of successive British administrations. The 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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general climate of American opinion in the Northern States in the years of the Civil War encouraged such sentiment, and was used as a focus for recruitment to the Union armies, with the suggestion that a grateful post-bellum Union government would not be unmindful of the debts it owed to the Irish for their help in the conflict between North and South. Fenianism did help to give social cohesion to the Irish in America and Canada, and this inevitably brought it into conflict with the Church as both organizations competed for influence over the mass of the immigrant population. If the contest was something of an unequal struggle it was nonetheless fierce. On the other hand Fenians were, at times, able to claim that opposition from the Church actually helped rather than hindered their cause, owing to the indignation generated by what appeared to the political prejudices of the clergy.123 O'Mahony shared the view that 'when the priests descend into the arena of worldly politics they throw off their sacred robes and must be treated according to their personal political deserts'. O'Mahony had taken much the same attitude with Bishop Duggan of Chicago in February 1864 when he denounced that prelate for the stance he had taken on the object of Fenianism, the overthrow of English rule in Ireland. O'Mahony argued that the issue was a purely political question and one on which Catholics might legitimately disagree, and still remain good Catholics.124 At the same time American Fenians were aware that they could not afford to take too anti-clerical a line, as this ran the risk of alienating practising Catholics who were otherwise favourable to the movement. That the priests were the natural allies of the governing classes was commented on even from the most unexpected quarters. Bruce, for example, told Lord Monck that he did not understand why the government did not 'bribe over the priestly influence which is so strong ... and which no gov[ernmen]t can set at defiance with impunity'.125 The real problem for Catholicism in North America was that it was just beginning to find social acceptance when the appearance of Fenianism threatened to set aside the gains of forty years, by helping to reawaken sectarian animosities. Archbishop Thomas Connolly of Halifax denounced the Nova Scotia Morning Chronicle for its suggestion that the Fenians in Canada were using Catholic churches as drill-halls.126 Canadian Protestants remained unconvinced. The Toronto Leader gave front-page coverage to the acknowledgement that the Fenian invasion caused great ill-feeling among Protestants for the Catholic population,127 and it had also 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




taken the trouble to point out that contrary to reports that Catholics made up 25 per cent of the local cavalry there was in fact 'not the smell of one', and that in the Queen's Own and Tenth Royal volunteers there were not twenty Catholics for every 1000 men.128 By contrast the New York Times reported that of 59 Fenians held in Toronto gaol in early June, 16 were Protestants, including one Episocopal minister.129 Even so, the danger of sectarian tension remained palpable throughout the Fenian period.130 Edward Archibald reported that in New York City there were up to 10000 Canadians and '[Protestant] North of Ireland' men who were prepared to volunteer to help repel the Fenian invaders.131 Despite the efforts of D'Arcy Magee to show that Irish Catholics could be loyal to the Crown there was an inherent distrust of Catholicism which Fenianism did nothing to undermine.132 For the most part church and state in North America worked for the elimination of the threat posed by Fenianism, although the vested interests of each were such that they never really considered the intrinsic reasons that gave rise to Fenianism in the first place. Undoubtedly, though, the main threat to both church and state from Fenianism was to be found in Britain and Ireland, and the years 1866-69 were especially important in coming to terms with the problems posed by the organization.



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THE FENIANS PREPARE Despite the turmoil of the previous year, by October 1866 Gladstone, for one, was convinced that Fenianism in Ireland was not formidable. At least, so he told Pope Pius IX. The Pope, for his part 'spoke warmly against Fenianism' and assured Gladstone of his hostility to it, and that of the Irish clergy.1 The importance of Fenianism as an issue in British-Vatican relations had been underlined earlier that year in an exchange between Odo Russell, the unofficial British diplomatic representative at Rome, and the Pope. Pius explained to Russell that the principles of Fenianism had been condemned in his latest allocution and he hoped that the Fenians would soon be completely suppressed.2 A report from the British consul at Naples told of the activities in that city of the prominent Fenians Dowling, 'the brothers Harris of Pittsburg, Higgins ... of Baltimore and Davidson of Quebec'. While the Home Secretary was inclined to dismiss Bonham's report as 'too vague to act upon' he did have the matter followed up, and asked the Foreign Office to make enquiries. Odo Russell filed a report in April to the effect that the police authorities in Rome were keeping a close watch on one of the Harrises. Russell also took the opportunity of complaining to Cardinal Antonelli that the Irish clergy were the fermenters of political strife. They tended to blame all the wrongs of Ireland on the English, whereas Russell maintained that 'all the misfortunes they had brought upon themselves by their own idle Celtic habits... .'3 Antonelli rejected the idea that priests were the 'active apostles of disaffection' and was sure that they opposed all secret societies in accordance with papal teaching. In a subsequent exchange, the following month, Antonelli demanded to know the names of priests whom the British government alleged were known to be sympathetic to Fenianism and who heard the confessions of Fenians. Russell, however, refused to name any, saying that Antonelli had his own sources of information on the subject, not least the Fathers of the Irish College in Rome who seemed to be 'wonderfully well aware of Fenian proceedings in Ireland'.4 It is, though, some 83 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


4 Fenianism Subdued and Authority Upheld?


measure of the different perspectives between Rome and London at this stage that, while both opposed violent revolutionary movements, both governments disagreed over what constituted a revolutionary movement. Thus Pius could not understand why Britain supported Garibaldi in Italy, whose aim and techniques seemed to differ little from what the Fenians were attempting in Ireland. Not that Pius had things all his own way. Lord John Russell remarked to his brother in November 1866 that The Pope cannot blame us if we express a wish to see his states merged in the kingdom of Italy as H[is] H[oliness] has expressed a benevolent desire to see the U[nited] States swallow up the Queen's provinces in Canada'.5 The somewhat complacent note struck by Gladstone as to the nature of the Fenian threat in 1866 was not one shared by his colleagues, or Church officials, still less by those charged with security arrangements in Ireland. By November Lord Naas, the Chief Secretary, thought the situation sufficiently serious to ask for a special cabinet meeting to discuss the general state of Ireland.6 The army commander, Lord Strathnairn, stressed that Fenianism had the effect of paralysing military action, because of the distrust sown in the ranks by Fenian infiltration, and seemed somewhat depressed about the abilities of the government to eradicate it.7 It is also possible to detect at this stage strong differences of opinion within the government and security forces as to how to cope with Fenian trouble-makers. Naas was against the policy of the previous administration which virtually amounted to a systematic round-up of suspects. In Naas's view this was counterproductive: it created panic and often allowed the leaders of the conspiracy to escape detection. At a policy level, Naas believed that the army's intention was to prepare for the suppression of rebellion. His aim, on the other hand, was to prevent any outbreak. Equally Strathnairn was convinced that only a political solution could quell Fenian discontent, and strangely enough thought that disestablishment of the Irish Church would go a long way to settling Ireland's grievances. That government strategy was not to be simply one of coercion was plain for all to see. At the same time the government was under pressure from various sources to take a more rigorous line. John Martin, writing to George C. Mahon, told him that the 'English faction here especially the Orange portion of it - would like to tramp out the disaffection now in much blood of the Catholic peasantry. But the English cabinet seem to be opposed to this policy'.8 Part of the problem in analysing government attitudes from December 1865 on is 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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that it was by turns complacent and frantic with panic. Reports flowed almost daily into Dublin Castle and the Home Office about the extent of the conspiracy in Ireland and Britain. Sir Thomas Larcom in pleading for more troops in January 1866, declared that alarm had much increased since a similar request for reinforcements the previous month. One aspect of the security problem was that the police in Ireland were nearly two thousand constables below par. Larcom's superior, Lord Wodehouse, had, however, told Lord John Russell two weeks earlier that the measures by then taken to ensure that there would not be an outbreak were adequate.9 These sentiments had already been given expression in the Irish Times at the end of December, where it was announced that 'the simple operation of the law has been found amply sufficient to crush the conspiracy, and will be found adequate to suppress every attempt to disrupt public order'. This reassuring motif appeared again in the Queen's speech for the Opening of Parliament on 6 February, when the Commons and Lords were told that the constitutional power of the ordinary courts had been used to crush Fenianism and that 'the authority of the law has been firmly and impartially vindicated'.10 This is somewhat at variance with the tone of the executive, which in mid-January had 'proclaimed' Dublin, a move which in itself caused enormous excitement. The country was further thrown into paroxysms of agitation and confusion towards the middle of February when the bill to suspend Habeas corpus was rushed through parliament in a single day. By that time there was a widespread apprehension that Fenianism was actually on the increase. One aspect of the problem of coercive legislation was that, although the suspension of civil liberties doubtless hampered Fenian operations, it also, in the words of Superintendent Daniel Ryan, made the Fenians 'more desperate in the struggle which they are resolved to begin at any risk....'11 Government alarm was matched by that in some ecclesiastical circles. The political situation was sufficiently confused for the clergy to have often-contradictory attitudes to contemporary events. As a means of trying to come to terms with their inability to control revolutionary propensities among their flocks, bishops, as an explanation, tended to fall back on the notion of the anti-clerical nature of Fenianism. Cullen, for example, told Kirby that in any revolution he himself would be the first to be attacked, and how much of a consolation this was to the Protestants.12 As with opinion in government and press circles, ecclesiastics tended to see the appeal of Fenianism as 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Fenianism Subdued and Authority Upheld?


confined to the lower classes, whom they dubbed as 'dupes', led astray by Protestant or infidel Catholic leaders. The main problem in all this for the Church was that Fenianism might become a permanent barrier to the influence of priests over their people. Such a view was also shared by some sympathetic AngloIrish public figures.13 The converse of this was the perception among some poorer Irish Catholics that the clergy were neglecting them.14 Bishop Laurence Gillooly took the opportunity of his Lenten pastoral letter in February 1866 to urge priests and people to unite together in the face of the 'madness' of revolution and to carry on the struggle for the redress of grievances 'under the sacred banner of the Church, and in defence of religion and public order'. In the eyes of some priests, Fenianism went hand in hand with general immorality. Archdeacon James Redmond wrote to Cullen of just such a connection: 'witness the sworn evidence of the habits of the Fenian leaders - drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, neglect of the sacraments, unlawful oaths & the inculcation of bloodshed & violence as the only means to achieve redress of popular grievances .. .'.15 Archbishop Joseph Dixon of Armagh was inclined to emphasize that membership of the Fenian society was inextricably linked with spiritual ruin, and characterized the Fenians as those 'misguided men, who imagine they can serve their country by trampling on the laws of God and his Church'.16 One of the problems faced by the Church in trying to reconcile, as the authorities saw it, wayward Fenians, was whether or not penitent Fenians had to denounce their accomplices in order to receive absolution. As Cullen's secretary Laurence Forde explained to Abbot Bernard Smith in Rome, the requirement of denunciation was 'thought too severe or rather impracticable - as it exposed the repentant to certain assassination'.17 On the other hand, Gillooly had written to Cullen the previous year saying that the need for penitents to tell the priest of their membership of the Fenian organization outside the confessional, as a condition of absolution, would greatly help to check the progress of Fenianism.18 Whatever interdictions the Church might bring to bear on the movement, there can be no doubt that the suspension of Habeas corpus represented a severe blow to Fenian prestige and designs. Between February 1866 and March 1867 more than 960 arrests were made under the terms of the Suspension Act. Police surveillance of suspects in Ireland was carried out on a scale by then unprecedented in modern Irish history. It is, however, also clear that the prison 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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system was not designed to cope with such a massive influx, and already by May 1866 the government was looking for ways of discharging some of the prisoners. The police complained in many cases that individuals had arrived in Ireland from England at the end of 1865 and that there could be 'no doubt about their determination, [to engage in treasonable behaviour] and guilt'. Yet despite this the government wanted to release them. Superintendent Ryan was against the early release of suspects since in most cases 'short incarceration will not have a beneficial effect', and although Sergeant Barry of the Attorney General's office, with the concurrence of the Lord Lieutenant, agreed with the general principle that it would not be good 'to release too many', they embarked upon a programme of release, provided those liberated agreed to go abroad, either to America or Great Britain.19 Clearly, by May the government and police were gaining some confidence in their ability to contain Fenianism. This contrasts with the perception in March that all the measures taken against the organization appeared not 'to have produced the least effect on the members of that body in repressing their spirit or apparently disturbing their organisation, more than in a temporary way.. .'.20 The fact of repressive legislation could also be interpreted as in some sense a propaganda victory for the Fenians. One constitutional newspaper complained that 'all pretence of constitutional government in this country has been abandoned, the constitution itself suspended, and England's deputy-governors have been invested with despotic powers for the suppression of an insurrectionary movement'. In addition, The Nation called upon all Irishmen to persevere in their resolution never to submit to English domination, and never to cease from their efforts to place Ireland in the only position compatible with her prosperity and honour - 'that of national independence'.21 Meanwhile the policy of early release was partly pragmatic but also determined by the consideration that if Fenians, as a condition for freedom, were compelled to leave Ireland they no longer represented much of a threat: this despite the fact that the Irish administration and the London government knew of substantial Fenian activity in Britain itself. Considerable alarm was caused by a seizure of Fenian arms in Liverpool in September, consisting of more than a hundred rifles, 37 bayonets and 'three small cases containing phosphorous'. The day after the seizure the Irish government released 114 prisoners on condition they went to America, a further 108 provided they went to Britain, and three others, two of whom went to Australia and one to





Archangel.22 Such releases could occasionally cause controversy. Two of those arrested in October in connection with the Liverpool arms haul had just been released from Mountjoy in September. The following month Head Constable McHale of Liverpool reported his conviction that the great majority of Irish labourers in the main English cities as well as in 'towns of less note', were, if not actually Fenians, nonetheless 'strongly impressed with the spirit of Fenianism'. Perhaps government policy was dictated by the more reassuring intelligence of those such as the Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Frederick Williamson who, having investigated the situation in Liverpool, reported that there was no extensive organization in that city.23 Similar reports were forthcoming from Preston, which convinced the authorities that, despite the presence of some 400 Fenians in the town, in the event of a rising very few would take part in it. Meanwhile the police operations in Ireland continued to reveal a disturbing level of discontent in the country. Inspector General Wood reported in December that through intimidation or conviction the Fenians could count on the support of at least two-thirds of the lower classes of the population in the south and south-west of the country.24 The Dublin Metropolitan Commissioner, Atwell Lake, estimated, 'from information on which reliance can be placed', that there were at least 30000 sworn Fenians in Ireland, with quite a number of fellowtravellers who could be expected to join in, if a rising took place. With regard to munitions, however, he could not even give an approximation. This estimation of the readiness for revolution chimed well with James Stephens's appraisal of July that the work in Ireland was progressing as strongly as ever, and if American help were forthcoming 'this very year shall witness the flag of Ireland in triumph'.25 By the end of the year Cullen was convinced that there would be no rising. He told several episcopal correspondents that although the Brotherhood was doing much mischief the general alarm was a government over-reaction, and that the Fenians were less formidable then than in 1865. The purpose of continuing government agitation was to keep 'the Orange faction in power'.26 The government, if somewhat more astute than Cullen in its estimation of events, also had support from some unexpected quarters. Fr Jeremiah Vaughan, who had flirted with Fenianism while on a two-year fund-raising trip to America, now returned to denounce Fenian leaders for having 'lined their pockets' and disregarded the needs of ordinary Fenians.27 Still, the evidence from government sources was such that if a rising



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THE RISING Matthew Arnold, in a typically cerebral view, was inclined to blame what he saw as the general philistinism of English society as responsible for Fenianism. When The Times characterized his presence at, and indeed the whole enterprise of, the Eisteddfod at Chester in the summer of 1866 as 'one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentality which could possibly be perpetrated', Arnold's response was 'Behold England '(s) difficulty in governing Ireland. '28 The

inability of English statesmen to rule Ireland in Irish interests was doubtless as much a product of a clash of cultural identity as of political mismanagement. Perhaps nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in the events of 1867 which witnessed not only an abortive revolution in Ireland, but three spectacular instances of Irish terrorism in English cities, the results of which made Gladstone, among others, determined to recast the political economy of Ireland as a means of finally reconciling Ireland to the interests of the United Kingdom. It was something of an irony then, given the Arnold-Times controversy, that Chester was chosen by the Fenians as the launching pad for their revolution. The scene had been set in New York in December 1866 when Stephens had been deposed as the Head Centre of the Brotherhood, and been replaced by Col. Thomas Kelly, who along with a number of American officers such as Thomas F. Bourke, William MacKay, John McCafferty and General W.G. Halpin and two French professional revolutionaries, Gustave Cluseret and Octave Fariola, arrived in London in January 1867, determined to rescue the causes of revolutionary Fenianism from the chaotic posturing of Stephens. By then they discovered in London a Directory29 which had already decided upon the Chester raid and the rising. Very quickly the Directory lost authority and was replaced by a 'Provisional Government' consisting of William Harbinson, Edward Duffy, Dominic Mahony, Edward O'Byrne, and which included Kelly and Cluseret. It was this 'Provisional Government' which issued the 'Proclamation of the Irish Republic' in March and signalled the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


was to take place, all the indications were that Ireland itself would be the centre of revolutionary activity. It came then as something of a shock that the main signal for a rising would be given in Chester.

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We therefore declare that, unable any longer to endure the curse of monarchical government, we aim at founding a Republic based on universal suffrage, which shall secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour. The soil of Ireland at present in the possession of the oligarchy, belongs to us the Irish people, and to us it must be restored. We declare also in favour of the complete separation of church and state. Although the proclamation is regarded by some as having the more doctrinaire rhetoric of English radical republicanism, and in particular the influence of Charles Bradlaugh, than pronouncements emanating from classical Irish nationalist sentiment, it would be a mistake to neglect its obvious cognates in French and American revolutionary tradition. Kelly himself published a letter in the French newspaper Liberte in the middle of March in which he explained the Fenian programme as 'the republican form [of government] based on universal suffrage, such is what is desired by the Ireland of 1867, regenerated by the story of its exiles in America'. Other contemporary observers were also convinced that Fenianism had a social as well as a revolutionary policy. The Fenians', The Nation suggested on 24 March 1866, think that if they are to fight at all, the battle may as well be for the ownership as for the tenancy [of the land]. The sort of right they propose to give to their followers is very like that which Oliver Cromwell gave to his, and which forms the 'sacred' basis upon which the landlordism of Ireland rests at present. By 11 February 1867 more than one thousand Fenians had descended on Chester with the intention of storming the castle, removing the armoury and repairing to Ireland to begin a revolution. The Mayor of Chester frantically reported by telegram to the Home Secretary that morning that 500 Fenians were already in the town and reports from Liverpool suggested another 700 had massed in Liverpool awaiting transportation. The mayor pleaded for troop reinforcements. In one sense, of course, the Chester raid came as no surprise since the government had already considerable intelligence of Fenian designs. At the beginning of January, reports had been received in Ireland of the arrival of large numbers of American officers, up to 150, who had been quickly dispersed through the country. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


attempt at a coordinated rising in Ireland. Significantly the proclamation had an intensely socialist ring about it.30

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As we have seen, by 1 February Corydon had already informed the police that an attempt would be made, and that though the Fenians were sure of failure the effort would be made 'to prove the honesty of the present party in power'.31 Such intelligence, however, has to be set alongside reports from such diverse places as London, Preston, Liverpool, Cork and Westmeath, that Fenian fortunes were much depleted owing to clerical denunciation, the fact that Stephens's reputation was in tatters, and that members of the IRB were pawning their revolvers.32 Even Cullen confidently reported to Tobias Kirby that Fenianism was at an end and that the elaborate security measures taken by the government at the end of December were unnecessary. He nonetheless added that though the people were not Fenians they were 'discontented and have a thousand reasons to complain'.33 On 10 February Corydon informed the police in Liverpool of the details of the Chester raid, and quick action by the authorities succeeded in stopping what would have been an enormous tactical and propaganda victory for the Fenians. It is ironic that the government indicated in the Queen's speech on 5 February that it would abandon the emergency legislation in Ireland. Naas had already suggested some time before to Abercorn that, barring unforeseen incidents, this was how the government would proceed. The administration still hoped that up to 40 American prisoners would agree to leave Ireland before the Suspension Act was rescinded. By the end of January Naas was in optimistic mood, talking of meeting parliament with a good Tenant Bill, an education commission to examine the university question, Habeas corpus restored, 'the Fenian movement crushed and the country very quiet'. The decision to rescind the emergency legislation was soon reversed, the Habeas corpus Suspension Act was reintroduced and all its provisions became law by 26 February. That same day Col. Massey and 11 other Fenian officers met and fixed 5 March for the rising in Ireland. Telegraph wires were to be cut, railways and bridges were to be destroyed and banks pillaged. 'The houses of the gentry might be plundered, but life was not to be sacrificed. No women were to be violated.... High officials were to be seized as hostages', and, significantly, there was to be no movement in Ulster.34 The Chester fiasco was quickly followed by an equally ridiculous, but unrelated, episode in Kerry on Wednesday the 13th which involved more than a hundred Fenians. The incident arose from confusion over the timing of the proposed rising and the changes in the leadership of the organization. Given the amount of speculation 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




on the possibility of a rising, the Kerry movement came as something of a relief. The government had already been supplied with the intelligence that J.J. O'Connor was to lead a movement in Kerry, but a grave security lapse occurred when the Cork-Dublin mail train arrived at Thurles at 1.08 a.m. on the 13th and the guards informed the locals that a Fenian rising had begun in Kerry. The information they gave turned out to be surprisingly accurate. Naas was so annoyed by this incident that he sent a memo to the Post Master General saying if such a breach of security were to ever happen again he would have the Post Master General dismissed.35 The almost comical scenario enacted in Kerry seems to have produced general reactions of disdain for Fenianism and all it stood for. Francis McKee, a Catholic grocer in Armagh, confided in his diary: 'the Fenians have risen at last but only in Kerry. Are they mad fools'.36 Cullen took a similar attitude. Writing to Lady Sheil, wife of Sir Justin, he referred to the 'foolish or rather insane movements of the Fenians in Kerry. They will bring ruin and disgrace on themselves'. Bishop MacEvilly referred to it as 'a sad exhibition of folly'. Despite the fright given to some, the government was determined not to be panicked into hasty military manoeuvres, which could only cause further alarm. After all, the security forces were aware that one element in Fenian designs was to draw away from Dublin as many troops as possible.37 The Tablet reported that a Fenian command had been issued to abstain from rebellion and owing to the fact that this was not received in time the Kerry rising went ahead.38 For their part the Fenians looking back on the events in Kerry saw O'Connor's rising in a different light. It demonstrated, according to Joseph Denieffe, that O'Connor and his men 'were ready to do and dare', and that there were 'a hundred thousand others equally ready, waiting an opportunity to emulate his example'.39 That opportunity was not long in coming but was to be just as much of a fiasco. Meanwhile the redoubtable David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, had once again lived up to his reputation as a Castle bishop by roundly condemning the whole enterprise in his famous sermon, in which he predicted everlasting punishment for the Fenian leaders. Even Catholics who shared Moriarty's basic outlook thought that his remarks were uncalled for. Cullen described the sermon as 'a foolish exaggeration', and subsequently wondered if Moriarty should not be 'called to an account for it'.40 Reports also reached Cullen from Wicklow that 'the priests ... expressed surprise at the vehemence of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Dr Moriarty's sermon...'.41 Moriarty's political opponents were furious, the Universal News accused him of inventing a new religion: the 'British connection'. The Irishman detected in the bishop's sermon what it termed 'a flaw in creation', since, according to the bishop God had not made eternity long enough nor hell hot enough for the leaders of the conspiracy. Whatever the clergy might actually think, Lord Naas seized the opportunity during the debate on the second reading of the Suspension Act on 21 February to praise the Catholic clergy for using their influence 'to prevent the people from taking part in this conspiracy', and he quoted liberally from Moriarty's sermon that 'God's heaviest curse, His withering, blasting, blighting curse' might be visited on the Fenian commanders.42 Naas's sentiments of approbation of the clergy were to be re-echoed by The Times in the aftermath of the March attempt, when the editor, John Delane, called attention to 'the remarkable loyalty shown by the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy in holding themselves aloof from the conspiracy'.43 The government continued to receive reports of the preparations, even after the Kerry debacle, for a rising. The Irishman, a Fenian mouthpiece, on 2 February delighted in the fact that the country was once more in the midst of Fenian panic, 'notwithstanding the assertions that Fenianism was utterly crushed'. A large Fenian meeting in Limerick on 27 February had been told to expect an order for a general rising, and the Sub-Inspector at Killarney reported that the Fenians were more brazen then than at any time he could remember.44 Conflicting reports were filed as to the strength of the Brotherhood in Dublin. Deputy Inspector-General of Constabulary Brownrigg estimated that there were only 7 000 in Dublin, of whom 4000 were well armed. Thomas Talbot of the Dublin Metropolitan Police on the other hand reported that there were 11000 Fenians in south Co. Dublin alone.45 When the rising finally took place at midnight on 5 March the government was prepared for every eventuality, since all the details had been betrayed by Corydon on 27 February. In all there were some 18 incidents in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Tipperary. The police barracks at Mountmellick in the Queen's County was also attacked, and here the police returned fire, killing one Fenian and wounding another, at which point the 'rebels dispersed'.46 The raid at Drogheda told a similar story. There the police caught some of the insurgents redhanded as they awaited their supplier, a man named Flynn, to bring their arms. Devoy and John J. Breslin were, not without some 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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ECCLESIASTICAL REACTION The rising confirmed for Cullen and his circle all their worst fears of Fenianism. Archbishop Patrick Leahy in a pastoral letter on 12 March castigated Fenianism as 'most sinful in itself, and condemned by the Church under the heaviest penalties'. Moriarty issued a circular letter to his clergy telling them to 'inform your flock that all persons joining the Fenian society, whether sworn or unsworn incur a papal excommunication'. Cullen confessed to being surprised by the extent of the rising, which of course he regarded as a hopeless affair. Although in some ways anxious to show his concern for those whom he thought had been duped into the movement, he could not resist making the point that, as Lord Naas had stated in the Commons that 29 of those captured proved to be national school teachers, he hoped this might help 'to convince our rulers that education without religious control is well calculated to promote revolution'.48 By revolutionary standards the Fenian rising was fairly small beer. The Tablet on 16 March drew attention to the absence of atrocities normally associated with popular uprisings. It also underlined the fact that the rising was as much for the psychological satisfaction of the Fenians themselves as for any other motive. The movement had at least shown that it was capable of calling men to arms over a fairly wide geographical spread, and although the results were, from the Fenian perspective, disappointing, the organization had to be taken seriously as a significant threat to constitutional stability. In both government and ecclesiastical circles it was confidently expected that another attempt at revolution would be made on St Patrick's Day. However that day passed without incident, and any attempt at outbreak would have been easily crushed. Archbishop Leahy was thankful that martial law had not been proclaimed since 'then indeed the country would have been at the mercy of a brutal English soldiery'.49 The Archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward Manning, took the opportunity to issue a pastoral letter repudiating Fenianism and reminding the Irish of all they owed to O'Connell, whose rule it was 'that no political changes were worth one drop of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


humour, to christen him 'Athelstane the Unready', 'an honest man but a hopeless slow coach'. Indeed in Devoy's estimation the only real success of the entire Fenian rising was the taking of the coastguard station at Knockadoon Co. Cork.47

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blood'. This pastoral was not simply a response to the Fenian attempts at insurrection in February and March. Manning had already crossed swords with the IRB in England at the beginning of the year. Addressing a Catholic audience in Birmingham on 14 January he had declared: 'show me an Irishman who has lost his faith, and I will show you a Fenian. For every lax, sceptical Irishman I will show you a Fenian in return.' He was immediately attacked by Fr Patrick Lavelle in the Connaught Patriot and in the Glasgow Free Press and accused of 'driving Fenians from their faith'. The row was such that Manning complained to Bishop Bernard Ullathorne, at whose invitation he had spoken in Birmingham, that little did he realize what he was letting himself in for. The experience confirmed his view that 'Fenianism is a secret society, & a conspiracy against the state. As such it is a reserved case.'50 The pastoral problems posed by Fenianism in Britain had already been addressed by the English bishops in April 1866 when they decided that the Fenians could not be absolved in the confessional unless they agreed to leave 'the Society' and comply with the Papal constitutions. Manning himself was to return to this theme the following month when he declared in his pastoral for Trinity Sunday that 'the wounds of Ireland are not to be healed by sedition, or by revolution. Those who excite the Irish by talk of independence, and of republics, sin, inflicting deeper wounds'. Instead Manning looked for 'the rising of Ireland to its full participation in the public life and prosperity of the British Empire'. Significantly, in his St Patrick's Day pastoral in 1867, he made clear his belief that 'two things are certain: the one that these three kingdoms are indissoluble; the other that they must all be equal'. In some ways this was the heart of the problem for churchmen in dealing with Fenianism. Catholic Ireland as an instrument for the propagation of Catholicism could only play that role within the British Empire. Equally the Church's place in Ireland was undervalued and to some extent unacknowledged by the Protestant state. Clearly this was beginning to change, but Fenianism threatened the emergence of the Church as a regulator of social morals, and undermined its scope for political influence: not so much because of Fenianism's insistence on the separate duality of the temporal and spiritual spheres, or that it in fact encouraged infidelity to Catholicism (after all many Fenians remained practising Catholics), but rather because it obscured the Church's agenda. Fenianism would clearly never be satisfied with the reformism demanded by the Church, to enable it as an institution to take its 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




rightful place in Irish society, and to pose as the one defender and promoter of the interests of the Irish people. Of course the irony is that it was precisely the impetus given to reform by the Fenian movement which secured two of the three most important elements in the Church's reform programme, disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, and a land bill. Those reforms, of course, by mid-1867 were still in the future; in the meanwhile both church and state had to deal with the continued menace of Fenianism as best they could. FENIANISM ON TRIAL AND THE CONTINUED THREAT The problem now facing the government was how to extinguish the lingering vestiges of Fenianism. The Irish Times had already demanded that Fenians 'should be tried by summary process, and summarily punished', a demand repudiated in March by sections of the nationalist press. Inevitably there were recriminations for past mistakes in policy. The Earl of Shannon complained bitterly to Abercorn that, had Lord Carlisle, Lord Lieutenant, 1859-64, listened to the remonstrances made to him five years before and proclaimed drilling and meetings to be illegal, the Fenian movement 'would have been stopped in its infancy'.51 Meanwhile the government resorted to the use of the special commission as a means of trying the Fenian prisoners. Even at this level, however, there was recrimination within the executive. The Attorney General, Hedges Eyre Chatterton, wrote to Larcom expressing the government's disquiet that none of the leaders of the conspiracy had been apprehended.52 Lake, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, responded that even at Tallaght, the main site of the insurgency, there were no known Fenian leaders. In addition the chief conspirators had by now gone to ground, and the police were also convinced that for some time the greater part of the work of the conspiracy had been carried on by women. Furthermore Lake regretted that the government should have thought it necessary officially to call on the police to bring offenders to justice, 'as they are not conscious of ever having neglected to fully discharge their duty in this respect'.53 As the government prepared for the trials, and despite the fulminations of prelates and politicians, the Fenians in their failure induced greater sympathy in Ireland than they had perhaps ever done in their moments of success. Even that scourge of all things revolutionary, A.M. Sullivan, was 'quickly out in the defence of the moral 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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character of the insurrectionists'. Cullen, within days of the excitement in March, had been moved to note that the government had acted with leniency and moderation, though he feared for greater severity to come, especially against Americans. The special commissions set to work in Cork, Dublin and Limerick. In all some 169 men were charged with a variety of offences including eight for high treason, but most were charged with 'feloniously compassing to depose the Queen, and to levy war against her'. Meanwhile Fenian activity, at least in Dublin, seemed to continue unabated. The Fenians were particularly anxious about the details of the testimony that Massey and Corydon would give against them, and by May it was reported, from three distinct sources, that a special Fenian circle had been formed to carry out assassinations, of jurors, crown officials, witnesses and policemen.54 The assassination circle was in evidence later in the year, when Constable Patrick Keenan and Sergeant Stephen Kelly were shot in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. As Acting Superintendent Stephen Ryan observed: The object of the conspirators very probably is to produce a sort of terror by shooting persons in this manner'.55 One of the consequences of the Fenian trials was to yet again bring Isaac Butt to the attention of public opinion. Butt was destined to have a considerable impact on Irish political opinion, not least for the fact that he would, at least temporarily, move Fenian activity in a more constitutional direction.56 As William O'Brien was to write of him, It was one of the services for which the Irish cause is indebted to Fenianism that it was his relations with the victims of the special commissions of 1865-67 which kindled into a steady flame the nationalist sympathies that had always been flickering somewhere in his Tory speeches or his Trinity College essays... .57 One of the more immediate problems facing Butt and all concerned with the impact of Fenianism on public opinion was the death-sentences meted out to Patrick Doran and Thomas F. Bourke. Doran was soon reprieved but Bourke was sentenced to be hanged on 29 May. At this point Cardinal Cullen made what several commentators have taken to be a decisive intervention on Bourke's behalf.58 Larkin, for example, is prepared to give Cullen a 'large share of the credit' for the reprieve, while acknowledging pressure from other areas. Government supporters were equally convinced that the condemned 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Fenians should hang, since any leniency would be mistaken for weakness59 and hence 'would tend to encourage the spirit of disloyalty'.60 Cullen later told Kirby that 'there was great alarm here lest disturbances s[houl]d occur if the Fenians were executed [They] are now all reprieved, I went to the Lord L[ieutenan]t to plead their cause'. Cullen's intervention, however, was not as decisive as is generally thought. This is made clear in a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Stanley, to the American Minister in London, Charles Francis Adams, telling him that the cabinet had decided the reprieve on the afternoon of the 25th, the time at which Cullen went to see Abercorn in Dublin to plead for Bourke's life. Indeed Stanley's letter stresses that the decision was taken even in advance of receiving official representation of the American government through Adams.61 The decisive factor in the whole event seems to have been the fear on the government's part that if it mishandled the circumstance it would place in jeopardy its own minority administration. As Naas told Abercorn, 'We have escaped a great danger.... There would have been very likely an adverse vote... in the House 200 members of Parl[iamen]t declared that they would start tomorrow for Balmoral.... The thing became an absolute impossibility and there's an end of it.'62 The fact that Cullen thought his voice was decisive in saving Bourke, as indeed did much of the Irish press, represented an enormous fillip to the sense he had of his own role in Irish society, and his ability to deal on terms of familiarity and equality with government officials in Ireland. For their part some of the Fenians were disgruntled that no one was hanged since they hoped for a 'sympathy vote' from the executions. In June Daniel Ryan reported that there was general regret among the Fenians that Bourke had been allowed to live, since his execution would have increased Fenian activity in America.63 Undoubtedly in the early summer months Fenian activity in Dublin tailed off. Some improvement in Fenian fortunes was occasioned by the death in Belfast prison of William Harbinson on 9 September. His funeral witnessed a great display of sympathy for Fenianism although estimates of the number of those who attended vary greatly. The Superintendent of Constabulary said he had never seen such a spectacle, despite the fact that the Catholic clergy had used all their influence to prevent the demonstration.64



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In the early summer Michael Feely and John Walsh met with Roberts in Paris with the aim of patching up the differences between both wings of the Fenian brotherhood. The so-called Treaty of Paris' agreed that Roberts should be the head of the organization in Ireland, Britain and the United States; in return he would supply military and financial help to Britain and Ireland. In addition there was to be a supreme council of seven members to govern the organization in Ireland and Britain, made up of three members from Britain and four from Ireland. It was to undo the terms of the Paris treaty and forge a new reconciliation that Kelly summoned a Fenian meeting for Manchester on 17 August. The police intelligence on the meeting indicates that Fr Patrick Lavelle was present65 though a recent biography of Lavelle does not record this event.66 Kelly reasserted his authority over the organization, had himself elected chief executive, and divided the IRB in the United Kingdom into four districts. He also determined that the Fenians would in future collaborate with the newly formed American organization Clan-na-Gael.61 This naked grab for power came to an end with Kelly's arrest in the company of Timothy Deasy, who had commanded the Fenians in Millstreet Co. Cork in the rising in March. The shooting dead of police sergeant Charles Brett in the rescue of Deasy and Kelly at Salford on 18 September witnessed the beginning of a bizarre series of events which not only further alienated Irish and English public opinion from one another, but underlined the degree of mutual incomprehension between the two countries which was such a marked feature of the early Fenian era. There is', reported The Times, 'no other class of criminals who would have had the audacity to effect such a rescue.' The paper also regretted that the punishments so recently inflicted on the Fenians in Ireland did not prove more of a deterrent. In an ominous prediction of what was to come, it asserted that the British government and people had displayed sufficient forbearance in our treatment of that semblance of an armed force which challenged our authority in Ireland. But here, at last, the authority of the law must be maintained at any cost. We can have no parleying with open violence.68 The government and police never accepted the defence that the fatal shot at the rescue was fired in an effort to break the lock of the police van. Of the five sentenced to death for the crime, one, Thomas 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


THE MANCHESTER AND CLERKENWELL INCIDENTS


Maguire, a soldier on leave at the time of the incident, was pardoned after the intervention of some 26 journalists who signed a petition declaring that they believed him to be a victim of mistaken identity. Edward Condon, known as Shore, had his sentence commuted following an appeal on his behalf from the American Minister in London.69 As for William Allen, Philip Larkin and Michael O'Brien, the trial judges determined in their cases that they had deliberately set out to rescue the prisoners Kelly and Deasy and 'it was required for the effectuating their purpose to kill...'. There could, in law, be no recourse to appeal. Mr Justice Blackburn, writing on his own behalf and that of his co-judge Mr Justice Mellor, emphasized, however, that the judges considered it 'not in our province to express any opinion as to the expediency or otherwise of executing all or any of the convicts. We confine ourselves to saying that the convictions and sentences were in our opinion both legal and just.'70 Mellor had told the prisoners in the course of his summing up, 'I should be deluding you into a false security if I were to hold out to you any expectation that your lives may be spared....' Not everyone took the same view. The O'Donoghue had asked the Home Secretary on 27 October for a postponement of the trials, since the prisoners had not sufficient time to prepare their defence. Reynolds News declared on 3 November that the trials were a disgrace and the result of panic. The Glasgow Free Press also thought that the convictions were as the result of panic, and stated its 'firm belief... that the Manchester prisoners did not receive a fair and impartial trial...'. John Bright went to see Gathorne Hardy, the Home Secretary, on 21 November to plead for the lives of the men condemned to die, and confided to his diary, 'I fear Tories know little mercy; terror is their only specific.'71 That same day J.F. Maguire, MP for Cork, pointed out in the Commons that the evidence on which the men would hang was the same as that of those who swore against Maguire 'the man just taken back into the Queen's service without a stain upon his character'.72 H. Fawcett, MP for Brighton, declared that the executions would send 'a thrill of horror into the hearts of thousands in this country'. By contrast The Times took a high-minded view that it was impossible to conceive a worse insult to the Fenians, 'or a surer way to deprive them of all credit for courage, than to claim for them immunity, from capital punishment on the ground that they are political offenders'. Still, it is difficult to know precisely what the government hoped to achieve by the executions. There can be no doubt that the killing of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Brett horrified British public opinion, yet the spectacle of the 'Manchester martyrs' was hardly a sufficient deterrent to Fenianism, and did not prevent the outrage at Clerkenwell. Even Robert Anderson, obviously no friend of the Fenians, recorded that the trials which followed Manchester and Clerkenwell 'contrasted very unfavourably with the state trials in Dublin earlier that year'.73 The view of the average 'non-political' Irish Catholic was perhaps best expressed by Francis McKee when he wrote on the day of the executions: 'This morning the sun rose in blood red clouds. Did they shadow the brutal deed being perpetrated in Manchester[?] Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were buried at sunrise. God have mercy on their souls.'74 Caroline, the Dowager Marchioness of Queensbury, told the men that she and her household would have Mass offered for them at the very moment of the executions. Concerned also for their wives and children she promised: 'as long as I live they shall be cared for to the utmost of my power'. She piously urged the Manchester three to 'Rest on Him who is faithful... and hear Him say "Today thou shalt be with me in paradise".'75 On the other hand, the government was also inundated with demands that the executions should take place. One affronted citizen of Manchester declared that it would be a disgrace to the county if the Fenians were not hanged. The Irish element down here assert that the Government dare not hang them! I trust the Government will so act as to teach these men that there is a difference between the Fenian right and the right of the British government.76 One of the largest demonstrations of support for the Manchester men in the days before their deaths was held at Clerkenwell Green in London, where a crowd of between 20 000 and 25 000 gathered on 18 November to demand that the executions not be carried out. That meeting heard of an earlier attempt to send a delegation from the area to the Home Secretary to plead for the men. Hardy's secretary wrote: 'Mr Hardy desires me to inform you ... that he has already declined to receive deputations on that subject (cries of disgraceful) & that he must also do so on the present occasion.'77 It was therefore by a perverse twist of fate that the most horrific outrage connected with the Fenian movement should occur at Clerkenwell prison in the attempt to rescue Richard O'Sullivan Burke on 13 December. Burke had been an arms-agent for the rising and was in charge of the Manchester rescue. As with that episode the police had advance 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




notice of the attempt to blow up Clerkenwell prison. On this occasion the authorities took the precaution of ensuring Burke was not allowed to exercise in the prison yard. The explosion itself caused a hole in the prison wall the shape of an inverted pyramid, 20 feet long at the bottom and 60 feet at the top. In all 15 people died as the result of the explosion, over one hundred were injured, some forty seriously so, and up to 400 houses were damaged by the blast. An editorial in The Times, on 16 December, remarked that, it would be hard ... to find a parallel to the use of an instrument capable of such fatal and such widespread destruction. The scene of the explosion presents a picture of indescribable desolation.' On 26 May the following year Michael Barrett, a native of Co. Fermanagh, who had lived for a time in Glasgow, was publicly hanged for his part in the atrocity. Disraeli, in effect Prime Minister since August, owing to Lord Derby's ill-health, took a personal interest in the victims of the explosion and their families, as the many letters of thanks to him for government assistance attest. Equally, however, government correspondence concerning the victims is filled with that aristocratic disdain for the lower orders which was so much a part of the Victorian patrician soul. John Lambert told Disraeli that the £4600 raised by The Times through subscription, with an addition of £400 from the government, was more than enough compensation for what the victims had lost in the explosion. T believe', he wrote of the inhabitants of Clerkenwell, that, 'they all belong to that class of persons known as cottage owners, and... I have no doubt they will endeavour to make a profit of the present calamity.'78 Perhaps the strangest letter of this particular genre was that from Henry Matthews79 to Disraeli's secretary expressing delight at your beneficial exertions in Clerkenwell which do the utmost honour to your chief and yourself. I would have given a great deal to have seen you arrive, like a good fairy, with a bag full of gold and silver.... It was a counter explosion... and reads like an oriental story, as though you were secretary to a Vizier... rather than a minister of Queen Victoria.80 At the security level the immediate reaction of the government was one of unrestricted panic. Within days the Home Office had recruited 50000 special constables in London alone. By the end of January there were in excess of 113 000 in the country. Contingency plans were made for lighting London should there be an interruption of the gas supply, government offices were supplied with buckets of earth in 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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case of 'Greek fire' attacks, and secretaries in Whitehall departments began to carry revolvers. A temporary secret service was set up in London under Col. the Honourable Henry Fielding and Robert Anderson, but it was disbanded when it became clear that Clerkenwell was an isolated incident. Some of this frenzied activity partly derived from the fact that the government had concluded, on the basis of information prior to Clerkenwell, that there would be a general outbreak in Britain. In late September Hardy had written to the Chief Constables and Mayors in 34 areas of England and Wales, and six Scottish Lords Provost, saying that as a precaution against a sudden attack constant watch should be kept on Fenian suspects.81 As a result a number of police forces requested permission to arm officers. The government had also received intelligence that all the Fenians in Ireland although as buoyant as ever were then inactive and that 'the whole attention of the conspiracy seems directed towards England...'. International surveillance was stepped up, and the Home Secretary even contemplated searching French and Belgium mail-boats at Dover - a move which the Foreign Secretary, Lord Stanley thought inexpedient. Not all the Home Office's actions were equally jittery. A memo to Head Constables and others on 27 December declared that it had been decided that no arrests of Fenian suspects should take place for the present, except of those who 'by overt or violent acts compel the interference of the police'. Equally the Lord Chamberlain refused to withdraw the licence for the play Arrah-na-Pogue, set in revolutionary Ireland which included the song 'The wearing of the green', deemed by some to be subversive.82 Not surprisingly the place most affected by government panic was Ireland. In the aftermath of the Manchester executions, a spontaneous outpouring of indignation and revulsion found expression in mock-funeral demonstrations and demands for public Masses for the dead. Reports were dispatched to Dublin Castle from such diverse places as Limerick, Bandon, Mitchelstown and Cork. The Cork demonstration took place on 1 December with 7000 to 8000 taking part in a procession 'accompanied' by 5000 others.83 As in so many places the Catholic churches in Cork were placarded, asking worshippers to pray for the souls of Allen, Larkin and O'Brien. One loyal and outraged Cork citizen had written to the Chief Secretary on 27 November saying that the proposed demonstration should be stopped since it would only give strength to those who opposed the government. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




The report from Oliver Moriarty, the resident magistrate at Limerick, regretted the presence of Fr McQuaid at the demonstration there. The County Inspector of police reported that McQuaid told the people at the cemetery that they were there to pray for the souls of Allen, Larkin and O'Brien, who deserved the honour. Cullen was furious that priests should take part in such public demonstrations, and still more that public Masses were offered for the Fenians. As he explained to Kirby, The poor men who suffered at Manchester are made heroes and martyrs of because they belonged to that class which is undoubtedly under the ban of the Church. They were not honoured or prayed for because they were good men or died penitent, but because they were Fenians. The great processions were got up not for prayers, but as a display in favour of Fenianism.84 Cullen was deeply critical of Archbishop MacHale for his support of a public Mass for the Manchester men. He was no doubt horrified to read in the Weekly News that his erstwhile comrade in arms Bishop MacEvilly had permitted a public Mass in Ennistymone, Co. Clare. However as MacEvilly explained all the young people in the area, 'young men and girls too', were red-hot Fenians who demanded the Mass, and for the sake of peace he permitted it. A more curious note was struck by Daniel MacGettigan, Bishop of Raphoe, who noted that in Donegal there were 'no crime, no processions, no secret societies. Were it not for the newspapers we would be in blessed ignorance of Fenianism'.85 As was perhaps to be expected, Moriarty of Kerry circularized his clergy condemning Masses for the Fenians. He felt, however, that he could take no active steps to prevent a proposed funeral procession 'in consequence of the noninterference in other places of the dignitaries of the R.C. Church under similar circumstances'.86 Perhaps the most important demonstration was that held in Dublin on 8 December, with A.M. Sullivan and John Martin playing the most prominent role. Sullivan was imprisoned for an article in the moderate nationalist Weekly News, condemning the treatment of the Manchester men, after the government had failed to secure his and Martin's imprisonment for their activities in the Dublin affair. Most interestingly of all Martin wrote to Cullen on 6 December, explaining to Cullen that his reasons for taking part in a mock-funeral were in an effort to keep it within safe and proper bounds. Those bounds also included the desire 'to keep all my political acts in accord with... the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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ideas of the bishops and archbishops of the Catholic Church in Ireland'.87 Whatever political games Martin was playing, Cullen was not impressed since, as he told Kirby, the Dublin procession was headed by Martin, 'a Presbyterian, who cares little about prayers for the dead. The only object in getting up High Masses and offices was to promote Fenianism.' The government's decision to issue a proclamation prohibiting all such demonstrations from 15 December is a measure of the difficulties it faced in coming to terms with growing popular sympathy with Fenianism over the hangings, a sympathy which even the Clerkenwell affair did not diminish in Ireland, although that tragedy does seem to have curbed Fenian empathy in some English working-class circles. The Irish bishops welcomed the move, and Moriarty wrote approvingly to Mayo for having saved the county from the 'disgraceful and demoralizing processions', which were simply demonstrations of public approval of Fenianism.88 By April Cullen thought that the danger posed by Fenianism had sufficiently dissipated not to require an extension of the Habeas corpus Suspension Act.89 A SCOTTISH INTERLUDE The difficulties presented for the Church by Fenianism in the United Kingdom were not, as we have seen, confined to Ireland. Stephens had, after all, estimated that by 1865 80000 Irishmen in Britain were Fenians, even if the government thought the figure did not exceed 18 000. In Scotland, where by 1850 there were some 200 000 Catholics, the majority of Irish birth or extraction, the Church was especially vulnerable to Fenian and advanced nationalist display. Even the civil authorities were alarmed by what was perceived to be the extent of Fenian activity, especially in Dundee and in the west of Scotland. As early as March 1866 the Glasgow Town Clerk noted that many of the 100000 Irish in the Glasgow area were Fenians.90 This is probably a gross exaggeration, explicable in part because of special pleading for more troops to be stationed in the city. The stratagem was followed up the following year when the Lord Provost wrote to the War Secretary pointing out that the 'recent Fenian movements' in the city demonstrated the necessity for 'more troops and a new barrack'. These suggestions of large-scale Fenian activity in Glasgow have to be offset against fairly consistent police reports in 1865 and 1866 which, while acknowledging Fenian activity, give little evidence for any 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




extensive conspiracy. A typical example is the report of the Chief Constable to the Lord Provost on 9 February 1866: 'I have no doubt that there are [Fenians] in Glasgow, but I am of opinion that they are neither numerous nor strong... .'91 The problem for the Catholic Church in Scotland in dealing with manifestations of advanced Irish nationalism was exacerbated by tension between the native clergy, mostly highlanders, and the immigrant Irish clergy, who thought they were unjustly treated by always being assigned to the poorer parishes in the country.92 The cause of the Irish clergy was fiercely argued by the Glasgow Free Press which became not just an organ for Irish clerical grievances, but a mouthpiece for radical nationalist propaganda, and often gave a platform for Fr Patrick Lavelle on which to air his views. The difficulty in all this is to know how much nationalism or Fenianism was a protest against a wider alienation of Irish Catholics in Scotland, who saw not only themselves but their Irish clergy undervalued even by their coreligionists. Following numerous complaints, including a statement of protest against Bishop John Murdoch, sent to Rome by 22 Irish priests, Cullen decided to act, and, using his considerable influence, had his old friend, and Rector of the Irish College Paris, James Lynch, appointed as an assistant to Bishop John Gray in Glasgow.93 By that time Gray had written a long memo to Cardinal Barnabo outlining the difficulties in dealing with the Irish in Scotland. He blamed 'revolutionary agitators' who prevented the Irish from settling down in the country. This was as much a religious as a social issue since, as Gray saw it, if the Irish could separate themselves from 'political and revolutionary schemes' then one of the greatest barriers to the progress of Catholicism in Scotland would thereby be removed. In denouncing Fenianism he castigated The promoters of the movements connected with Irish politics, especially such movements as are at present being brought to maturity in America and Ireland for the overthrow of the established government in Ireland, [who] find that in these isolated masses of Irish in the large towns ... they have a most powerful means for disquieting the Government and aiding the revolutionists to accomplish the end they have in view.94 Notwithstanding Lynch's appointment, it was precisely the problems surrounding the Manchester martyrs affair in Glasgow that brought to a head the religio-political difficulties of the Irish 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Catholics in the west of Scotland, and painfully illustrated the inability of the Church to deal with Irish nationalist considerations. The Lord Provost of Glasgow, James Lunmsden, immediately consulted with his opposite number in Edinburgh as to how to cope with the proposal to stage a mock funeral procession in Glasgow. As the Provost of Edinburgh, Edward Gordan, explained to Gathorne Hardy, the Glasgow Orangemen threatened that if the procession were not prohibited they would attack it. The civil authorities therefore determined 'to apply to the Superior Roman Catholic clergymen of Glasgow to induce them to exert their influence to prevent the procession'.95 Gray, following the representation made to him, issued a pastoral letter the following day forbidding 'with all the authority I hold as Vicar Apostolic of the district, any Catholic to attend the meeting on the Green, or join the procession on 15 December'.96 This and the resolute action of the authorities prevented the expected mass demonstration, but then perversely Gray decided there could be a High Mass for the Manchester Three on 2 January. One incensed priest summed up the non-Irish clerical attitude to the proposed Mass, that it would be 'a sort of glorification of the wicked deed they suffered for & in consequence a most objectionable affair.'97 Such, however, was Gray's instability of judgement in dealing with the Irish that he countermanded the permission for the Mass which caused the Irish clergy to 'dangle the flame of treason against the rulers of this Church'.98 Although both Lynch and Gray issued a pastoral letter, in effect condemning Fenianism and asking the Irish to live in peace and harmony 'in the country of your adoption', the breach between the two men was never healed. Gray in fact saw Lynch as 'a sympathiser with Fenianism, a passionate nationalist, and a self-willed partisan'.99 Meanwhile the Glasgow Free Press excoriated Gray for the debacle over the High Mass. At this stage the bishops decided to take action. Referring to a letter from Cardinal Barnabo of 16 January the bishops of the three Scottish regions issued a Pastoral condemning the Glasgow Free Press for disseminating principles 'diametrically opposite to those of the Catholic religion', and forbidding priests either to write for it or help distribute it, under pain of suspension. Bishop Lynch would have nothing to do with the Pastoral and wrote to the Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern District, John Strain, objecting that the document was 'injudicious, inadequate, unfair & uncanonical'.100 By then Rome had already appointed Archbishop Manning to enquire into the affairs of the Catholic Church in the west of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Scotland. His recommendation was that both Gray and Lynch should be relieved of their responsibilities, much to the chagrin of Cullen and the priests of the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, of which Lynch became the co-adjutor bishop. None of this is to suggest that Fenianism was the only problem besetting the Catholic Church in Scotland, but allied with other considerations it was a powerful determining factor in how the Church conducted its business. This was also true in England where Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham fell foul of Fenian intrigue, and had publicly to defend himself against charges laid by advanced nationalists that he was 'anti-Irish'. In rejecting the charge, he lashed out against 'the agents of a secret and unlawful society [who] have been carrying on their operations in Birmingham' and which turned Catholics from their faith.101 He and Manning were to disagree over how exactly infidelity and Fenianism were related, but Ullathorne had often set his face against any expressions of militant Irish nationalism, for which the Birmingham police were always grateful.102 Not that clerical influence was always successful in helping the civil power to rein in the raffish excess of the Irish in Britain. A march in sympathy with the dead Fenians took place in Manchester 'in opposition to the advice given... by the several R. Catholic clergy from the altars in this city'.103 Even the repeated condemnations of Fenianism by Bishop Goss of Liverpool hardly served to check the spread of the IRB in his large diocese.

THE BEGINNINGS OF REFORM As well as being guardians of order in church and state, the clergy could also, wittingly or unwittingly, be the source of disquiet to prelates and politicians alike. When the Limerick clergy assembled to celebrate Mass for the Manchester dead they took the opportunity, under the patronage of Dean O'Brien, of issuing a declaration in favour of the repeal of the Union.104 Cullen made known his displeasure at this by telling O'Brien that the declaration would have no good effect. 'Probably it will alienate many of our friends in England who seemed disposed to do some good for Ireland, whilst it will divide the people here at home more than they are at present.'105 By this time Cullen was beginning to despair of the Tories bringing about any political reforms, despite close negotiations between Manning and Disraeli over the possibility of a charter for the Catholic university. Although that proposal came to nothing, Manning was perhaps credulous



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enough to believe that 'Mr Disraeli would have an Irish policy if he could; but his followers render it impossible as they always have & always will.'106 Political considerations were such that Disraeli had to flirt with the notion of some policy for Ireland. He received a memorandum from John Lambert107 at the beginning of March 1868 which stressed the need to 'establish tranquillity' in Ireland with measures which were beyond simply 'temporary palliatives'. The memo rehearses many typical English prejudices, such as that the Irish could not govern themselves, and that they lacked the qualities needed for industrial enterprise. On the other hand, it did advocate a reform programme which would have found favour even with Cardinal Cullen. Lambert recommended disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the secularization of its endowments, a charter for the Catholic university, and 'perhaps some modification... in the national system of education, so as to render it more in accordance with the denominational system in England'. There is no reason to think that this memo played a major role in Disraeli's thinking on Ireland. Much of his general policy on the question just then was an attempt to maintain his minority administration, with the indulgence of radical Liberals, while at the same time not alienating the more High Church members on his own benches. Disraeli had, however, outmanoeuvred Gladstone and the Liberals on the Reform Act of 1867, and might well have done so over Ireland, even on the Irish Church question, if it had not been so clear that he and Naas differed so widely over the Catholic university issue. Using this as his pretext Gladstone made his move to unite his own party and humiliate the Conservatives. John Bright had a long talk with Gladstone at the end of December 1867, in the course of which the Liberal leader told him that he was 'willing wholly to suppress the state church in Ireland, but with a wish it had not been necessary'.108 This was simply confirming privately his public declarations in a speech earlier that month in Southport when he spoke of the need to place the Irish Church, education and land questions at the centre of British politics. Gladstone's resolutions on the Irish Church on 23 March were the beginnings of his attempt not simply to pacify Ireland but also definitively to deal with Fenianism. As Hammond observed, 'Gladstone with rare honesty said that until Ireland shook England's complacency by the Fenian outrages nothing was done in the way of reform.'109 Comerford, by contrast, detects what he sees to be an inability in Gladstone, and general opinion in 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




Britain in the years 1866-68, to differentiate between Fenianism per se, and the 'upsurge of popular "nationalist" expectation among Irish catholics'.110 This is a curious interpretation since as Gladstone himself had indicated, his Irish policy was precisely to alienate Fenian opinion, and enable the mass of the Irish people to differentiate their aspirations from those of the revolutionaries. This is not to say there were not other issues dictating policy. Not all violence was from the same source, and one element in government policy was precisely to prevent the diverse causes of violence from amalgamating into a general miasmic whole under the rubric of Fenianism. Even Lord Strathnairn pointed out to the Duke of Cambridge that when Fenianism was in the ascent, agrarian outrages were at a low ebb, since the Fenians could not allow 'agrarian outrages which would have interfered with the success of their outbreak against the government'.111 Some support for this view comes from the other end of the political spectrum, in the person of Stephens. He was certain that the Fenians 'crushed Ribbonism wherever it predominated... [and] during the period when Fenianism was an all-powerful factor in the politics of the country, never was the country freer from the strains of agrarian crime'.112 The established position of the Irish Church was in itself an especially thorny issue. As Manning had pointed out to Gladstone it was, so far as Catholic Ireland was concerned, 'a great wrong', even if in a rhetorical flourish he was inclined to see it 'as the root of the especial bitterness which poisons every Irish question'.113 Strathnairn could also discern the dangers to the peaceful government of Ireland emanating from the Church. He pointed out that the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin as a senior member of the privy council signed proclamations, 'which particularly if they are political, gives great umbrage, & I venture to think justly to the R.C. community'.114 The point, however, is that Gladstone himself thought that in dealing with the Church and land questions he was in some way dealing with the Fenian issue. Cullen told Gladstone that the Church Bill as amended in the Lords in July 1869 would gratify none but the Fenians, who would use it as a pretext for proclaiming that Ireland could expect no justice from the British parliament. Gladstone scarcely concealed his anger from Cullen when telling him of his profound astonishment that remedial measures had not brought peace to Ireland. He detected a sinister force 'having for its object perpetual war between England and Ireland', and making use 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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of the disguise of agrarian crime; it seeks to triumph by the double means of convincing Great Britain that reasonable legislation will not be accepted, and of alarming us into the destruction or suppression of constitutional freedoms'.115 He therefore called upon the Catholic Church to use its influence to prevent a 'contest' between the two countries, and in morose tones warned 'the crisis is a solemn one, and it is becoming more solemn every day'. Cullen flung the challenge back in Gladstone's face, telling him that remedial legislation was not the way to deal with lawlessness. 'Nothing good can be effected for Ireland, until something shall have been done to prevent the ravages of an infidel and revolutionary [organization] subsidised, and maintained to a great extent by foreign gold.'116 Cullen's solution was the suppression of those constitutional liberties which Gladstone wished to avoid. The Fenians came to regard Gladstonian reformism as the result of their efforts. Gladstone's comment at the introduction of the Church Bill, that his outlook had been conditioned by the 'intensity of Fenianism', gave Devoy the opportunity to write, 'His remarks on that occasion proved a stronger argument in favour of physical force - and even of terrorism - on the part of Ireland to secure justice and freedom, than any Irishman ever made.'117 Meanwhile the organization reformed itself in an effort to ensure that the revolutionary momentum would be kept up. A new Supreme Council was elected which in April 1868 declared that the new structure was designed so as: '1. To prevent the possibility of premature action. 2. To urge on the progress of preparation for action. 3. To restrain from the commission of acts of violence and outrage all who have sworn and who owe allegiance to the Irish Republic and its duly constituted government.' By this stage other prominent Fenians were beginning to have doubts about the utility of violence. From one perspective Fenianism had collapsed, and it looked as if constitutional agitation might be a possible way forward.

ELECTIONS AND CONTINUED THREAT Despite Disraeli's attempts to retain power on the back of a deliberately anti-Catholic election campaign the Liberals were returned with a majority of 112, half of which came from Ireland. Fr Patrick Moran, Cullen's nephew, claimed some credit for reorganizing the Liberals in Dublin, while Cullen himself took delight in the idea that he was 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




probably the first cardinal ever to vote for a Quaker.118 Bishop John MacEvilly of Galway rejoiced that the contest there was 'not to be called with truth political.... It was eminently religious'. MacEvilly had, however, to suffer the humiliation of appearance before an electoral court charged by one of the defeated candidates, Martin O'Flaherty, with exercising undue influence on the electors and of bribery. MacEvilly dismissed O'Flaherty as 'a nominal Catholic', who along with his 'Fenian followers' would 'crucify the clergy' if they had the opportunity, though he doubted this was the object of O'Flaherty's protest.119 A less successful attempt by the clergy to keep Fenian influence at bay during the election occurred in the Dungarvan contest. Here Henry Matthews, the English Catholic Tory, defeated the sitting Irish Liberal Catholic, Charles R. Barry. Barry had the disadvantage that he had helped in the prosecution of the Fenians, and accused the Fenians of intending to use the assassination of priests and landlords as one of their techniques of terror. Even John Martin had declared that it would be a scandal if Barry was returned for any constituency in Ireland.120 The other factor working against Barry was the presence in Dungarvan of the indefatigable assistant prior of the Augustinian house, James Anderson. Cullen accused Anderson and his fellow friars of forming an alliance with the Fenians to defeat Barry, 'a good Catholic and an eloquent defender of the Pope's authority'. The hierarchy certainly saw the contest as one between Fenian sympathy and the authority of the Church, with Matthews himself acknowledging that 'it is because I give Dungarvan an opportunity of rejecting Mr Barry that I am welcome amongst you'.121 The Bishop of Waterford, Dominic O'Brien, deprived Anderson of his licence to preach or hear confessions in the diocese, and the local diocesan clergy all vigorously campaigned in Barry's favour, but to no avail. Cullen also attempted to bring his influence to bear in an effort to have Anderson removed from Dungarvan and, when the priest was eventually transferred to Cork,122 two petitions were organized protesting against the removal. The local magistrate James Redmond had already complained of growing Fenian sympathy in the town, and the tension caused by this, and the presence of troop and police reinforcements, ensured that it was one of the bitterest contests of the election. Indeed the inquest jury into the deaths during the election returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' against the 12th Lancers.123 The significance of this test of popular opinion of sympathy with Fenianism, with its irony of electing a Tory, most certainly marks a



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staging-post in the political development of Fenianism, in the sense that it demonstrates that specifically Fenian concerns, under the right stimulus, could be exploited in highly charged emotional situations for electoral advantage. This was to be made even clearer in the Tipperary by-election of November 1869 and February 1870. The election of O'Donovan Rossa, admittedly by a small majority124 in a poll of only 23 per cent was, in Theodore Hoppen's words, 'an astonishing victory',125 in marked contrast to Comerford's judgement that it was 'of no great significance'.126 Comerford can only avoid damage to his own thesis by setting at nought all the contemporary commentary on the election, and by further claiming that all commentators then and since, except of course Professor Comerford, have been unable to appreciate the complexity of the issues involved. He also makes the astounding declaration that by that stage in 1869 there was no real contest between tenant right and amnesty agitation, a judgement not shared by the police. Chief Superintendent Ryan reported to the DMP Commissioner that Rossa's return had produced 'an extraordinary reaction in favour of Fenianism all over the country', and that 'Amnesty people are disposed to disrupt Tenant Right meetings whenever they can.'127 Hoppen sees Rossa's election as an abandonment of conventional politics, and shows that Rossa's rural support outweighed the urban support of his Liberal and Tenant Right opponent, Denis C. Heron.128 One cannot escape the fact that in a straight contest, in an admittedly complex situation, the Fenian candidate was returned even if the voters chose to reject Kickham, Rossa's replacement, when the latter had been debarred from taking his seat three months later. This time Heron had a majority of four. This state of affairs obtained largely because Kickham refused to cooperate with the electoral process and was, at best, ambiguous about his own candidature. The public reaction to Rossa's election was immediate and universal. There were mass demonstrations in a huge swathe of country stretching from Limerick to Sligo and engulfing all counties in between. The Head Constable at Mallow reported that the feeling among the huge crowd in that town, during the victory celebrations was 'so intense, that I considered it more prudent [given his small force] to identify as many as we could in order to prosecute [at a later stage] should the magistrates consider it expedient to do so'.129 Privately Strathnairn told Cambridge that the better priests used all their influence against Rossa to no effect, and that the choice of 'the worst of the Fenian conspirators who is known to combine in his character, 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




hopeless treason, cruelty & wickedness', was 'indicative of the disaffected & lawless spirit existing among the masses of Ireland'.130 All of which was in grave contrast to what was seen to be the eirenic spirit at work the previous year during the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Dublin. The royal couple arrived on 15 April; the main purpose of the visit was to enable the Prince to be invested with the recently created Order of St Patrick. The investiture was to take place in St Patrick's cathedral and while Cullen gave permission for Catholics to attend, he decided not to go himself 'lest the people should think it wrong of me to go to a Protestant church'. Despite press reports of an enthusiastic reception Cullen believed that there was 'little cheering' but that 'the people behaved most respectfully, and altogether things went on very well'. There were considerable security concerns in connection with the visit. Mayo did not think that there ought to be a public entry into Dublin since he feared that something 'unpleasant' might take place. The police had received intelligence of an attempt to assassinate the Prince, and the Prince himself did not want a public entry with people 'lining streets etc'.131 The difficulty in securing protection even for a royal visitor was underlined when news reached Ireland, after the Waleses had departed, of the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh, in, ironically, Clontarf near Sydney on 12 March. Henry James O'Farrell had written to T.D. Sullivan telling him that he intended to do the deed, apparently in retaliation for the Manchester hangings. Sullivan was convinced that O'Farrell was not a Fenian but 'a nationalist from boyhood' who acted alone. O'Farrell was, by his own testimony, a Fenian and was ordered to carry out the attempt under instructions from London - at least so he told Henry Parkes, the Australian Colonial Secretary, a few days before being hanged on 21 April 1868.132 The story is of interest for Irish affairs because the following year, in the course of a dinner to honour the released Fenians Warren and Costello, the Mayor of Cork, Daniel O'Sullivan, made reference to the incident. In his speech the Mayor suggested that O'Farrell, in firing at the Duke, did so because he was 'imbued with as noble and patriotic feelings as Larkin, Allen and O'Brien'. These remarks caused an explosion of protest, and demands for O'Sullivan's resignation, which he initially refused, but Gladstone and the cabinet took steps to remove him from office.133 The bill to accomplish the removal, introduced in the Commons on 5 May, was the first such instrument to be determined upon since 1737.134 O'Sullivan, to the relief of all



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concerned, resigned on 11 May. In the event the Dublin aspect of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales passed off peacefully135 and the most controversial aspect of the affair, which caused a major row in Parliament, was the deference shown to Cullen at the state banquet where he was given, or so it appeared, the precedence of a prince. In fact the precedence given Cullen was simply that of an archbishop which had been the policy in Ireland since at least 1864.136 This proverbial storm in a teacup could not disguise the genuine concern surrounding the continuing menace from Fenianism. In Britain the Home Secretary continued to have the post of a number of Fenian suspects intercepted,137 and for the next two years Michael Davitt would conduct some of his most intensive arms-purchasing operations.138 Strathnairn claimed that ammunition was openly distributed to Fenians in Drogheda in December 1868139 by which time Cullen also complained that the Fenians were as busy as ever and that they were likely to do 'great mischief. 'I think they are swearing in new members', he told Kirby. The government knows everything they are doing and lets them go on because it can crush them at any moment.' Towards the end of November that year, Daniel Ryan was reporting that the Dublin Fenians were reorganizing and that they were much more selective about whom they took into the movement than at any previous time. Ryan also passed on intelligence concerning a Fenian meeting in Dublin in December at which every district in Ireland was represented, except Roscommon, amid speculation that most of the funding for the organization was at that point coming from England.140 By this time the government was made anxious by a report submitted from the Inspector General of the constabulary John Stewart Wood. In early November he had written to every County Inspector in Ireland asking for details of the state of Fenianism in their area. The replies which 'for the most part exhibit a notable coincidence of opinion' all pointed to 'a more wide-spread, deeper, and more openly avowed feeling of disaffection towards the government of the country than heretofore'.141 Although he did not anticipate an 'outbreak', he insisted that the security arrangements which had been drawn up in the face of the Fenian threat in 1866-67 should be revived, whereby the police were backed up by military force. His strictures on the press in this report may well have been one of the factors in propelling Gladstone to curtail press freedom in the Coercion Act of 1870. Several months earlier, Cullen was already convinced that Fenianism was at an end. Despite police intelligence to the contrary,





the Fenians had not attempted to disrupt the translation of O'ConnelPs remains to a new mausoleum in Glasnevin. There was not, in the vast crowd that accompained the reburial, a single Fenian emblem. As far as the cardinal was concerned, The day's proceedings have done a great deal to put down Fenianism. All the Fenians are the enemies of the pacific policy of O'Connell....' CONCLUSION One of the main issues facing both church and state at the end of the 1860s was the problem of the exact role and influence of the clergy in radical politics. At one end of the spectrum of ecclesiastical opinion we have David Moriarty who was convinced that the priests by and large rejected Fenianism only on pragmatic grounds. At the other end Cullen was convinced that the priests would obey the teaching of the Church in the matter; after all, if they did not, who would? The Irish clergy had long had a reputation of being among the most radical in Europe, and on many occasions Rome had to intervene to prevent the clergy getting too carried away with political horse-play to the neglect of their pastoral duties. Although never brought into operation, a consistent proposal from many leading English politicians was the idea of concurrent endowment, as a means of giving the clergy a measure of independence from their flocks. Because the clergy were financially dependent on their people it was assumed that they, to some extent, must therefore share the political expectations of those who financed them. Furthermore given that they were drawn, for the most part, from the same class as the mass of the population, it was believed that they naturally shared the same prejudices and social ambitions as those who were their kith and kin. This phenomenon has led many historians to suggest that the Church itself, through the clergy, was not only a passive supporter of Irish nationalist (indeed at times advanced nationalist) opinion, but also perhaps the most significant instrument in the creation of modern Irish nationalism as that emerges in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.142 There are many problems with such a thesis, not least the fact that the police and up to one-third of the army stationed in Ireland were drawn from the same class as the clergy. If the clergy were simply a prism through which shone the myriad light of undimmed Irish nationalism, then it would be reasonable to expect that the same



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iridescence would be mirrored in all members of that class. That this was not the case is attested time and again. In the debate in the Lords on the March 1867 insurrection Viscount Lifford adverted to the conduct of the police, who he maintained might be taken as 'a type of the Irish people'. They were the sons not of the middle classes but of small farmers 'and had been brought up with all the feelings and prepossessions of that class', and yet during the Fenian disturbances they had behaved with 'a gallant loyalty'. He concluded that whatever disloyalty there was in Ireland it could not be very deep.143 For his part Cullen was deeply moved by the fact that police Captain Burke, and the 14 men under him who dispersed the Fenians at Tallaght, were all Catholics,144 and had all gone to confession the day before the affray, a privilege which was denied to the Fenians.145 As to the loyalty of the army, the Duke of Cambridge declared in the Lords that despite what was said to the contrary, in any revolutionary situation the soldiers would exhibit 'no feelings except of the right sort'.146 Both Cambridge and Strathnairn were convinced that the Irish Catholic soldiers in the army had in general 'rendered good service against Fenians'.147 Of course soldiers and police were employees of the state. Their loyalty may, in part, be regarded as a function of their employment, of the 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' variety. That loyalty, however, was not an absolute and there are sufficient indicators from government sources to show that treasonable activity was a problem in the army, and to a lesser extent in the police. By contrast the most striking aspect of the issue is not the relative disloyalty of the clergy, but on the contrary how much they in fact acted as upholders of the duly constituted authority of the state, despite their unendowed status. Cambridge and Strathnairn were both anxious to applaud the role of the Catholic clergy in bringing Fenianism to heel. Strathnairn thus wrote to General Forster that the 'great body of the Roman Catholic clergy are decidedly opposed to Fenianism & that the exceptions to this rule are young and ill conditioned priests'.148 Equally, neither Cambridge nor Strathnairn was particularly consistent on the issue, perhaps too easily reflecting English political sentiment as a whole. Clarendon had longed blamed the priests for stirring up political problems, and Disraeli also revealed his disdain in a wonderfully descriptive passage in Lothair where Captain Bruges confesses, T am not fond of Irish affairs: whatever may be said, and however plausible things may look, in an Irish business there is always a priest at the bottom of it. I hate priests.'149





In analysing the role of the clergy in politics perhaps it is more helpful to think in terms not of Irish nationalism, but what one might term 'Catholic nationalism'. Even discounting the instances when it was blatantly hostile, the Protestant state for various reasons remained either unwilling or unable to concede to institutional Catholicism that place in British, and more particularly Irish, society that Church officials thought it ought to have. Thus, for example, we have seen the pettiness, but nonetheless intensity, of the row surrounding Cullen's participation in the Dublin banquet for the Prince of Wales, in which Cullen was addressed as 'the Archbishop of Dublin'. At the level of episcopal leadership, the bishops as diviners of the political and social aspirations of Catholic Ireland were anxious at every level to promote the interests of the Church. Their desire to see Catholics advance socially in Ireland was so as to enable them to exercise that degree of influence which they thought they ought to have as the regulators of the faith and morals of the Irish people. Hence their great delight when Thomas O'Hagan was appointed as Lord Chancellor, and subsequently raised to the peerage; and they used every opportunity to bring their influence to bear on that individual, as is clear from even the most casual acquaintance with his correspondence. The bishops' preponderant desire was to steer the ship of state into a decidedly Catholic harbour. This in itself did not imply separation from the United Kingdom; indeed, bishops were sufficiently sensitive political animals to see the great advantages accruing to Catholic Ireland from its position at the very heart of the British Empire. None of this is to deny that some priests were clearly, either actively or passively, supporters of Fenianism. They, however, cannot be taken to represent the generality of clerical opinion in the 1860s.150 Why then did successive governments seem to be so fixated on clerical influence? Part of the problem was a failure on the part of government actually to control events in Ireland, and in casting around for a scapegoat it was natural to fix on the clergy, to blame them, not just for the lack of order but to accuse them of initiating disorder. Indeed (as we shall see in the next chapter), the process that led to the condemnation of Fenianism by Rome was initially a plea for the condemnation of clerical political agitation. Even Strathnairn could talk of the dangerous political ascendency of the clergy. Since the 1840s there had been a suggestion that successive government policy amounted to trying to rule Ireland through Rome. But what the government actually wanted was, in one sense, to rule 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Ireland through the priests, as clearly the best-placed individuals to maintain any semblance of order. The failure to do this had as much as anything else to do with the fact that the Catholic clergy perceived the state as antipathetic to them and to their religion. This attitude was not without justification; even Gladstone, for all his undoubted sympathy with every manifestation of religious convictions, could stoop to the most vehement blasts of anti-popery.151 The problem Fenianism posed for the Church was precisely that it did not, unlike the British state, foresee a role for the Church in politics. The revolutionary aspect of Fenianism was that it wanted to short-circuit the Church's political ambitions. Priests were to be confined to their sacred function and would not be allowed to trespass into the secular sphere. The threat posed to both church and state in Ireland was on a scale that neither could deal with alone. Ironically both sought the intervention of the Vatican, which was perhaps a recognition by the state that in Irish affairs, for all the rhetoric to the contrary, Rome and not London was the ultimate arbitrator of political affairs in that troublesome country.




AMNESTY, REFORM AND COERCION The question of amnesty for the Fenian political prisoners, as Isaac Butt told Gladstone, was a mark of whether or not Ireland was in the United Kingdom as an equal partner with England, or was a subject nation held by force of arms.1 For his part Gladstone would have been willing to release all the Fenian prisoners in 1869, but was prevented from doing so by pressure from the Whigs in his cabinet. In the event, 49 out of 81 prisoners were released, though Kickham was the only prominent member in this group.2 Sympathy for the Fenian prisoners had been intensified throughout late 1868 and early 1869 by tales of systematic mistreatment and by the activity of the amnesty movement under the careful direction of its indefatigable secretary and prominent Fenian, John Nolan. By the time the amnesty movement was founded in November 1868, the prisoners had become a symbol of the general discontent experienced in Ireland at the hands of London rule. Hostility to the government over the prisoners had been, in part, sparked as early as March 1867 by a letter from O'Donovan Rossa complaining about his treatment, but it reached a crescendo by June 1869 when it was reported in the press that in the previous year Rossa's hands had been manacled behind his back for 35 days, and that he had been forced to lap up his food like a dog.3 The parliamentary commission appointed to investigate the treatment of the prisoners heard from two prison chaplains, Fathers John O'Leary and Vincent Zanetti, that the prison regimen was such that it was at times difficult for the prisoners to fulfil their religious obligations.4 The commission also concluded that Rossa had been manacled for 34 days with his hands behind his back 'except at meal times when the hand cuffs were placed in front' and at night when they were removed altogether. The commissioners were reluctant to believe that the prisoners were ever seriously punished or ill-treated, though they did recommend the establishment of a special unit in some prison for the 'treatment of political offenders'. In a minority judgement Dr Robert 120 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Lyons observed that there was a 19-hour delay before Rossa was handcuffed, following an attack on T.F. Powell, the Governor of Chatham prison: 'If, Lyons wrote, 'handcuffs are a means of "restraint" and not of punishment, I fail to recognise the propriety of their use after such an interval, unless called for by a renewed act of violence, which has not been established in this case.'5 In a series of brilliantly organized meetings throughout the autumn of 1869, more than a million people6 demonstrated the captivating power of the simple self-conscious appeal to nationalist sentiment, focused on the supposed sufferings of fellow Irishmen at the hands of the English prison authorities. The amnesty agitations were without doubt the largest political mobilization of mass popular opinion in Ireland since the 1840s. Meetings were also held in England. The most successful of these was the London gathering of 20 September 1869. The participants, according to one nationalist source, were brought together by instincts of humanity and by a desire to efface from the escutcheon of England the foul blot which the prolonged punishment of the political prisoners has added to its already well filled blackness.7 From the very start of the movement, the police and the Irish government were aware that the organization was not the political innocent that it purported to be. Intelligence from Dublin and Liverpool8 furnished the executive with proof that many of the promoters of amnesty were 'not sincere in their professions of loyalty', but rather committed Fenians who saw the amnesty movement as a means of liberating from prison some of their best operatives, whom they were anxious to have again in positions of leadership in the IRB.9 Ryan, in his dispatch of 18 August, also reported that a recent Fenian executive meeting in Cork had turned down the idea of reorganizing the 'shooting circle' on the ground that outrages would have a disastrous effect on the amnesty movement. That Isaac Butt did not know of the Fenian component of the movement is too extraordinary a notion to contemplate. The relationship between Butt and the Fenians was, however, a marriage of convenience. The Fenians made use of Butt as the acceptable face of constitutionalism in the effort to have their men freed and Butt, for his part, exploited the organizational ability of those such as Nolan for his own political purposes, as became clear when the amnesty agitation gave way to the Home Rule movement. The government was also aware how important amnesty was to Fenianism in scoring 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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what were clearly considerable propaganda victories, and associating the Fenian agenda, however tangentially, with wider circles of influence which in the normal course of events would be horrified by any connection with the organization. As Superintendent Daniel Ryan wrote to the Commissioner of Police in September 1869, the IRB saw the amnesty meetings as great Fenian triumphs 'because they have brought members of parliament, clergymen and even peers on a common platform with the most ardent Fenians'.10 In resisting the pressure for amnesty, Lord Spencer, the Lord Lieutenant, was convinced that the whole troublesome business was such that he could not see 'how government can yield to the petitions, both looking at the state of the country, the tone held at these meetings and the manner in which the amnesty is demanded'.11 Cardinal Cullen was also concerned by what he saw as the Fenian-inspired amnesty agitation which was 'likely to do great mischief and to prevent all useful legislation'. Cullen's position was both complicated and compromised by the fact that several members of the hierarchy had permitted church-door collections for released Fenian prisoners.12 Bishop Butler of Limerick had, in particular, been outwitted in this respect by the Fenians in his diocese and was made to look like a fellow-traveller, much to Cullen's annoyance.13 Cullen, in fact, unlike other members of the hierarchy, was never persuaded to sign petitions for the release of the prisoners, since he believed, as he told Manning, 'the prisoners once let out would show themselves unworthy of the mercy obtained'.14 Other clergy shared Cullen's reserve. Canon McDonnell of Listowel tried to prevent the amnesty meeting in his parish set for Sunday 7 November, and was roundly condemned for his pains.15 Lord Clarendon held Cullen's opinion on the undesirability of releasing the prisoners, and asserted that they would be quite unrepentant, since the Fenians were 'utterly without religion or morality & ... w[oul]d no more scruple in cutting the Holy Father's throat than they w[oul]d the L[or]d L[ieutentan]t's if they got the chance or it suited their purposes'.16 In his opinion releases would gain little popularity for the government in Ireland and would give the impression that the government's policy was dictated by pressure from Fenian supporters. Lord O'Hagan also believed that premature releases had the effect of 'making men hold cheap the crime of treason, and grow fearless of its penal consequences'.17 Even by the beginning of 1870 the Fenians still saw themselves as a revolutionary threat to the stability of Irish society. The outbreak of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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the Franco-Prussian war not only witnessed a spontaneous outpouring of support from the Irish people in favour of the French, but also raised the hopes of James Stephens that England might go to war with France. In the circumstances he hoped to obtain such aid from France 'as would enable us to act to some purpose under our own flag at home\ Forever the impulsive romantic, Stephens hoped to 'die for the people - to die for them in any way - is my duty, as it would be my pride, when the people need or demand my death'.18 But England did not enter the war and Stephens was not called upon to die as he hoped. Fenian activity continued to occupy much police attention in both Britain and Ireland. Despite the need for restraint, given the amnesty issue, there were assassinations of police informers in Dublin and Cork, and a spectacular raid on a Dublin gun-shop.19 Furthermore, the importation of guns to Ireland for Fenian purposes continued to cause great anxiety to the government in both Dublin and London. The Fenian Supreme Council issued a declaration in January which, while recognizing the difficulties the organization was labouring under, was remarkably upbeat, and in a surprising twist strongly recommended that 'persistent efforts should be made to obtain control of all local bodies such as corporations, town commissions etc. as a means of increasing the power and influence of the I[rish] Republic]'. The security situation had so considerably deteriorated that ironically the government was forced to pursue a twin-track policy of further concessions and coercion. Although the Land Bill had in fact been part of Gladstone's grand design of ruling Ireland in Irish interests, there is no doubt that he hoped that it would also help to wean the country from Fenian proclivities. Dufferin, for one, thought that such a strategy was miscalculated. The Tablet quoted Dufferin's speech of four years earlier to the effect that 'to expect a Tenant's compensation bill to quell Fenianism would be as reasonable as to try to stifle a conflagration on the first floor by stuffing a blanket down the kitchen chimney'.20 For his part, Gladstone wrote to Cullen in March that a determined group was operating in Ireland to prevent the resolution of the country's problems by peaceful means. The changes that were being demanded to the Land Bill by this coterie and their supporters were, in the Prime Minister's opinion, not designed to forward the demands of justice but to provoke war between the British and Irish people.21 The Irish bishops, though welcoming the land proposals, nevertheless, like so many others in Ireland, believed that they did not go far 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




enough. Using Archbishop Manning as an intermediaiy, they recommended a number of changes, which although Gladstone rejected them, were fully incorporated into the Land Act of 1881.22 The problem with the 1870 Land Act, as Barbara Solow has pointed out, was that while Gladstone had mastered the vast complexity of the question of Irish land holdings, he simply could not translate the various elements into coherent reforms. The policies of 1870 simply produced confusion, and were largely irrelevant to the actual social and economic circumstances of Ireland at that time.23 Though paving the way for the 1881 Land Act, the 1870 measure cannot be described as especially successful. As W.E. Vaughan has observed, in the light of the new legislation, 'things went on much as they had done before 1870, which suggests that the land act was ineffective or that it was not needed'.24 The other prong of Gladstone's approach that year was no more satisfactory. Some at least of the proposals incorporated into the Coercion Act of 1870 were urged on Gladstone by the Irish bishops. Cullen in particular complained about newspapers which 'preach up treason and sedition from one end of the year to the other'.25 Furthermore, the bishops saw the two issues as inextricably linked. Through Odo Russell they conveyed to Clarendon and Gladstone: '1. That fixity of tenure would be the strongest blow Parliament could strike at Fenianism. 2. That the suppression of the seditious press.. .which poisons the mind of the people [is] absolutely necessary to the pacification of the country. The suppression of the Irish People sometime since was a most excellent measure they say.'26 The perception that such newspapers as The Flag of Ireland and The Irishman systematically sought to undermine the Church caused Cullen's Vicar General, Edward McCabe, to urge on the cardinal the need for more public denunciations of such organs. While he welcomed the press provision in the act, Cullen speculated that the effect of the measures would be to 'prevent the publication of treason, [while] allowing the attacks on religion to go on'.27 For Cullen, the revolutionaries sought the destruction of both state and church, and he questioned the commitment of the British state in Ireland to uphold Catholicism in the face of Fenian antagonism. Not all Catholic opinion shared Cullen's view of the matter. The Tablet, on 26 March, pointed out that the seditious writing the government hoped to counter 'was produced simply because it found a ready market among the discontented', and that no one expected agrarian crime to diminish because of the restriction on the freedom 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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of the press. Some of the most excoriating protest, however, came from the Protestant and Tory press in Ireland. The Irish Times declared that 'for fear the voice of complaint should be heard in Europe, our sanctimonious step-mother is about to gag the press'. It also took the opportunity to launch a bitter attack on the history of 'English policy in Ireland' which it described as a story of a long and almost unbroken succession of massacres, violations of solemn treaties... a Machiavellian sowing of dissensions between different sections of the population, the organized corruption of our public and professional life... and a cruel neglect, sometimes ill disguised joy at the terrible famines which swept our 'surplus' population from the land.28 Even the ultra-conservative Evening Mail was moved to comment that 'no more rigorous restriction upon liberty ever was devised, in the most despotic country'. The measures that Gladstone enacted to deal with the Irish situation in 1870 hardly redounded to the credit of his government, nor did they contribute much to the pacification of the country. In some respects the country became both more violent and discontented, and as a result the Liberals were forced to suspend Habeas corpus yet again, in 1871.29 Fenianism remained the greatest single security issue facing the government, and it was complicated by the growing tendency, in some rural areas, for Fenianism to coalesce with Ribbonism. On the other hand, the government took comfort from the fact that on occasion there were violent confrontations between the Fenians and the Ribbonmen.30 Evidence for the hostility between the two groups is provided by Fr Robert Haly, a Jesuit who conducted a mission in Killeavy parish, near Newry, in 1870. He records in his 'mission notes' that The parish is and has been for a long time a hotbed of Fenians and Ribbonmen, antagonistic bodies and perpetually at variance one with the other: The Ribbonmen are a desperate set. They attack the Fenians and all who do not belong to themselves.... The P[arish] P[riest] had been labouring to reclaim them but all to no purpose. His admonitions and exhortations were answered by obstinacy and met by insult.31 There was obviously confusion in the minds of some of the Fenians about their role and purpose. Haly records that he asked one Fenian what was the nature of the oath the took, and he replied 'Be ready at




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any moment to fight for my country and drive the English out'. Another answered 'To be loyal to the Queen'.

The covert cooperation between church and state over the breach of civil liberties had a much more public corollary earlier in the year, when the Vatican issued its condemnation of Fenianism by name. The condemnation came at a rather difficult point in church-state relations in Ireland, since throughout 1869 the London government was again undergoing one of its episodic obsessions with the abuse of clerical power in the country. Clarendon even complained that Cullen's general attitude to the authorities was 'as stupid as it is malignant and ungrateful'. Russell relayed Clarendon's observations to the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli, and by February Clarendon could write that a great change had come over Cullen in his relations with the administration.32 By April Clarendon once more whined that though the government was bringing about a 'revolution' in the administration of Irish affairs, the priests were deliberately obstructing peaceful government by encouraging tenants to refuse to pay rent. Tf any insinuation from Rome c[oul]d be sent to Cullen in favour of law and order & denouncing all these crimes it might do some good in Ireland and it would have a very good effect here.' Clarendon was on the whole doubtful about the extent of the Church's influence for good in Ireland.33 Clarendon's despair was reiterated in May when he told Russell that there was not the slightest sign of Vatican sway in Ireland. He claimed that the priests had constantly educated their flocks in disloyalty to England and were now powerless, and unwilling to stem the tide of lawlessness 'from fear of unpopularity'. But such was his schizophrenic attitude to the Irish clergy that within weeks he could write that of late the authority of the clergy had been 'exercised beneficially'. Such optimism did not long prevail, and by the end of the year Clarendon again returned to his attack on the priests, this time with a vengeance. He pleaded with Russell 'to consider in what way authority can be brought to bear on them as the opportunity should not be lost while the Irish bishops are in a cage together at Rome'. In the meanwhile he had written to Spencer for details of clerical misdoings, and prepared a brief on these which he sent to Rome. He 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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concluded this dispatch with the observation that the priests encouraged opposition to the government; 'they hate the traitors [i.e. the Fenians] but love treason & even this hardly applies to the lower clergy especially the curates who are at heart Fenians ie rebels, & the part they are taking on the land question makes them dangerous enemies of order'.34 Clarendon instructed Russell to contact Bishop Moriarty to ask what pressure might be brought to bear to dissuade the clergy from their traitorous ways. The Foreign Secretary saw the Bishop of Kerry as 'the only one of them on whom reliance can be placed'. None of this amounts to an application by the British government to the Vatican to have the Fenians condemned. Clarendon's, and presumably the cabinet's, main concern at this stage was to have a check put on the clergy. Perhaps reflecting Gladstone's thinking, he was similarly impatient with the fact that disestablishment had been carried at the price of the alienation of Protestant Ireland, and yet the Catholics as a result of that measure had simply become more demanding and hostile. The invocation of Moriarty was, of course, from the British perspective a wise choice. Without doubt the most Castle-loving of all the bishops on the Irish bench, his social conservatism was matched only by his theological liberalism. Moriarty had been especially concerned with Fenianism's destabilizing effect on both religion and society. In January 1868, he wrote to Mgr George Talbot that the majority of the Irish people, while not disposed to violence, rebellion or crime, nevertheless, 'sympathise with Fenians and extol their heroism'.35 He was also appalled, like Clarendon, at the thought that many of the younger priests were 'rebels at heart'. Having rehearsed the various enormities of the Fenian organization and its supporters, he pleaded with Talbot that 'some authoritative expression from the Holy See is required declaring the unlawfulness of all this conduct. The Pope did so in the case of Poland notwithstanding the tyranny of Russia, and here we have the freest Church in the world and some of our clergy openly advocating hatred to the ruling power.'36 Irrespective of the government's views, the Irish bishops themselves arrived in Rome in December, for the opening of the first Vatican Council, in a foul temper. Their ill humour was provoked by a letter from Fr Patrick Lavelle which appeared in the Irishman of 20 November. Cardinal Cullen had, at the end of October, issued one of his periodic broadsides against the Fenians, saying that they were excommunicated. Lavelle in his open letter to all the Irish bishops 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




disputed Cullen's interpretation and declared that the Fenians, unlike members of continental secret societies, did not fall under the ban of the Church. Here was a direct challenge to the Irish hierarchy to side either with Cullen or Lavelle on a subject of theological and political importance, at a time when Ireland was so tense that some government circles thought they might witness a repetition of the scenes of 1867. The Lavelle letter was bad enough, but worse was to come. In early December Richard O'Brien, the Dean of Limerick, addressed a memorandum to the priests of Ireland, asking them to sign a petition for the release of the Fenian prisoners. By late December some 1400 out of the 3000 priests in the country had put their names to it.37 The bishops decided to act on this matter and demanded that O'Brien's bishop, Dr George Butler, should call him to account and convey their 'disapprobation' of the Dean's proceedings, which they deemed 'an improper interference with the priests of their respective dioceses'. By January Cullen had written to George Conroy that Butler had 'communicated the intelligence to the Dean. This will keep him quiet.' Meanwhile the bishops had turned their attention to Fr Lavelle and the Fenians. On 22 December they drew up a memorial for Propaganda requesting that Lavelle be censured and the Fenians condemned. Since this document has never fully been published it is perhaps worth giving it in its entirety as it is a good indication of the dispositions of most bishops toward Lavelle and the need to curb Fenian influence: At a meeting of 20 Irish bishops held in the Irish College on Wednesday 22 Dec[ember] the following was adopted: The Bishops of Ireland here present at Rome request the Most Rev Dr Leahy of Cashel, the Right Rev Dr Moriarty, the Right Rev Dr Gillooly and the Right Rev Dr [Neal] McCabe [of Ardagh and Clonmacnois] to lay before the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda the accompanying letter of the Rev P. Lavelle parish priest of Cong in the diocese of Tuam - published by a newspaper called the Irishman, and addressed to the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland. As in this letter the Rev P. Lavelle asserts, contrary to the teaching of his Eminence Cardinal Cullen and the other Bishops of Ireland, that the members of the Fenian Society do not incur the censures attached to Secret Societies by the Bulls and Constitutions of the Sovereign Pontiffs, and as he endeavours to sustain his opinion by certain theological arguments calculated to mislead the public, the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Prelates believe that Public Order and Ecclesiastical discipline in Ireland require a speedy and definitive decision - whether Fenianism as it exists in Ireland comes under the Pontifical condemnations against Secret Societies. The Prelates deputed are also requested to call the attention of the Cardinal Prefect to the conduct of the Rev P. Lavelle, who in this letter and in several other publications has impugned the teaching of the Cardinal] A[rch]b[ishho]p of Dublin and of other Bishops addressed to their flocks - and to solicit through Propaganda adequate reparation for this interference with Ecclesiastical authority, and some measure that may effectually prevent a recurrence of similar offenses.38 The document is signed by Leahy and Moriarty. It is unclear whether this was ever formally presented to the Holy See. Six days later Cullen informed Conroy that the bishops had had a long discussion about the Fenians, that MacHale had been roundly criticized, that Cullen himself was drawing up a memorial on the Fenians for the Pope, and that the bishops were compiling a document for propaganda about Lavelle's letters.39 Cullen again wrote to Conroy two days later telling him that the petition for the condemnation of the Fenians by name, and addressed to the Pope through the Holy Office, had been adopted with only MacHale and Dr John Derry of Clonfert 'non aderanf. Emmet Larkin explains this two-pronged approach by saying that the delegation appointed to see Cardinal Barnabo was advised by him, that Propaganda would have nothing further to do with matters relating to Lavelle, and that if the Irish bishops wished to have the Fenians condemned they should apply to the Holy Office for this purpose.40 Into this cauldron of ecclesiastical intrigue the British government decided to drop its own invective ingredients. It is difficult, in the light of the evidence, to credit Edward Norman's claim that the movement for the condemnation of the Fenians 'came from the British Government and not from either Cullen or the Propaganda'.41 At the same time we know that Clarendon, having consulted widely, sent a long memo to Russell on 8 January forwarding a dossier of priestly political misdoings. Although there is some evidence that the government had been monitoring the speeches of priests since late November to determine if they had 'uttered language either in support of Fenians or in favour of landlord violence', it was not until late December that Clarendon wrote to Spencer 'pressing for papers about the R.C. clergy'.





Spencer took the view that, since the Liberals had come to power, many of the priests had actually given their support to the government 'against Fenianism & agrarian outrage. Foremost among these have been Cardinal Cullen and Archb[ishop] Leahy of Cashel.'42 Clarendon thought this was giving those bishops 'more credit than they deserve'. By contrast, the Foreign Secretary charged that it was for the release of the Fenians and 'the resumption of their nefarious practices that large numbers of the R.C. clergy, some secretly others openly, are now agitating...Rome ought to interfere & prevent the R.C. clergy from running political riot....' This, then, was Russell's brief: to seek for some general instruction from Rome which would prevent the clergy from active participation in the Fenian amnesty movement, and to keep them out of politics. Russell had already seen Cardinal Antonelli on 1 January and asked for the suspension of Lavelle and Fr John Ryan of New Inn, Cahir, for Fenian-related activities. At that meeting he told Antonelli that the Pope was neglecting the interests of Ireland in not condemning the Fenians by name. The Secretary of State assured Russell that he would draw the Pope's attention to the need for immediate action on the question.43 Russell's determination to pursue the Fenian issue, as opposed to that of clerical involvement in politics, may in part have been simply his own initiative, since he wrote to Clarendon that he hoped he had not exceeded his instructions in his conduct of affairs at Rome.44 It is impossible to know if Antonelli was true to his word. What we do know is that Russell, at his own request, had an interview with the Pope on 13 January, at which the envoy appealed 'for some practical measures to strengthen the authority of the bishops who had admitted to me that they no longer had the power to do good where Fenianism prevailed in Ireland'. After a long discussion, Pius IX told Russell that he would refer the matter to the Irish bishops whom he expected to see that evening and that 'I might consider his renewed condemnation of Fenianism as an accomplished fact.'45 The problem in all this is why the Pope did not tell Russell that the decree for the condemnation of the Fenians had already been decided upon the previous day by the Roman Inquisition. Larkin is of the opinion that the Pope, as technically head of the Holy Office, had presided at the meeting of the cardinals at which the decision had been made, but wanted to give Russell the impression that he was doing the British government a favour by responding to British representations, in the hopes of some future diplomatic advantage with 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Britain.46 Russell certainly thought that his influence was paramount, as is clear from a report of his meetings with Manning and Moriarty on 23 January. They both informed him that Cullen had persuaded the Holy See to act in the matter of the Fenians. Russell considered it more politic not to mention his own role in the business. The obvious reason Pius did not tell Russell about the decree of 12 January was that he did not know of its existence. Under Roman curial procedures, Wednesday 12 January was a normal business day, known as a dies quarta, and the Pope would never preside at such routine meetings. It is highly unlikely that he would have known of the deliberations of the Holy Office until Friday the 14th at the earliest.47 Another difficulty is posed by the chronology of the Irish bishop's request for the Fenian condemnation. The Annuario Pontificio for 1869 indicates that the Roman Curia would be on holiday from 24 December 1869 until 7 January 1870. Cullen's document was drawn up on 30 December but clearly could not have been submitted until a week later, which means that there would have been at most four working days for the consultors of the Holy Office to deliberate on the matter before the crucial meeting of 12 January. It could well be that Cullen presented his document in person on 12 January, and that the Fathers of the Inquisition decided on the condemnation there and then. Russell received a copy of the text of the condemnation on 26 January. On that day Manning wrote to him, 'I send you a copy of the decree on the Fenians, but I would ask that it be not published. When the Bishops of Ireland have published it, then any use may be made of it.'48 Five days later, however, Spencer was able to relate that the fact of the decree had been publicly talked about in Dublin society, 'for some time past', and that the government would not be blamed for this lapse of protocol. The Tablet published the decree on 5 February and rejoiced that it was 'another illustration of the truth that in all ages the Church has been the friend of order and the supporter of legitimate authority'. Government reaction was equally welcoming. There is, though, a curiosity in Gladstone's diary on the matter. The issue was discussed in cabinet on 28 January; Russell's dispatches were read and his opinion recorded that the decree 'will be favourable on the whole to the good of mankind. Spoke in the same sense: ClarendonBright-Argyll-Lowe. Contra WEG.'49 As might be expected, the Fenians, except for the most religiously inclined, looked upon the decree 'as so much waste paper'. At a meeting of 'leading Fenians' in





Dublin in late January it was resolved that 'with regard to the censures of the Catholic Church... the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood was not included' since it was only the police and the newspapers 'who miscalled them by the name Fenians'.50 One of Cullen's secretaries, George Conroy, predicted that this would exactly be the Fenian response, and suggested rather than a condemnation nominatum it would be better to have the censure fall directe on their organization, and in obliquo on their name.51 Conroy followed this up several weeks later by telling Cullen that since only American and Irish Fenianism were mentioned by name, the Fenians were claiming that the organization in Australia, Africa and India was exempt from the papal strictures. The Times took much the same attitude but complained that there was no mention of Fenianism in Britain in the Bull despite the fact that it was well known that 'every Irishman in London, particularly in Westminster, [this as a swipe at Manning] is a Fenian ' It also recorded the opinion of several clergy that Manning and Cullen had conspired on the Bull 'as a piece of toadyism to the British government'.52 Cullen admitted that the American bishops were displeased with the actions of the Irish bishops. 'Dr Spalding says we have done great mischief. I told him the story of the frogs and the boys and that what was sport in America was death to us and religion in Ireland. He admits that the Fenians even in America are very bad, but he thinks the condemnation will make them worse.'53 The Americans believed that the decree would cause an open feud between the Fenians and the priests which it would have been best to avoid. Indeed there was some suggestion that the American bishops tried to have the decree cancelled, but Antonelli had assured Russell when this was first mooted that he would not allow such a contingency to arise.54 As was so often the case, Cullen would see a direct link between political and theological issues. The refusal of many North American bishops to vote in favour of Papal Infallibility coupled with their softness on the Fenian issue was, he believed, a result of 'the old teaching of Maynooth'. When in August 1870 MacHale visited Dublin he was given a rapturous reception, which Cullen claimed had been staged by the Fenians to pretend that 'the people of Dublin had declared against the infallibility [of the pope]'.55 He found the theological alliance between MacHale and Moriarty over the infallibility question well-nigh incomprehensible, and wished that 'the Fenians could be made to understand that Dr Moriarty is the only colleague of the great lion among the Irish bishops'. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Meanwhile, Cullen was among those Irish bishops who took the opportunity in their Lenten pastoral letters to underline the Fenian condemnation. This did not go down well in several Dublin churches, but Cullen was convinced that the demonstrations in Whitefriar Street and Malborough Street churches were the work of students from Trinity College.56 He also took comfort from the fact that churches in Dublin were crowded for the Easter services that year and, therefore, despite everything, 'Fenianism is not able to root out the faith'. The bishops also hoped to link the papal decree with an amnesty for the remaining Fenian prisoners, taking the view that, since the Pope had spoken, Fenianism was at an end, and the government could therefore afford to be magnanimous.57 Cullen believed that clemency would have a calming effect on the country, but the government was not inclined to agree with such an analysis. These tensions over policy between church and state caused Aubrey de Vere to observe that in Ireland, the Catholic Church is the only power capable of resisting revolutionary ideas: yet hostility to the cause of the Catholic religion on the part of the Government would eventually render it impossible for the Catholic party to aid, as they would wish to aid, the party of order.58 As was perhaps to be expected, Fr Lavelle continued to cause problems for the bishops, and took the opportunity of their absence in Rome to pay a visit at the end of February to St Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he seems to have been shown a certain degree of courtesy by at least some of the students and staff. Cullen was irate but by now powerless to do anything about it. It may well be that Lavelle's visit to the college on this occasion had no more subversive import than to visit old friends. Nonetheless, his presence at Maynooth at this critical time was a source of annoyance and embarrassment. The reception accorded him was, however, much less enthusiastic than that given to John Mitchel at the Irish College in Paris in 1866, and from which Mitchel concluded that with such clergy the spirit of nationality in Ireland would never die.59 THE ROAD TO POLITICS Lingering hostility among Anglicans in Ireland over the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, gave rise, temporarily, to a 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




realignment of the political spectrum. By June 1870 it was gleefully reported in some English newspapers that a new species of political animal had appeared on the scene, the 'Irish Protestant nationalists'. At the same time the Pall Mall Gazette warned that the new movement faced two great difficulties 'which may injure their course, they are by secret opposition, the other by open alliance - we mean ultramontanism and Fenianism'. The Tablet, on 11 December, had drawn attention to the fact that Orangemen had openly paraded their hopes of continuing conflict between the Fenians and the government, and commented that the ultra-Protestants preferred the Fenians to good Catholics. The foundation of the Home Government Association in April 1870, bringing together as it did Protestant Conservatives and Liberals, and Catholic constitutionalists and Fenians, could not fail to arouse the suspicion and hostility of the Catholic hierarchy. The participation in the movement of such well-known clerics as Dean O'Brien, Patrick Lavelle and Fr P. Quaid did nothing to reassure those such as Cullen and Moran who saw the whole enterprise as nothing but an Orange conspiracy to deprive Catholic Ireland of its rights, especially in the field of secondary and university education. Butt's instinctive Toryism, and the fact that he was a Protestant, did nothing to endear him to Cullen. The attempt to draw as big a cross-section as possible of Irish political opinion into the Home Rule movement did not make for an especially coherent political platform. The initial distrust of the bishops soon gave way to approval by some, which in turn alienated the Protestant and Orange elements in the organization. It also very quickly became clear that Protestants and Catholics wanted different political objectives from Irish nationalism. Although the Orange Dublin Daily Mail called for a 'united national party', the Irishman pointed out that the Mail did not want any agitation for the release of political prisoners or land reform. Only under such artificial conditions, the Irishman sarcastically noted, would Protestants be 'ready to unite with their Roman Catholic countrymen'.60 There was also some initial confusion over how the movement would actually set about its programme. This was highlighted in a series of by-elections in 1871 and 1872 in which candidates advocating Home Rule received varying degrees of support from the Home Rule headquarters in Dublin. The Monaghan by-election in July 1871 became a prototype for political contests in the country over the next four years. The 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Home Rule candidate, John Madden, a local Orangeman, sought the support of the Catholic bishop, James Donnelly,61 who had been pressed by Cullen to champion the Liberal, Owen Lewis, a Catholic convert.62 Both Lewis, whose chances Donnelly thought were slim, and Madden were forced to withdraw, and Isaac Butt stood at the last minute only to go down to defeat at the hands of the Tory, John Leslie. Although the Liberals took some satisfaction in the defeat of a Home Rule candidate, this was but a short-lived gratification, as Butt was returned unopposed at Limerick the following September. Even Donnelly was prepared to concede that Home Rule seemed to be Very near the hearts of the people' and warned that if it was taken up by 'reputable people' it would 'secure an impetus which will soon be felt, and will be felt with a vengeance at the next general election'. These sentiments proved to be prophetic. What began to emerge from this point on were very deep divisions between bishops and priests, and even among the bishops themselves, over the radicalization of Irish politics. In Kerry, Westmeath and Derry, Home Rule candidates caused serious fissures to appear that threatened to sunder the Catholic-Liberal alliance, an alliance which had been nurtured by the hierarchy since the return of Gladstone in 1868. Moriarty in Kerry had aroused such opposition by his espousal of the Liberal James Dease, in preference to the Liberal and Home Ruler Rowland Blennerhassett, in January 1872, that he had to forbid his clergy from taking any active part in the contest. Blennerhasset's election to the seat represented a blow to episcopal prestige and power. The contest in Westmeath six months earlier had more serious repercussions. On that occasion, Dease faced P.J. Smyth, a '48' man who made the transition to Fenianism without much difficulty. Dease withdrew from the contest, and his Liberal colleague George Plunkett was roundly beaten. Smyth's victory gave comfort to the county in the face of the Westmeath Coercion Act, but Cullen was appalled with what he took to be clerical support for such a revolutionist.63 Nulty was filled with indignation by the fact that Cullen and Bishop Conroy of Ardagh had denounced him and his clergy to the Holy See as Fenian supporters. Nulty countered that they 'absolutely hate Fenianism' and were 'utterly indifferent to Home Rule'.64 He did stress, however, that Home Rule was a purely political movement and differed 'toto celo" from Fenianism. In a subsequent communication he made the surprising admission that 'Cardinal Cullen or any other bishop in Ireland have not influence enough to return a single 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




member to Parliament': a recognition that political realities were overtaking ecclesiastical control. The tension between bishops was to manifest itself yet again in the Derry contest of November 1872. In this instance Joseph Biggar, president of the Belfast Home Rule association, secured only 89 votes, and the Tory C.E. Lewis won with a majority of 174 over the recently appointed Attorney General Christopher Palles. The Home Rulers were blamed for this disaster for the Liberals. John Ferguson, the Glasgow publisher with strong links to the Fenians, who was in Derry for the contest, pleaded with Butt to make an appearance to rally Home Rule fortunes.65 Butt's failure to rise to the challenge may not have materially affected the outcome, since as Ferguson admitted, 'the priests went from house to house and our very leaders had to give up Biggar and vote for "a good Catholic'". He still maintained, in the face of the defeat, that the people were with Home Rule. Cullen had been stung into action by an article in the Belfast Examiner, a nominally Catholic paper, which observed that 'If there were no other circumstances at all to tell against Mr. Palles the fact of the Belfast "Liberal" Association being in his favour should be sufficient to secure his rejection.' The cardinal wrote to the Bishop of Down and Connor, Patrick Dorrian, demanding that Dorrian repudiate the sentiments of the newspaper. This he refused to do and, in turn, questioned the propriety of Palles' candidature after Biggar had been promised 500 votes. Although, as he confessed, he was no great fan of Biggar, it was, in his view, a matter for the electorate to decide. Any attempt at interference on his part, other than to express his opinion, would, he was sure, be viewed as 'tyranny'.66 Of course Cullen could also, at times, be sceptical of clerical interference in elections. While he was pleased that the trials of Bishop Patrick Duggan of Clonfert and 23 other priests for undue influence in the Galway election of 1872 collapsed, he believed that the priests behaved badly and had 'profaned the altars by their violent personal denunciations'. Bishop McEvilly, by contrast, thought that the priests by their political directives were saving 'our impulsive warm hearted people' from 'Fenianism, Carbonarism, Communism & every wicked ism\ For them to have acted otherwise in the Galway contest would have been to relegate themselves 'to their sacristies as nobodies in Society. A greater evil could not befal[l] religion and society in Ireland....'67 Cullen's views on Home Rule were supported by powerful lay Catholics. The Earl of Granard was concerned as early as March 1872 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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that if the influence of the Home Rule association was not resisted, then 'some of our best men might be unseated at a general election & replaced by adventurers'. Others took a different line. O'Neill Daunt tried to persuade Archbishop Leahy that Catholic Ireland could obtain all it ever desired by way of denominational education only from a Home Rule parliament.68 This, after all, was the one outstanding issue for the bishops, as indeed it was for Gladstone. For the present, however, the Liberals continued to rule Ireland, and so long as Cullen was convinced that Home Rule was dominated by men inimical to Catholicism he was determined to support the one and resist the other. He feared that a Dublin parliament would be more than half Protestant, and that it would begin to 'make laws for priests & bishops and to fetter the action of the Church'. In order to succeed, however, ecclesiastical resistance to Home Rule would have necessitated a more pervasive homogeneity among clerics than was then possible in Ireland. MacHale had declared that Bishop Kelly of Derry had disgraced himself by his patronage of Palles, and he followed this up the next year by declaring in favour of the movement. Dr Conroy could at least console himself with the thought that MacHale's star was in the descent in the West. Still, MacHale's support for Home Rule was a menacing threat for both church and state. The Foreign Office had begun to raise with the Holy See the question of MacHale's interference in elections in favour of the Home Rule programme.69 By 1873 the British representative at Rome had formally complained of MacHale's conduct and was even suggesting that he and his episcopal supporters were being encouraged in their Home Rule activities by Propaganda. Pius IX told Dr Conroy that while the government complained about several bishops in this regard, it had exempted Cullen from all blame.70 The Fenians meanwhile had adopted a new constitution which committed them to work with other groups interested in separation. This paved the way for their participation in the Dublin conference at the Rotunda in November 1873, which led to the foundation of the Home Rule League. The support for Butt within the IRB was never unanimous. Much controversy surrounds the assertion by John Daly, a prominent Fenian activist, that before the Rotunda meeting Butt pledged, in exchange for Fenian support, that if Home Rule was not granted within three years, he would withdraw from parliament and submit himself to the Fenians. William O'Brien, in his unpublished reminiscences of Butt, also alludes to a 'condition' which Butt agreed to in exchange for the 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




support of 'the extreme left'.71 Frustratingly, he does not say what this was, but Thornley was convinced that there are too many references to a three-year condition to think that it is simply a fabrication.72 If, as part of this compact, the Fenians were to refrain from covert activity, they did not keep to their side of the bargain. Throughout 1874 they continued to import arms into Ireland, although admittedly on a fairly small scale. Even those Fenians who had entered parliament were still capable of making threatening noises. John O'Connor Power, MP, told an audience in Liverpool in August that if the constitutional accommodation with England failed to achieve its purpose, then 'you and I might be called upon to show the faith that is in us'.73 O'Connor Power was an intriguing character. He was elected to parliament as member for Mayo at a by-election in 1874, despite the opposition of the clergy (even Patrick Lavelle did not trust him), but with considerable Fenian support from both Ireland and England.74 That the Fenians were able to resist the will of the clergy on the backs of the Home Rule movement was a momentous achievement, and is a further indication that the bishops could not hope to dominate radical political opinion in the way that they were able to intimidate Irish Liberal circles. Partly in recognition of this fact, and as a means of further strengthening the Church's position in Irish politics, Cullen set up the Catholic Union in November 1872.75 The Union drew support from both Liberals and Home Rulers, and was intended as a non-political organization, concerning itself with specifically Catholic issues. Despite some attempts to flex its muscles over the education question,76 it never had any major impact on social or political matters and was largely defunct even before the fall of Gladstone's government in 1874. It was quite incapable of exerting any leverage on Disraeli's administration. Of a more serious nature, on the opposite side of the political arena, was the foundation in 1874 of the '82 Club', under the direction of P.J. Smyth, MP for Westmeath. The club was a Fenian cabal which sought to keep the revolutionary aspect of the IRB alive notwithstanding the alliance with Butt. The authorities had by now determined that the Fenians had failed in their designs to use the Home Rule movement as a cloak for their real purposes, and that the '82 Club' was a rallying-point within the movement for the extremists, which they feared 'might become formidable and mischievous'.77 The police were also aware that the structure of the club was analogous to the organization of Fenian circles, and that it conducted its



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business in the columns of the Irishman, then edited by Richard Pigott. This expedient was unfortunate not just because everyone knew of the intentions of the club, but also because Pigott had, since September 1872, been systematically betraying the Fenians to the police.78 If the Church could not exert a controlling hand over Fenianism, its power to wield authority over Irish political realities was also severely curtailed by the downfall of Gladstone's government. Here again the Church frustrated its own ambitions by its attempts to insist, with Gladstone, that only the Church's view on university education should obtain in a largely Catholic country. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AND THE SYNOD OF MAYNOOTH The failure of Gladstone's government to implement the recommendations of the Powis commission, which reported in 1870, with regard to national education should have acted as a warning to the Catholic bishops that the government was unlikely to share their views on the issue of university education. Despite this, Cullen wrote in didactic terms to Gladstone, demanding Catholic education at every level so that Irish Catholics might be 'fully instructed in the doctrines and practices of their religion, and at the same time trained to be good and faithful subjects of the state, and to hate those revolutionary principles now so prevalent, which are strongly condemned by the Catholic Church'.79 The cabinet addressed itself to the university question in November 1872, and Hartington, the Irish Secretary, was so disgruntled with Gladstone's proposals that he offered his resignation, which the Prime Minister declined to accept. The Bill, when it finally emerged, proposed the amalgamation of Trinity College Dublin, Maynooth and the Queen's Colleges of Belfast and Cork. Theology, moral philosophy and history were to be dropped from the syllabus of the new university.80 Cullen wisely observed that the proposals were calculated to disappoint everyone, and although Archbishop Manning thought they ought to be accepted as better than nothing, the Irish bishops set their faces resolutely against the measure. Once the opposition of the bishops became clear, the cabinet pleaded with O'Hagan to use his influence with Cullen in order to ensure the passage of the Bill. Gladstone, perhaps naively, thought 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty



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the Lord Chancellor [O'Hagan] loses his place and £4000 per a[nnu]m, Mr Monsell loses his and £2000 per a[nnu]m, the Attorney Gen[eral] loses his place and the chance of being a judge. These three are the only Catholics who lose anything. They are good men and we shall feel their loss.82 Still, O'Hagan went to Dublin and asked Cullen to persuade the Irish Liberal MPs to vote for the Bill. The cardinal refused 'to get Mr Gladstone out of the mess into which he has wilfully thrown himself. The Bill was defeated by 287 votes to 284 at 2 a.m. on 12 March, with 43 Liberals voting against, 35 of them Irish, of whom 25 were Catholics.83 Cullen had exerted considerable pressure on the Irish Liberals to vote against the government and Sir John Gray, although not a Catholic, led the way in conforming to Cullen's wishes. As Conroy told Cullen, to have raised Catholic education to a great imperial question was in itself a tremendous victory for the Irish Catholic Church. Meanwhile, the government duly submitted its resignation to the Queen, but Disraeli, refusing to be wrong-footed by Gladstone, would not form yet another minority Tory administration, and forced Gladstone to take up office again at the head of a weakened, and to some extent discredited, government and party. If by this act the Irish bishops could console themselves with the thought that they could still influence events in Ireland to the extent of bringing down a government, they had by the time of the election in January 1874 changed their tune. Bishop Gillooly feared that the elections would show that 'the clergy have lost their influence over the electors and have been supplanted either by the landlords or the mob....'84 Neither McGettigan of Armagh nor McEvilly of Galway were any more sanguine, but Archbishop Leahy of Cashel thought that the election had gone well and the result was all that bishops and priests wanted. Was this simply disingenuous? The bishops could not expect to receive from a Disraeli government that which they had failed to obtain from Gladstone.85 On the other hand, those such as Bishop Patrick Moran could rejoice in the fact that there were now ten more Catholics in the House of Commons. However, he gave Kirby such a completely distorted view of the balance of the Commons, in which Disraeli had an overall majority of 48 seats that, whatever his abilities as a bishop, his gifts for political analysis must 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


that Cullen would not 'desire that the Bill should be rejected along with the Government'.81 But in fact Cullen took a completely cavalier attitude to such a prospect. 'If Gladstone be put out', he told Kirby,

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be regarded as bordering on the imbecilic.86 Furthermore, the beginnings of the devastation of Irish Liberalism in this election meant the end of the great Catholic-Liberal rapprochement, and witnessed that ascent of the Home Rule party which was to dominate the political scene for the next forty years. Its ascendency forced the Church to assume a much more politically nationalist platform than it would otherwise have wished. The year 1874, therefore, witnesses something of a Waterloo for the Church in its political ambitions in nonpartitioned Ireland. The Church's failure to control the political process in the aftermath of Gladstone's defeat over university education proved that triumph to be something of a Pyrrhic victory. At the same time, it is true that many of the Home Rule candidates in 1874 were forced to advocate both tenant right and denominational education in order to ensure election, thus attesting to some residual influence for the Church in the political sphere. The Church was determined not to concede any quarter to Fenianism. At the Synod of Maynooth, which opened on 31 August the following year, the bishops reiterated the papal condemnation of 1870. There was some measure of disagreement among their lordships since Dr Nulty of Meath proposed that the censures against the Fenians should not be published. Two others supported his view but 24, including MacHale, voted against him.87 The Synod also took the opportunity of rebuking Gladstone by comparing 'the "revolutionary element" of former days in its hostility to the Church ...' with, 'authors... of the present day who denounce her on the ground that due civil allegiance melts before her teaching'.88 Another attack on the Fenian and Home Rule political outlook came from an unexpected source. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Peter Paul MacSwiney, capitalizing on the centenary of O'Connell's birth, proposed a permanent O'Connell committee under the motto 'Faith and Fatherland'. The primary object of such a committee was to advance a specifically Catholic-nationalist agenda in Ireland. The proposal was denounced by the Freeman's Journal in September as an attempt 'to degrade the centenary to sectarian ends'. The Daily Express also commented that the idea was being seized upon by priests in order to give prominence to the Catholic aspect of O'Connell's life and to force everything 'purely national' to fall into the background. The Belfast Morning News observed that MacSwiney's purpose was to weaken the Home Rule association and ultimately to supplant it, an appraisal which was undoubtedly true. When it was suggested that the Lord Mayor's memorial, in which he 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty




had outlined his proposal, was a fake, he sent a telegram to The Express saying that the memorial was genuine and that he stood by everything he had written. So far as McSwiney was concerned, O'Connell, 'like all the Irish, were Catholic (sic) first and repealers afterwards. They are no more Federalists than they are Protestants. It is a delusion, a mockery and a snare to say the contrary.'89 The clergy, of course, entirely approved of such sentiments. Tobias Kirby gave MacSwiney's project his 'fullest concurrence', and emphasized the importance of the 'Faith and Fatherland' motto 'subordinating, as it does, our temporal to our spiritual interests'.90 This last-ditch attempt to reassert explicitly Catholic claims over the Irish people is perhaps some measure of the success with which Fenianism had changed the parameters of politic discourse in Ireland in the decade-and-a-half since MacManus's funeral. Despite the growing popularity of the Home Rule movement among the clergy, that organization was so constituted that it could never wholly be subservient to the interests of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Many of the most important Home Rule activists were Fenians or former Fenians, whose political tastes were such as to make them ill-disposed to dictation from the clergy. Analogously, the victory that Fenianism gained over the Liberals by forcing concessions from them in the post-1868 period was the major cause of the defeat of Liberalism in Ireland. The close of the early Fenian period marks the beginning of the end of the political dimension of ultramontanism in Ireland. Because of the resistance offered to the institutional Church by the Fenians, it would henceforth always be possible, both theoretically and practically, for radical nationalists to maintain an absolute separation of political and religious aspirations for the Irish people. To that extent Fenianism triumphed over clericalism.



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THE FENIANS AND THE CHURCH The struggle between the Church and the Fenians, as this unfolded in the 1860s and 1870s, was concerned with who would condition the form and content of Irish political life in that period. The Church, led by Cardinal Cullen, was anxious to promote Catholicism at every level of Irish society, convinced as he was of the fundamentally antiCatholic nature of the operations of the British Protestant state in Ireland.1 For their part, the Fenians rejected the Church's analysis that Ireland's ills were as the result of Protestant government. The Fenians emphasized that it was the English government of Ireland perse which lay at the root of the problems facing the country. So far as the Fenians were concerned, the Church could not dictate the terms and conditions of Irish political life. The role of priest was restricted to his sacred function, and if he chose to speak on political matters his views were to be given no more consideration than those of any other man. Although the institutional Church tended to evaluate the Irish situation from the perspective of the state, such sympathetic dispositions were complicated for leading churchmen not simply because the state was essentially Protestant, but also because of the difficulties facing the Holy See a propos of Italian nationalists, whom the British by and large supported. Thus, as Tobias Kirby wrote from Rome in 1861: Tn general it is well to remember that rebellion & its promotion is reprobated by all as usual; still whoever writes or acts against perfida alba is sure to be sympathized with by all.... The sentiments of people here have greatly changed on this point since the time of Greg[or]y XVI.'2 The Irish bishops frequently castigated the British for hypocrisy in supporting revolution in the Papal States while suppressing it in Ireland, and this gave rise to the more general question of Britain's right to rule in Ireland. Archbishop Manning of Westminster challenged Gladstone on this very point: 143 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


6 Conclusion: the Church, the State and the Endurance of Fenianism


I am also altogether unable to [see] the justice of our holding Ireland if the Pope has not a just sovereignty over Rome. My belief is that the action of Italy upon Rome is like the action of America upon Ireland.... If you wish to know the will of Ireland ask the Irish in our colonies and in the United States. You will never get it in Ireland with 30,000 English and Scotch bayonets.3 Not that the Church ever theoretically questioned the legitimacy, on political grounds, of the operations of the state in Ireland. Of course there were also ironies on the other side. While the bishops opposed the idea that the Fenians should fight to secure their vision of what Irish society should be, they were at the same time anxious that Irishmen should go to fight the Pope's battles in Italy. Indeed there is some suggestion that the Irish papal brigades were centres of radical disaffection about Irish political affairs. Bishops such as Moriarty were distressed by what they saw as a disturbing phenomenon on the part of many Catholics who had 'no patriotism except hatred for their rulers', an evil he regarded as deeper than that of rebellion.4 By contrast Cullen saw the threat from the Fenians in more overtly religious terms. As he once wrote to Manning: 'If ever an attempt is made to abridge the rights and liberties of the Catholic Church in Ireland, it will not be by the English Government, nor by a "No Popery" cry in England, but by the revolutionary and irreligious Nationalists of Ireland.'5 The aim of Fenianism, as he told Kirby, was to rob the Irish of their faith.6 Cullen's belief that secret societies were of their nature anti-religious was compounded by a deep personal antipathy to revolution following his experiences in Rome in 1830 and 1848, and those of his family in the 1798 rebellion. In so far as Cullen established the hierarchy's thinking on the matter, it is essential to see his attitude as one of strict moral and theological principle and not, as some historians have suggested, simply a product of expediency. Nor is it true that Cullen wished Ireland should be like Rome and ruled by ecclesiastics.7 Such a view is a gross caricature of Cullen's theological outlook. His theological training taught the need for obedience to both church and state, but nevertheless saw in the 'two swords theory', of the relationship between church and state, that the power of the state must be at the service of the interests of the Church. Furthermore Cullen's adulation of O'Connell hardly sits well with a view that he wanted a theocracy in Ireland.8 At most one can say that in his education policy he resisted the idea of lay control, since he regarded education as above 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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all a religious activity. He saw some role for priests in politics, but he hoped that their influence would be to restrain the more ardent and radical elements in Irish politics. This was also the view advocated by that bastion of English Catholic Tory opinion, The Tablet. In his battle with the Fenians, Cullen faced considerable opposition from within the Irish Catholic priesthood. When he visited Maynooth in September 1866, not long after having been made a cardinal, although received cordially enough, there was also 'a latent feeling in the breasts of many of the students that he was not so "patriotic as he ought to be'".9 His most redoubtable opponent in the hierarchy, John MacHale, complained that the more Cullen's authority in the country grew, the less the faithful liked him. MacHale saw Cullen's all-tooobvious establishment leanings as part of a pattern; 'Unfortunately for Ireland,' he wrote, 'Archbishops of Dublin have always favoured the British government, and put private interests before those of the Church.'10 Unlike Cullen, MacHale believed that future prosperity and peace in Ireland could be achieved only with a native legislature,11 and, although he took a more benevolent view of the Fenians than other members of the hierarchy, there is nothing to suggest that he was ever anything other than a constitutional nationalist. He furthermore maintained that Fenianism never flourished in his diocese.12 It is also a fact that the rising, when it did come in 1867, was almost entirely confined to those dioceses where the bishops had most vigorously demonstrated their opposition to the Fenian movement.13 There are perhaps certain affinities between MacHale's approach and that of the American hierarchy. While it is true that bishops such as Duggan of Chicago, Wood of Philadelphia, and McCloskey of New York were outspoken in their resistance to the Fenian infiltration of the Irish American Catholic community, on the whole the Church, given the peculiarities of its position in American society, tried to avoid a head-on confrontation with the Fenians. The most surprising aspect of this phenomenon is that the Roman authorities seemed, up to the condemnation of 1870, to be content to take their cue in the matter from the American Church. The attitudes of American churchmen did, however, vary. Bishop Bayley of Newark, who refrained from publicly denouncing the Fenians, did at one point think that they would 'have to be put down',14 unlike Spalding, who thought that left to itself Fenianism would soon die out. Cullen would never, however, allow his American episcopal colleagues to shirk their responsibilities in the matter, and 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Conclusion


was tireless in reminding them that Fenianism in Ireland could be finally stopped only when aid from America had been brought to an end.15 Equally, many North American clergy shared the conviction of Bishop Lynch of Toronto that it was not enough simply to deplore Fenianism but that attention had to be directed to 'the causes that give rise to this vast organization'. As with so many others, Lynch was also inclined to think that the Fenians had been schooled in 'revolutionary doctrine by English statesmen in their admiration of Garibaldi and in their speeches in parliament during the Italian revolution, and have been taught indirectly to despise the teachings of their priests'.16 This was a recurrent theme in the correspondence of clergymen on both sides of the Atlantic. Cullen believed that, because the British government was hostile to Catholicism, it allowed Fenianism to flourish in order that the Fenians might 'weaken and discredit' the Church.17 By emphasizing this aspect of the matter Cullen hoped that the American bishops would see Fenianism as not simply a political threat to Britain, but as an imminent danger to Catholicism. By the end of 1866 he was sure that all the Fenian hopes rested on aid from America: 'and if their associates there give up the conspiracy, we shall all be quiet in Ireland'. This, then, was the role of the American Church - to suppress the organization in the New World, as a means of undermining it in Ireland. The American bishops did not always demonstrate a ready willingness to comply with Cullen's demands. This was not because they favoured Fenianism; like Cullen they saw many of its aspects as antireligious, but their relationship with American Fenianism was complicated by the political situation in America during both the Civil War and Reconstruction. There can be no doubt that many IrishAmericans enlisted in the Union armies because they believed Britain favoured the South, and also because of the hope that, in the aftermath of the war, hostilities would break out between Great Britain and the United States.18 The Lincoln administration was quite tolerant of Fenianism and members of the army of the Potomac were given leave to attend the Chicago Fenian convention of 1863 in their uniforms.19 The banding together of the Irish in the regiments of the various armies doubtless encouraged a greater self-awareness of national aspirations and made the activities of Fenian recruiters all the easier. This was also linked with the Irish immigrant experience, in which resentment at displacement, coupled with the often bewildering circumstances in which they found themselves in Canada or the United States, confirmed a lingering hostility to Britain, since British 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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administration of Ireland was seen as the cause of their plight.20 The fact that the Irish Catholics in North America on the whole tended to be less deferential to the clergy than in Ireland, the divisions in the hierarchy over the Civil War, the complexity surrounding diplomatic relations between the United States and the United Kingdom, and the fact that the Fenians, whatever their status in Ireland, were not a secret society in America, ensured that the attitude of the Church would be much more cautious in its approach to the problem in America than in Ireland. The political and theological climate in North America made prelates less disposed to see the Fenians in quite the way that most Irish bishops regarded them. However, perhaps the most significant thing about Fenian activity in America is that ultimately the sense of nationality it engendered had a more lasting impact there than in Ireland. The attempts by the Church in Ireland to control Fenianism were clearly not met with resounding success. Its authority in political matters was never as watertight as politicians and officials thought. It is ironic, however, that cooperation between the Church and the state was not more explicit since both worked for the same end: the suppression of disorder. Strathnairn, for example, believed that for the first time in Irish history, by a combination of self-interest and moral principle, the priests were on the side of the government in dealing with a common threat.21 In Washington the British Minister, Frederick Bruce, took a similar view and thought that the time had come for the state to 'buy over the priestly influence', as a means of combating the Fenian menace in both the United Kingdom and North America.22 Any such attempt would of course have further eroded priestly political influence, which, by the time of the papal condemnation, was already at a low ebb. What concerned the Church in all this was the corrupting influence of Fenianism, which encouraged people to disregard the teaching of the clergy. Perhaps more seriously, the corroding energies of Fenianism were made manifest even within ecclesiastical organizations. As early as 1866 the Superior General of the Irish Christian Brothers was alarmed by what he took to be the growing sympathies for Fenianism in the Brothers' schools, and even in their communities.23 The situation had become so dire by 1870 that four of the Brothers were expelled from the Order, and Br J.A. Hoare asked Cullen to secure permission from the Holy See to deal with expulsions of this type at a local level rather than to have to refer such matters to Rome.



Conclusion


Fr Patrick Lavelle had set the tone for such ecclesiastical miscreants by his notorious lecture on the Catholic doctrine of right rebellion of July 1863, in the course of which he proclaimed himself to be 'a traitor' to British rule in Ireland.24 Equally, Lavelle was but one example of a certain type of highly politicized Irish priest25 who was not much amenable to ecclesiastical discipline, and whom Cullen was determined to resist with all the authority at his disposal. In dealing with the crisis of episcopal authority, which Fenianism engendered, the bishops were hampered by disagreement among themselves. Despite the fact that Cardinal Barnabo had informed Cullen that the Fenians were a condemned organization,26 some bishops expressed the opinion that neither the Fenians nor the National Brotherhood of St Patrick fell under pontifical sanction, since while they plotted against the state they did not conspire against the Church, and it was thought both conditions had to be met before an organization was considered banned.27 For his part, Cullen never wavered from the view that all secret societies, whether oath-bound or not, were condemned by the Church.28 The necessity for the papal intervention is therefore difficult to explain in terms other than that episcopal prestige was under severe strain and needed support from the highest level, in order for the bishops to gain once more the initiative from the revolutionaries. The fact that the government felt under a similar constraint demonstrates a considerable crisis of authority for both church and state at that point in Irish history.29 The Fenians not only provided a radical alternative to the existing political status quo, but threatened the Church's social agenda, which was to consolidate the economic and social gains that the Irish Catholic middle classes had been making since the 1840s.30 E.D. Steele is surely correct in drawing attention to the pattern of concessions to middle-class Catholic opinion going back to Peel's reforms in 1844.31 Moriarty had suggested that economic and social progress was not only the key to a peaceful Ireland, but also the best means of obliterating disaffection with English rule. As he told Monsell: you have the spirit of loyalty percolating downwards through the social scale according as you have raised the different classes to social & civil equality with their Protestant neighbours. The Catholic nobility, gentry, upper class professional men are all attached to the British connection.32 This also fitted in with the hierarchy's view that only Catholic 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Ireland could create and maintain the conditions for the orderly government of the country. After all, it is no coincidence that Gladstone's Irish reforms, of his first government, were precisely the programme of Cullen's National Association of 1864, which had been set up explicitly to advance the social agenda of the Church and the emergent Catholic middle classes.33 The problem with Gladstone's reforms was that the Fenians could, and did, claim that they were the cause of such initiatives,34 and there was sufficient ambiguity about Gladstone's motivation to give credence to their accusations. Equally, one must not underestimate Gladstone's commitment to reform in Ireland. As Manning had told him in 1867: 'fill Irishmen with the hope of justice and there is peace before us. If this fail God only knows our future.'35 Gladstone did not need much convincing on that point. As early as 1845 he had written to his wife that Ireland was a cloud in the west 'that coming storm, the minister of God's retribution upon but half-atoned injustice!'36 At the same time this is not to deny that often Gladstone's policy initiatives smack of political opportunism. As John Vincent has indicated, Gladstone's posturing over Ireland in the period 1865-68 'ensured that Ireland did as much for the Liberal Party, as the Liberal Party did for Ireland'.37 Although Catholic churchmen such as MacHale and Cullen in general welcomed the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, others were more circumspect. Leahy was of the opinion that it was merely a trick by the government to hide other, more serious, issues.38 Moriarty did not regard the Anglican establishment as a religious evil or even as a 'necessary grievance', but rather as a 'disgrace and as an impediment to the social union and equality of Catholics and Protestants and therefore a great political evil'. Cullen took great delight in the discomfort felt by Irish Anglicans over the Church issue and told Barnabo that they now felt quite abandoned by England.39 It is at times suggested that the Vatican did not approve of disestablishment in Ireland,40 and indeed Antonelli told Odo Russell that the Vatican could not condone the disestablishment of any Church, nor the notion of the separation of church and state.41 It is equally clear that the Vatican's attitude in the matter was much more conditioned by the circumstances of the Church in Italy than by any love for the Church of Ireland.42 Soon after Gladstone's original resolutions on the Church of Ireland were carried in the Commons, Cullen wrote to Kirby: 'I was glad to hear that the vote against the [Protestant] Church in Ireland was so much applauded in Rome. You may tell 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Conclusion


Cardinal Antonelli that his good advice had a great deal to do with the matter.'43 This hardly suggests a policy of outright opposition to disestablishment on the part of the Roman authorities. On the other hand, Pius IX had, since 1848, an aversion to Liberal governments and was inclined to identify all the misfortunes of the Church in Europe as the result of principles emanating from such governments.44 The actions of the Liberals in England could not but arouse suspicion, no matter how much benefit might accrue to Catholicism from their actions. Churchmen and politicians were, however, both agreed on the level of discontent in Ireland. Wodehouse told Strathnairn that the mass of the Catholic population was disaffected,45 a sentiment echoed three years later by Bishop MacEvilly, who wrote to Cullen that 'there is no doubt but [that] the deepest disaffection does exist & that universally'.46 It was one thing to acknowledge the ailment, but quite another to determine the causes or prescribe the remedy. Cullen could at times believe that the government actually permitted Fenianism to flourish to enable the movement's anti-clericalism to counteract and undermine the influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland.47 Though such sentiments seem to border on the paranoid, there were sufficient indications of anti-Catholicism, even from Gladstone's government, to at least give some credence, from his perspective, to Cullen's obsessive imaginings. Gladstone's 'no popery' pamphlets in 1874-75 confirmed Cullen's worst fears of what could be expected from English Protestant statesmen. He thought that perhaps Gladstone was going mad.48 Cullen had also been thoroughly disillusioned with Gladstone's refusal to come to the aid of the Pope following the Italian invasion of Rome in 1870. Despite pressure from influential Catholics and demonstrations in places as far apart as Thurles and London, the government refused to act. Cullen contrasted this with the successful agitation to free the Fenian prisoners. As he told Kirby: 'the Fenians are Freemasons or belong to secret societies, and of course must be listened to. We are only mere Catholics, we don't stab or shoot, and therefore it is quite proper to give us a deaf ear.'49 Cullen's views on the significance of Fenianism were also shared by his counterpart in England, Henry Edward Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster. He too believed that Catholicism 'would be compromised in the public opinion of England & with Gov[ernmen]t & Parliament, by the Fenian movement'. He was also persuaded that 'Mazzinianism & Fenianism are one in principle'.50 Manning 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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repeatedly stressed that Fenianism was a serious threat and that the English could practise no greater deception on themselves than to imagine that it was merely the 'folly of a few apprentices and shopboys'.51 Part of the problem for the Church in England was that Catholic newspapers such as the Universe, although heartily opposed to Fenianism, gave the movement wide coverage and thus unwittingly disseminated Fenian doctrine to large numbers of Catholics of Irish descent.52 The history of Fenianism before the rising demonstrates that neither church nor state was able to contain the movement. But in the aftermath of the attempt at revolution the Church repudiated all those connected with the organization, and influential churchmen spoke of their grief and shame at what had come to pass. Archbishop Leahy thought the attempt at insurrection to be both 'foolish' and 'sinful'.53 There were, however, sufficient numbers of priests in Ireland54 and America55 who were prepared to tolerate the Fenians, and who continued to admit them to the sacraments, despite condemnation at the highest level. These clergy made the pronouncements by the hierarchy of the incompatibility of Catholicism and Fenianism seem so much beating of the wind. Indeed, the papal condemnation notwithstanding, Cullen had to admit that by the end of 1870 there was still 'a good deal of Fenianism in the towns', and that the 'organ of this party', the Irishman, continued to condemn the Pope 'most severely'.56 The papal condemnation was for the most part ineffective in reducing Catholics to a sense of obedience either to the teachings of the bishops or the laws of the state. THE FENIANS AND THE STATE It must to some extent remain a matter of speculation why the government did not take action against Fenianism before the suppression of the Irish People in 1865. It defies the known facts to postulate that the administration did not know of the existence of the conspiracy. One might suggest however that, unlike the Church, the government simply did not take Fenianism seriously. On the other hand, neither should one underestimate government incompetence in dealing with the affairs of Ireland. Sir Robert Anderson opined that Carlisle's administration was 'a government pour rire\ and that the Lord Lieutenant was a fop, who spent most of his time at public functions 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Conclusion

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No one surely, who knows the facts, and can realise how these men were entrapped into treason by the shameful incompetence and criminal apathy of the government of the day, can fail to sympathise with them and to deplore their fate. With one notorious exception [Rossa] they were both in ability and character much above the average MP of the Parnellite era.58 Similarly Lord Strathnairn believed that his predecessor as army commander, Sir George Brown, could not bring himself to believe in the face of the evidence that 'the British uniform could corset a traitor',59 and he had allowed Fenianism to exist in the army for more than two years after it was first detected.60 Rutherford was convinced that, at the very least, from the date of A.M. Sullivan's libel action against the Irishman in April 1862, 'if the British government was not even then fully alive to what was going on, it was not for lack of warning'.61 O'Donovan Rossa was sure that, from the time of the MacManus funeral, the government 'with all the experience... they have on record, were pretty well able to give a good guess at what it all meant'.62 When the initial government reaction did come, it had relatively little immediate impact on the movement. Arguably, government resolve to quash Fenianism was only fixed upon when the military threat, as expressed in the fiascos of 1867, was all too apparent. Not only did the Fenians themselves come to believe that had they struck in 1865 their revolution may have had some chance of success, but even staid and respectable journals could report a widespread sympathy for Fenianism in Ireland,63 a judgement with which some historians have concurred.64 The impulse actually to engage in revolution in the mid-1860s was perhaps in the main supplied by the idealism of the American branch of the movement. The ethos of American culture could not long abide what Thomas Brown has described as 'so much suffering so passively endured'.65 Without doubt, the American Civil War provided many Fenians with their first taste of military action, and made them anxious to test their hard-learned skill in what was to them the more conducive cause of Irish independence. It is perhaps some mark of the hostility that Fenianism aroused that even William Monsell could take a very hard line over those Fenians 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


ogling pretty women.57 Neither Peel, the Chief Secretary, nor O'Hagan, the Attorney General, fare much better under Anderson's strictures. Anderson concluded of the leading Fenians that

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who had been captured as the result of the 1867 rising. He urged the necessity in the House of Commons for an inquiry into the causes of disaffection, but thought it perfectly obvious that this could only take place when 'those sterner duties had been discharged which, unfortunately, followed every unsuccessful insurrection'.66 This was fairly mild compared with the general attitude of the press in Britain which for the most part demanded blood, since, it was argued, 'unless severe penalties were imposed on the captured Fenians such armed demonstrations would recur'. It was therefore a remarkable display of restraint by the government in dealing with the 1867 crisis, in Ireland, that no one was executed in that country. However this has to be offset against the Manchester executions, which appear to be nothing more than a desire for revenge, and which did more to alienate Ireland from England than perhaps any other single incident in the whole decade. In contrast Gladstone's determination to defend the granting of freedom to Fenian prisoners in 1869 was a manifestation of considerable political courage. When the Queen expressed alarm about the use of seditious language by the released Fenians, the Prime Minister wrote to General Grey, the Queen's secretaiy, that he could not infer from this that the policy was a failure, since, as he explained, our purpose & duty is to endeavour to draw a line between the Fenians and the people of Ireland, & to make the people of Ireland indisposed to cross it. But as to the general connexion of those who are Fenians already I do not expect much... the mere sense that their chances of proselytism are diminishing (if so it were) might increase their wrath.67 The Fenians, however, and what they represented, are indicators of just how different Ireland and England were at that stage of the nineteenth century. Lord Lyndhurst in a widely reported speech had spoken of the Irish as 'aliens in speech, in religion, in blood'.68 When it came to Fenianism such sentiments were exacerbated. Fenianism as much as anything else was a proclamation of the difference that existed between the two countries. It asserted the desire of the more advanced Irish nationalists that Ireland be taken seriously on its own terms. Much of government policy in the period under discussion is indicative of a refusal by successive administrations to do just that, to treat Ireland as an equal, politically, culturally and socially in the United Kingdom. In Theodore Moody's judgement, had there been good government of Ireland since the Union, the impulse for 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Conclusion


self-government would probably have been undermined. The problem was that many aspects of the British administration of Ireland were marked by 'inconsistency, ignorance, short-sightedness and lack of imagination'.69 That lack of imagination was also seen by near-contemporaries who could point out the inconsistencies in the English mind, in admiring political agitators and revolutionaries in any country other than Ireland. The question facing governments was, then, how to successfully deal with Irish revolutionaries. Mere reformism, of the sort favoured by church and state, was rejected by the Fenians, although they were at times content to strategically align themselves with the forces of constitutional nationalism, as in the amnesty movement, for limited objectives.70 Equally, there can be little doubt that Fenianism did help to force constitutional concessions from the Liberal government of 1868, and that very process led to the demise of Irish Liberalism. On the other hand, R. V. Comerford has argued that, for example, the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland represented 'the acceptance by Westminster that Irish majority opinion should decide a major Irish constitutional issue'.71 Unfortunately, it represents no such thing. There is absolutely no evidence that disestablishment was ever a popular political cause in Ireland in the 1860s. The measure was brought about partly as the result of the process of concessions to middle-class Catholic aspirations, in this instance spearheaded by clerical opinion, in a matter which ecclesiastics regarded as an affront to the position of the Catholic Church in Irish society. Disestablishment was also precipitated by Gladstone's desires to encourage a climate of political stability in Ireland, in which the Fenian plant would not flourish. When challenged on this very point, by Disraeli, during the third reading of the Church Bill, he delivered what has perhaps become an epitome of the general attitude of successive governments in dealing with violent Irish radicals: The Fenian conspiracy has had an important influence with respect to Irish policy; but it has not been an influence in determining or in affecting in the slightest degree the convictions which we have entertained with respect to the course proper to be pursued in Ireland. [Fenianism] produced that attitude of attention and preparedness on the whole population of this country which qualified them to embrace, in a manner foreign to their habits in other times, the vast importance of the Irish controversy.72 The fact that the Fenians could plausibly argue that they brought about the disestablishment of the Irish Church was not only a blow to



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ecclesiastical pretensions but also highlighted a great dilemma for the Irish Catholic Church in the nineteenth century. The enduring problem which plagued the deliberations of the Irish bishops was: how to form a policy which demanded the redress of grievances and commanded the respect of the lower clergy, but which did not seem to encourage the more radical and militant tendency within the reform movement. For the Fenians, constitutionalism was not a panacea, and extreme radicals such as Mitchel were convinced that nothing good could ever emanate from the British parliament. Furthermore the move to constitutionalism was but a temporary expedient, and was never fully observed by the Fenian movement. Without doubt the radicalization of the political debate in Ireland was the work of Fenianism. Thus Isaac Butt could tell the Home Rule conference in Dublin in November 1873: Mr Gladstone said that Fenianism taught him the intensity of Irish disaffection. It taught me more and better things. It taught me the depth, the breath, the sincerity of that love of fatherland that misgovernment had tortured into disaffection and ... exaggerated into revolt.

THE LEGACY OF FENIANISM Cardinal Cullen could as early as 1867 predict that Fenianism was at an end,73 convinced as he was that the Irish people were not imbued with the ideas of continental revolutionaries, and that those disposed to make trouble were confined to the 'idle and drinking classes'.74 Irish revolution, whatever its American and European influences, was a distinctly home-grown affair and owed more to Tone, Lalor and Davis than to Cavour, Mazzini or Garibaldi. Mansergh has cogently argued, however, that Mazzini's doctrine of the moral intention of nationality75 was perhaps at times neglected in Irish revolutionary struggles, although Davis at least was aware that this was a danger for those who sought independence from English rule.76 One of the key moral principles in Fenianism was its doctrine of the absolute need for the separation of church and state. It can in fact be argued, and it is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration, that, in so far as this situation obtains in modern Ireland, it is as a direct result of the influence of the Fenians. A considerable social function of 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Conclusion


Fenianism in the 1860s was to de-sectarianize the Irish political debate. By causing themselves to be the centre of controversy in the country, attention was directed away from hostilities connected with Catholic education and Orangeism. This was not simply tangential to the Fenian enterprise. Even at the level of recruitment, the Fenians deliberately sought to encourage Catholic and Protestants jointly to assert a common Irish identity within a revolutionary framework. Frank Roney, in his attempts to enlist members for the IRB in northeast Down, found Catholics 'worthless as Irishmen', but was delighted with the quality of recruits and converts to Fenianism he made among Protestants in that area.77 O'Donovan Rossa also found that Catholics and Protestants were united in the Fenian organization in Newtownards, but by contrast he met with overt bigotry among Catholics in Monaghan who would not join the organization because it accepted for membership adherents of 'the English religion'.78 Resentment at their treatment over disestablishment of the Irish Church caused many Protestants to flirt with radical politics and rub shoulders with Fenians in the Home Rule movement. It is important not to exaggerate the extent of Protestant involvement, but it was significant as an indication that Protestant commitment to the English connection was not unconditional. The abandonment of the movement by Protestants developed in proportion to the Catholic Church espousing the cause. Gladstone's failure to deliver to Catholic Ireland its expectations over university education proved to be the catalyst for many priests and some bishops to take up the call for Home Rule. The adoption of the programme became so intense that the government contemplated an appeal to Rome to have the movement officially condemned by the Pope, which the Holy See declined to do. Such official Catholic involvement was bound to give Protestants pause for second thought. The failure of Protestants to stand by Home Rule was part of a larger issue of that community's self-identity and its involvement in Irish radical politics. Yeats observed that Protestant Ireland had immense prestige; Burke, Swift, Grattan, Emmet, Fitzgerald, Parnell, almost every name sung in modern song, had been Protestant; ... but wherever it attempted some corporate action, wherein Ireland stood against England, the show however gallant it seemed was soon over... it lacked hereditary passion.79 Such sentiments had found expression in the thinking of one of the most intriguing Protestant nationalists of the early Fenian era. 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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Repeal I am aware, would give the rule of Ireland (at least for a generation or two) into the hands of the Protestant aristocracy. At present this aristocracy is about the most heartless towards its own countrymen and the basest in its attitude before the English that I have read of.... The peasantry are as a class the only patriots, the only virtuous citizens, the only men deserving the name. The Fenian movement has drawn after it a great proportion of the peasantry and that solely by means of their genuine patriotic impulses. I wish I could add that the Protestant peasantry of Ireland were patriotic also. But sectarian feuds have poisoned and killed their patriotism. It many a time enrages and distresses me.80 Martin may have been somewhat nonchalant about the role of the peasant in Fenian patriotic designs, since the romanticism of the IRB also had an enormous hold on the imagination of the Irish middle classes, both Catholic and Protestants, especially from the 1880s on.81 Yeats was to declare that it was through John O'Leary that he found his theme. Not that O'Leary was a typical Fenian: his views, for example, on the land question were outside the Lalor tradition, and he differed widely from his contemporary John Mitchel on the issue. Still, it was the power of the romantic hold that Fenianism exercised, even, as we have seen, over the minds of its opponents, that ensured that its legacy would remain in the Irish separatist consciousness. A less romantic estimation of the endurance of Fenianism is provided by Hereward Senior. The conspiracy failed, but the institutions and the continued physical-force tradition survived because 'conspiracy and propaganda had become a way of life for men who had given up the hope of interesting careers along more conventional lines'.82 Such a view perhaps neglects the fact that nations, like individuals, are not simply the product of material circumstances. Often those at the extremes of society can, perhaps even in spite of themselves, provide a more penetrating understanding of the forces that shape public consciousness than individuals engaged in more conventional pursuits. This is not to say that all the activities the Fenians engaged in were justified either in moral or historical terms. There can be little doubt that there was a gap between the theory and practice of Fenianism which more than anything else was 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


Although there is no evidence that he was ever 'sworn' as a Fenian, John Martin could nonetheless indulge in very radical rhetoric. On the relationship between Protestantism and nationalism he wrote to the Reverend George C. Mahon:


responsible for its failure as a revolutionary organization. The reason for its failure acutely informed the minds of a later generation who claimed to be the inheritors of the Fenian tradition. 'Informers, divided leadership and inadequate preparations' dogged the attempts at revolution in 1867.83 Not that Fenian agitation subsequently fared much better in any of these areas. The post-1867 climate of public opinion in Ireland was not much disposed to violent revolution as a means of settling the historical grievances with England. Still, the Fenian idea of the necessity, or inevitability, of armed insurrection passed into Irish historical lore and conditioned the thinking of, perhaps, the majority of those who staged the 1916 insurrection. Fenianism, of course, must also be seen in its own terms, as a specific response to a lack of political progress in mid-nineteenthcentury Ireland. It was equally an element in a wider contention about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Protestant state in Ireland. The Church was concerned to further strengthen its position in Irish society, following the gains and progress of the Catholic community in the aftermath of almost thirty years of concessions by successive governments to the Catholic middle classes. The Fenians were a major irritant to churchmen because, unlike the British government, they questioned the right of the Church to any substantive voice in public political affairs. The presence within the Catholic community of a relatively large revolutionary organization demonstrated to the government that the Church did not command, as it claimed, the obedience of Catholics to its teaching on respect for the laws of the state. The Church's claim to represent the authentic voice of the Catholic Irish rang hollow in the face of Fenian defiance. Yet it was also clear that the government could not hope to control Ireland generally, without a belief that the church could in fact bring into line those who were disposed to violence. Thus church and state were forced into an unholy alliance, as both worked for the eradication of Fenianism. The irony in this was that the Church distrusted British administration in Ireland, since it saw it as quintessentially Protestant and therefore antagonistic to Catholicism. Most of the functionaries of the state, from politicians to army commanders, shared a typical English Victorian distaste for Catholicism, as something both foreign to English mores and as a slightly sinister form of belief. A further complication for both church and state was the role played by the North American Irish, who encouraged and supported Fenianism in Ireland in so many ways. This international dimension, 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


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with its potential for provoking conflict between the United States and Great Britain was, in principle, one of the most potent factors operating in the government's continuing contest with the Fenian movement. By 1875 it was clear to all concerned that the early phase of Fenianism had come to an end; it was, by then, a spent force. At the very least, however, Fenianism had helped change the debate about the relationship of the Irish people to both the British state and the Catholic Church.



Conclusion

Notes 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

FENIANISM RECONSIDERED F.L. Crilly, The Fenian Movement: the Story of the Manchester Martyrs (London, 1908) 59. The Whiggish Illustrated London News reported on 25 May 1854 that the American consul in London, G.N. Sanders, had given a dinner on the eve of Washington's birthday to what amounted to a who's who of European revolutionists, including: Kossuth, Mazzini, Ledru-Rollin, Garibaldi, Orsini, Pulksy and Hertzen. All were at that time living in exile in the English capital. John Newsinger, Fenianism in Mid-Victorian Britain (London, 1994) 1-3. The Irishman, 16 Mar. 1867, 592. T.W. Moody, Davitt and the Irish Revolution, 1846-82 (Oxford, 1981) 41. Paul Bew, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858-82 (Dublin, 1978) 40. R. Pigott, Personal Recollections of an Irish Nationalist Journalist (Dublin, 1882) 133-4. David Thornley, Isaac Butt and Home Rule (London, 1964) 13. Quoted in Thomas Frost, The Secret Societies of the European Revolution, 1776-1876 ii (London, 1876) 282. John Neville Figgs and Reginald Vere Laurence (eds) Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton (London, 1917), Gladstone to Acton 1 Mar. 1870, 106. R.V. Comerford, The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society 1848-82 (Dublin, 1985) 79 and 153. Bodleian Library, Oxford Clarendon Papers Irish deposit 99, Wodehouse to Clarendon 14 May 1865. Irish People, 16 April 1864, 328. A point which was also given prominence in The Fenian Catechism: from the Vulgate of St Laurence O'Toole (New York, 1867) 11. APF Scritture 35, Leahy to Barnabo, 10 Aug. 1865. W.J. Lowe has convincingly argued that in terms of growing nationalist consciousness in the mid-nineteenth century, that Fenianism rather than the Church was the most important component. 'The Lancashire Irish and the Catholic Church 1846-71', IHS xx (1976-77) 155. Edward Lucas, The Life of Frederick Lucas M.P. (London, 1886) i 287. John Denvir, The Irish in Britain (London, 1892) 182. P.J. Moran (ed.), The Pastoral Letters and other Writings of Cardinal Cullen (3 vols, Dublin, 1882) here ii 292. Matthew Arnold, Irish Essays and Others (London, 1882) 37. Arnold's sentiments here would be worthy of those of any Ultramontane clergyman. 160 10.1057/9780230286580 - The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75, Oliver Rafferty


1

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

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Laurence Kehoe (e

The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861-75

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