Fenian
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Fenian

The word Fenian (/ˈfniən/ ) served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood. They were secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. In 1867, they sought to coordinate raids into Canada from the United States with a rising in Ireland. In the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence, the IRB led the republican struggle.

Fenianism (Irish: Fíníneachas), according to O'Mahony, embodied two principles: firstly, that Ireland had a natural right to independence, and secondly, that this right could be won only by an armed revolution. The name originated with the Fianna of Irish mythology—groups of legendary warrior-bands associated with Fionn mac Cumhail. Mythological tales of the Fianna became known as the Fenian Cycle.

In the 1860s, opponents of Irish nationalism within the British political establishment sometimes used the term "Fenianism" to refer to any form of mobilisation among the Irish or to those who expressed any Irish nationalist sentiments, or questioned the Protestant Ascendancy (such as advocating for the rights of tenant farmers). The political establishment often applied the term in this sense—inaccurately—to the unrelated Tenant Right League, the Irish National Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, who did not advocate explicitly for an independent Irish Republic or for the use of force.[need quotation to verify]

James Stephens, one of the "Men of 1848" (a participant in the 1848 revolt), had established himself in Paris, and was in correspondence with John O'Mahony in the United States and other advanced nationalists at home and abroad. This would include the Phoenix National and Literary Society, with Jeremiah O'Donovan (afterwards known as O'Donovan Rossa) among its more prominent members, which had been formed recently at Skibbereen.

Along with Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary and Charles Kickham he founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood on 17 March 1858 in Lombard Street, Dublin.

The Fenian Rising in 1867 proved to be a "doomed rebellion", poorly organised and with minimal public support. Most of the Irish-American officers who landed at Cork, in the expectation of commanding an army against the British, were imprisoned; sporadic disturbances around the country were easily suppressed by the police, army and local militias. In the aftermath, Fenian assassination circles were active in Cork and in Dublin and were responsible for shooting two officers of the Dublin Metropolitan Police on duty in October 1867.

In 1882, a breakaway IRB faction calling itself the Irish National Invincibles assassinated the British Chief Secretary for Ireland Lord Frederick Cavendish and his Permanent Under-secretary (chief civil servant), in an incident known as the Phoenix Park Murders.

The Fenian Brotherhood, the Irish Republican Brotherhood's US branch, was founded by John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny, both of whom had been "out" (participating in the Young Ireland rebellion) in 1848. In the face of nativist suspicion, it quickly established an independent existence, although it still worked to gain Irish American support for armed rebellion in Ireland. Initially, O'Mahony ran operations in the US, sending funds to Stephens and the IRB in Ireland.

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