A Reality and Yet Impalpable: The Fenian Panic in Mid-Victorian Scotland

Abstract

This prediction of a nation mesmerised by the threat of Fenianism was rapidly fulfilled. Like the rest of mainland Britain, Scotland was swept by Fenian Fever, a panic which reached its height at the end of 1867. In dozens of Scottish cities and towns from Stromness to Berwick, reports of nocturnal drilling and imminent attack swamped local officials and filled newspaper columns. Even the normally sedate Scotsman had its warm outflow of Christmas feeling, 'checked and chilled by the consciousness that thousands of unrecognised enemies are treading the complex paths of our commonwealth'.1 The aims of this article are two-fold. First, it seeks to understand the dynamics of the Fenian panic and the backlash it produced in the Scottish public against the local Irish population. Second, by examining the emergence and development of the Fenian movement in Scotland, it attempts to determine the proportions of fact and mythology behind the Fenian alarms.