Fenianism in North America in the 1860s: The Problems for Church and State

Abstract

Irish Catholic immigrants in North America provided, on the surface, a potentially powerful source of support for the revolutionary designs of the Fenian movement in Ireland. The Catholic bishops, encouraged by their colleagues in Ireland, especially Paul Cullen, the archbishop of Dublin, resisted Fenian strategies in the new world by declaring that the Fenian organization was condemned by the church as a secret society. The bishops' task was complicated by the circumstances of the American Civil War in that the Fenians recruited to their ranks from among the Irish enlisted soldiers. With anti‐English sentiment running high in the northern states, the Union authorities were inclined to turn a blind eye to Fenian machinations both during and after the war. Although the bishops had been anxious in 1865 to have the backing of Rome for their anti‐Fenian stance, their post‐bellum position was more cautious and they, for the most part, opposed the papal condemnation of Fenianism in 1870, a condemnation issued at the behest of the Irish bishops. The church in America and Canada laboured under various disadvantages, mostly of an anti‐Catholic nature, which hampered its ability to deal resolutely with the Irish nationalist discontent in its midst. Ultimately, however, the disintegration of the Fenian movement in North America had more to do with its own internal incoherence than any external pressure.