In Ireland
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was founded in Dublin by James Stephens in 1858. After the end of the American Civil War, they hoped to recruit willing Irish veterans of that war for an insurrection in Ireland, aimed at the foundation of an Irish Republic.
In 1865, the Fenians began preparing for a rebellion. They collected about 6,000 firearms and had as many as 50,000 men willing to fight. In September 1865, the British moved to close down the Fenians' newspaper The Irish People and arrested much of the leadership, including John O'Leary, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Thomas Clarke Luby and Stephens. Stephens, the leader of the movement, later escaped. In 1866, habeas corpus was suspended in Ireland and there were hundreds more arrests of Fenian activists.
Stephens' successor as leader, Thomas J. Kelly tried to launch the insurrection in early 1867, but it proved uncoordinated and fizzled in a series of skirmishes. The plan was for a country-wide campaign of guerrilla warfare, accompanied by an uprising in Dublin in which Fenian fighters would link up with Irish troops who had mutinied and take the military barracks in the city.
In February 1867 there was an unsuccessful rising in County Kerry. On March 5, other failed risings took place in Cork city, Limerick and Dublin. The largest of these engagements took place at Tallaght, when several hundred Fenians, on their way to the meeting point at Tallaght Hill, were attacked by the Irish Constabulary near the police barracks, and were driven off after a firefight. A total of twelve people were killed across the country on the day. When it became apparent that the co-ordinated rising that had been planned was not transpiring, most rebels simply went home.
The rising failed as a result of lack of arms and planning, but also because of the British authorities' effective use of informers. Most of the Fenian leadership had been arrested before the rebellion took place.
However, the rising was not without symbolic significance. The Fenians proclaimed a Provisional Republican government, stating,
| “ | We appeal to force as a last resort... unable to endure any longer the curse of a 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 possession of an oligarchy, belongs to us, the Irish people and to us it must be restored. We declare also in favour of absolute liberty of conscience and the separation of Church and State. We intend no war against the people of England; our war is against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish, who have eaten the verdure of our fields. | ” |
Read more about this topic: Fenian Rising
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