Irish Republican Brotherhood

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic Republic" in the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [McGee, p. 15.] Its counterpart in the United States of America was organized by John O'Mahony and became known as the Fenian Brotherhood (later Clan na Gael).The members of both wings of the movement are often referred to as "Fenians". The IRB played an important role in the history of Ireland, as the chief advocate of republicanism during the campaign for Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom. Following on from movements such as the United Irishmen of the 1790s and the Young Irelanders of the 1840s. As part of the New Departure, in the 1870s and 1880s, IRB members would attempt to democratise the Home Rule League [In November 1873, the Home Government Association was reconstituted as the Home Rule League. As with the HGA, Butt was opposed to its membership having any power to dictate policy (cite, McGee, p. 47.). The Irish MP's at Westminster "felt total contempt" for the idea of promoting a radical "democratic movement" in Ireland ("Ibid", p. 53.). Charles Doran secretary of the Supreme Council of the IRB, proposed that all MP's should be accountable before "a great national conference...as to represent the opinions and feelings of the Irish nation" ("Ibid", p. 48.). ] and its successor, the Irish Parliamentary Party, as well as taking part in the Land War. [McGee, pp. 46-60.] The IRB would go on to stage the Easter Rising in 1916, which would lead to the establishment of the first Dáil Éireann in 1919. The suppression of the Dáil Éireann would precipitate the Irish War of Independence and the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921, ultimately leading to almost complete Irish independence.

Background

In 1798 the United Irishmen, who had been an open political organisation were suppressed and became a secret revolutionary organisation, rose in rebellion, seeking an end to British rule in Ireland and the establishment of an Irish Republic. The rebellion was suppressed, but the principles of the United Irishmen were to have a powerful influence on the course of Irish history.

Following the collapse of the rebellion, the British Prime Minister William Pitt introduced a bill to abolish the Irish parliament and manufactured a Union between Ireland and Britain. Opposition from the Protestant oligarchy that controlled the parliament was countered by the widespread and open use of bribery. The Act of Union was passed, and became law on 1 January 1801. The Catholics, who had been excluded from the Irish parliament, were promised emancipation under the Union. This promise was never kept, and caused a protracted and bitter struggle for civil liberties. It was not until 1829 that the British government reluctantly conceded Catholic emancipation. Though leading to general emancipation, this process simultaneously disenfranchised the small tenants, known as ‘forty shilling freeholders’, who were mainly Catholics. [Kenny, p. 5.]

Daniel O’Connell, who had led the emancipation campaign, then attempted the same methods in his campaign, to have the Act of Union with Britain repealed. Despite the use of petitions and public meetings which attracted vast popular support, the government thought the Union was more important than Irish public opinion. In the early 1840 the younger members of the repeal movement, became impatient with O’Connell’s over-cautious policies, and began to question his intentions. Later they were what became to be known as the Young Ireland movement. In 1842 three of the Young Ireland leaders, Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, launched the Nation newspaper. In the paper they set out to create a spirit of pride and an identity based on nationality rather than on social status or religion. Following the collapse of the Repeal Association and with the arrival of famine, the Young Irelanders broke away completely from O’Connell in 1846. [Kenny, p. 6.]

The blight that destroyed the potato harvest between 1845 and 1849 was an unprecedented human tragedy. An entire social class of small farmers and labourers were to be virtually wiped out by hunger, disease and emigration. The "laissez –faire" economic thinking of the government ensured that help was slow, hesitant and insufficient. Between 1845 and 1851 the population fell by almost two million.

That the people starved while livestock and grain continued to be exported, quite often under military escort, would leave a legacy of bitterness and resentment among the survivors. The waves of emigration because of the famine and in the years following, also ensured that such feelings would not be confined to Ireland, but spread to England, the United States, Australia and every country where Irish emigrants gathered. [Kenny, pp. 6-7.]

Shocked by the scenes of starvation and greatly influenced by the revolutions then sweeping Europe, the Young Irelanders moved from agitation to armed rebellion in 1848. The attempted rebellion failed after a small skirmish in Ballingary, Co Tipperary, coupled with a few minor incidents else where. The reasons for the failure were obvious, the people were totally despondent after three years of famine, having being prompted to Rise early resulted in an inadequacy of military preparations, which caused disunity among the leaders.

The Government quickly rounded up many of the instigators, those who could, fled across the seas, and their followers dispersed. A last flicker of revolt in 1849, led by among others James Fintan Lalor, was equally unsuccessful. [Kenny, p. 7.]

John Mitchel, the most committed advocate of revolution, had been arrested early in 1848 and transported to Australia on the purposefully created charge of Treason-felony. He was to be joined by other leaders, such as William Smith O'Brien and Thomas Francis Meagher who had both been arrested after Ballingary. John Blake Dillon escaped to France, as did three of the younger members, James Stephens, John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny.

Founding of the IRB

After the collapse of the 1848 rebellion James Stephens and John O'Mahony went to Europe to avoid arrest. In Paris they supported themselves through teaching and translation work and planned the next stage of "the fight to overthrow British rule in Ireland." [Ó Broin, p.1] Stephens in Paris, set himself three tasks, during his seven years of exile. They were, to keep alive, pursue knowledge, and master the technique of conspiracy. At this time Paris particularly, was interwoven with a network of secret political societies. They became members of one the most powerful of these societies and acquired the secrets of some of the ablest and "most profound masters of revolutionary science" which the nineteenth century had produced, as to the means of inviting and combining people for the purposes of successful revolution. [Ryan. Desmond, pp. 43 & 48.]

In 1853 O'Mahony went to America and founded the Emmet Monument Association [According to tradition, no monument can be erected to Robert Emmet "until Ireland a nation can build him a tomb," therefore, the work of the Association presupposed the freedom of Ireland as a necessary preliminary.] [Denieffe, vii] Stephens in early 1856 began making his way back to Ireland, stopping first in London. [While in London, Stephens had doubts as to whether Ireland was yet ripe for his plans. He posed himself two questions, and only in Ireland could he obtain the answers, the first being: was a new uprising even conceivable and had the time come for a secret revolutionary organisation under his leadership. cite O'Leary pp. 57-8.] On arriving in Dublin, Stephens began what he described as his three thousand mile walk through Ireland, meeting some of those who had taken part in the 1848/49 revolutionary movements, including Philip Gray, Thomas Clarke Luby and Peter Langan. [Ryan. Desmond, p. 58.] In the autumn of 1857, a messenger, Owen Considine arrived from New York with a message for Stephens from members [the name of the members were John O'Mahony, Michael Doheny, James Roche and Oliver Byrne. "cite" O'Leary, p. 80.] of the Emmet Monument Association, calling on him to get up an organisation in Ireland. Considine also carried a private letter from O’Mahony to Stephens which was a warning as to the condition of the organisation in New York, which was overseen by Luby and Stephens at the time. Both had believed that there was a strong organisation behind the letter, only later to find it was a number of loosely linked groups. [ Ryan Desmond, p. 87.] On 23 December Stephens despatched Joseph Denieffe to America with his reply which was disguised as a business letter, and dated and addressed from Paris. In his reply Stephens outlined his conditions and his requirements from the organisation in America. [A full copy of the letter is available in Desmond Ryan’s Fenian Chief pp. 89-90.] Stephens demanded uncontrolled power and £100 a month for the first three months. [O'Leary p. 82.] Denieffe returned on 17 March 1858 with the acceptance of Stephens terms and £80. Denieffe also reported that there was no actual organised body of sympathisers in New York but merely a loose knot of associates. This disturbed Stephens but he went ahead regardless and that evening, St. Patrick's Day, the Irish Republican Brotherhood commenced. [Ryan. Desmond, p. 90-1, Ó Broin, p. 1, Cronin, p. 11.] [It has been suggested, notably by O'Donovan Rossa, that the original name for the organisation was the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, this is a view shared by Joseph Denieffe in his memoirs. It also appears in correspondences of the Fenian Leaders, Devoy’s Post Bag being another example. What is certain is that it became the Irish Republican Brotherhood and it lasted in Ireland and among Irish exiles all over the world under that name.]

The original oath, with its clauses of secrecy was drawn up by Luby under Stephens' direction in Stephens' room in Donnelly’s which was situated behind Lombard Street. Luby then swore Stephens in and he did likewise. The oath read: [O’Leary, p. 82.] Those present in Langan's, lathe-maker and timber merchant, 16 Lombard Street for that first meeting apart from Stephens and Luby were Peter Langan, Charles Kickham, Joseph Denieffe [In John O'leary's "Fenians and Fenianism", he spells the name "Deneefe" though this is incorrect, cite O'Leary, p. 82.] and Garrett O'Shaughnessy. [O'Leary, p. 82.] [An Phoblacht 13 March 2008] Later it would include members of the "Phoenix National and Literary Society", which was formed in 1856 by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa in Skibbereen. [O'Leary, p. 84.]

Organisational structure

The IRB was organised into circles, a “circle” was analogous to a regiment, that the “centre” or A, who might be considered equivalent to a colonel, who chose nine B’s, or captains, who in their turn chose nine C’s, or sergeants, who in their turn chose nine D’s, who constituted the rank and file. In theory an A should only be known to the B’s; a B, to his C’s: and a C, to his D’s; but this rule was often violated. [O'Leary, p. 84.]

Objectives

Dublin Castle was the government administration in Ireland and was appointed by the British cabinet and was accountable only to the cabinet, not to the House of Commons and not to the Irish people or their political representatives. Irish MPs could speak at Westminster in protest about the actions of the administration, but its privileges were unchallengeable as Irish representation in the House of Commons was only one sixth of the total and far too small. [McGee, p. 21.]

Fenianism therefore, according to O'Mahony is symbolized by two principles: Firstly, that Ireland had a natural right to independence, and secondly, that that right could be won only by an armed revolution. [Ryan. Desmond, p. 318.] Because of their belief in republicanism, that is, the “common people are the rightful rulers of their own destiny,” the founding members saw themselves as “furious democrats in theory” and declared their movement to be “wholly and unequivocally democratic.” [Ryan. Desmond, p. 326, also cited by McGee, p. 16.] Being a democrat and egalitarian in the mid nineteenth century was tantamount to being a revolutionary, and was something to be feared by political establishments. [McGee, p. 16.]

It was Stephens “firm resolution to establish a democratic republic in Ireland; that is, a republic for the weal of the toiler,” [Ryan. Desmond, p. 133.] and that this would require a complete social revolution before the people could possibly become republicans. [McGee, p. 15.] In propagating republican principles, they felt, the organisation would create this virtual democracy within the country, which would form the basis of an independence movement. [McGee, p. 327.]

The Fenians soon established themselves in Australia, South America, Canada and, above all, in the United States, as well as in the large cities of England, such as London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, in Scotland.

Establishment reaction

The movement was denounced by the British establishment, the press, the Roman Catholic Church and Irish political elite, as had all Irish separatist and Republicanism movements. [McGee, pp. 328-9.]

The Tories, disturbed by the increase in republican propaganda, particularly in America launched a propaganda campaign in the Irish press to discredit the American Fenians. They presented them as enemies of Catholicism quoting negative comments by some American Catholic bishops. As in Irish-America, likewise Ireland and England, the Catholic hierarchy felt the growth of nationalist politics among Irishmen was essentially dangerous. Therefore during the 1860s and succeeding decades, the upper or middle classes who controlled the Irish press were very apprehensive in the growth of democratic politics in Ireland, which represented to them a threat of anarchy and revolution. [McGee, p. 33.]

It was feared that if Britain was given any reason to renew coercion, Catholic interests in both Ireland and England would be undermined. In addition, the small class of Irish Catholic merchants, lawyers and gentry who had prospered under the Union felt anxious for the same reasons. By 1864, the Tories had coined the phrase ‘Fenianism’ to describe all that was considered potentially bothersome among Irishmen on both sides of the Atlantic. [McGee, p. 33.]

Fenianism as a term was then used by the British political establishment to depict any form of mobilisation among the lower classes and, sometimes, those who expressed any Irish nationalists sentiments. They warned people about this threat to turn decent civilised society on its head such as that posed by trade unionism to the existing social order in England. [McGee, pp. 13-14.] The same term was taken up by members of the Irish Catholic hierarchy, who also began denouncing "Fenianism" in the name of the Catholic religion. [McGee, p. 33.] One Irish Bishop, David Moriarty of Kerry, declared that "when we look down into the fathomless depth of this infamy of the heads of the Fenian conspiracy, we must acknowledge that eternity is not long enough, nor hell hot enough to punish such miscreants." ["Irish Times", 19 February 1867.] [Leon Ó Broin, p. 133.]

Irish People

In mid 1863 Stephens informed his colleagues he wished to start a newspaper, with financial aid from O’Mahony and the Fenian Brotherhood in America. The offices were established at 12 Parliament Street, almost at the gates of Dublin Castle. [D. Ryan, pp.187-90] The first edition of the Irish People appeared on 28 November 1863. [ O'Leary Vol I, p. 246.] The staff of the paper along with Kickham were Luby and Denis Dowling Mulcahy as the editorial staff. O’Donovan Rossa and James O’Connor were in charge of the business office, with John Haltigan being the printer. John O'Leary was brought from London to take charge in the role of Editor. [Denieffe, p. 82.] Shortly after the establishment of the paper, Stephens departed on an American tour, and to attend to organisational matters. [D. Ryan, p. 191.]

On 15 July 1865 American made plans for a rising in Ireland were discovered when the emissary lost them at Kingstown railway station. They found their way to Dublin Castle and to Superintendent Daniel Ryan head of G Division. Ryan had an informer within the offices of the Irish People named Pierce Nagle, he supplied Ryan with an “action this year” message on its way to the IRB unit in Tipperary. With this information, Ryan raided the offices of the Irish People on Thursday 15 September, followed by the arrests of O’Leary, Luby and O’Donovan Rossa. The last edition of the paper is dated 16 September 1865. [O’Leary, Vol II, p. 198.]

Arrests and escapes

Before leaving, Stephens entrusted to Luby a document containing secret resolutions on the Committee of Organization or Executive of the IRB. Though Luby intimated its existence to O’Leary, he did not inform Kickham as there seemed no necessity. This document would later form the basis of the prosecution against the staff of the Irish People. The document read: [D. Ryan, p. 195.] cquote| EXECUTIVEI hereby appoint Thomas Clarke Luby, John O’Leary and Charles J. Kickham, a Committee of Organization or Executive, with the same supreme control over the Home Organization (Ireland, England, Scotland, etc.) I have exercised myself.I further empower them to appoint a Committee of Military Inspection, and a Committee of Appeal and Judgment, the functions of which Committee will be made known to each member of them by the Executive.Trusting to the patriotism and ability of the Executive, I fully endorse their action beforehand, and call on every man in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that concerns our military brotherhood.
9 March 1864, Dublin
J. STEPHENS

Kickham was caught after a month on the run. [Campbell, pp. 58-9.] Stephens would also be caught, but with the support of Fenian prison warders, John J. Breslin [Breslin would go on to play a leading part in the Catalpa rescue of Fenian prisoners in the British penal colony of Western Australia] and Daniel Byrne was less than a fortnight in Richmond Bridewell when he vanished and escaped to France. [Ó Broin, pp. 26-7.]

Irish National Invincibles

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

pecial Irish Branch

In March 1883 the London Metropolitan Police's Special Irish Branch was formed, initially as a small section of the Criminal Investigation Department, to monitor IRB activity.

upreme Council

The IRB was re-organised at a convention in Manchester in July 1867. An 11 man Supreme Council was elected to Govern the movement. [Cronin, p. 14.] They would eventually be representatives from the seven districts in which the organization was organised: the Irish provinces of Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht, as well as Scotland, North England, and South England. The remaining four members were co-opted. The Supreme Council elected three of its members to the executive, which consisted of the President, Secretary, and Treasurer.Fact|date=March 2008

The 20th century

By the start of the 20th century, the IRB was a stagnating organisation, concerned more with Dublin municipal politics than the establishment of a republic. [Lyons, p.315] A younger generation of Ulster republicans aimed to change this, and in 1905 Denis McCullough and Bulmer Hobson founded the Dungannon Clubs. Inspired by the Volunteers of 1782, the purpose of these clubs was to discourage enlistment into the British Army, and encourage enlistment into the IRB, with the overall goal of complete independence from Britain in the form of an Irish Republic. [Lyons, p. 316.] They were joined by Sean MacDermott, and in 1908 he and Hobson relocated to Dublin, where they teamed up with veteran Fenian Tom Clarke. Clarke had been released from Portland Prison in October 1898 after serving a 15 year sentence, and had recently returned to Ireland after living abroad in the United States. [Clarke K. P.24 & 36] Sent by John Devoy and the Clan na Gael to reorganise the IRB, Clarke set about to do just that. [Charles Townshend, "Easter 1916: The Irish rebellion", 2005, p. 18; Sean Cronin, "The McGarrity Papers: revelations of the Irish revolutionary movement in Ireland and America 1900–1940", 1972, pp. 16, 30; Patrick Bishop & Eamonn Mallie, "The Provisional IRA", 1988, p. 23; J Bowyer Bell, "The Secret Army: The IRA", rev. ed., 1997, p. 9; Tim Pat Coogan, "The IRA", 1984, p. 31] In 1909 the young Michael Collins was introduced to the brotherhood by Sam Maguire. By 1914 the Supreme Council was largely purged of its older, tired leadership, and was dominated by enthusiastic men such as Hobson, McCullough, Patrick McCartan, John MacBride, Sean MacDermott, and Tom Clarke. [Lyons, p.318-319] The latter two were to be the primary instigators of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Easter Rising

Following the establishment of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, whose purpose was to resist Home Rule, by force if necessary, the IRB were behind the initiative which eventually led to the inauguration of the Irish Volunteers in November, 1913. [Charles Townshend, "Easter 1916: The Irish rebellion", 2005; p. 41, Tim Pat Coogan, "The IRA", 1970, p. 33; F. X. Martin, "The Irish Volunteers 1913-1915", 1963, p. 24, Michael Foy & Brian Barton, "The Easter Rising", 2004, p. 7, Eoin Neeson, "Myths from Easter 1916", 2007, p. 79, P. S. O’Hegarty, "Victory of Sinn Féin", pp. 9-10; Michael Collins, "The Path to Freedom", 1922, p. 54; Sean Cronin, "Irish Nationalism", 1981, p. 105; P. S. O’Hegarty, "A History of Ireland Under the Union", p. 669; Tim Pat Coogan, "1916: Easter Rising", p. 50; Kathleen Clarke, "Revolutionary Woman", 1991, p. 44; Robert Kee, "The Bold Fenian Men", 1976, p. 203, Owen McGee, "The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from the League to Sinn Féin", 2005, pp. 353-354.] Though the Volunteers' stated purpose was not the establishment of a republic, the IRB intended to use the organisation to do just that, recruiting high ranking members into the IRB, notably Joseph Plunkett, Thomas MacDonagh, and Patrick Pearse, who was co-opted to the Supreme Council in 1915. These men, together with Clarke, MacDermott, Eamonn Ceannt and eventually James Connolly of the Irish Citizen Army, constituted the Military Committee, the sole planners of the Rising.

Hindu German Conspiracy

Before and during World War I, the IRB in the United States was closely associated with the Ghadar Party, as was Clan Na Gael. The Brotherhood is believed to have played a major role in supporting Indian nationalists, as well as playing a key role in the Hindu German Conspiracy. Those closely involved with the Indian movement, and later involved in the plot, included major Irish republican and Irish-American nationalist figures, including John Devoy, Joseph McGarrity, Roger Casement, Éamon de Valera,Matthew Erin Plowman, "Irish Republicans and the Indo-German Conspiracy of World War I", New Hibernia Review 7:3 (2003) 81-105.]

Later history

The oath

The original I.R.B. oath, as quoted by Thomas Clarke Luby and John O'Leary, and which is among several versions in James Stephens’s own papers, ran:

This oath was significantly revised by Stephens in Paris in the summer of 1859. He asked Luby to draw up a new text, omitting the secrecy clause. The omitting of the secrecy clause was outlined in a letter from Stephen's to John O'Mahony on 6 April 1859 and the reasons for it. [...The form of the test, I leave to yourself, merely telling you that the oath of secrecy must be omitted. The clause, however, which binds them to "yield implicit obedience to the commands of superior officers" provides against their babbling propensities, for, when the test in its modified form is administered, you, as the superior official, in the case of the men you enroll, command them to be silent with regard to the affairs of the brotherhood, and to give the same command to the men of the grade below them, and so on. But the test, in its modified form, is not to be administered to any one who considers it a cause of confession....Rossa, p. 279.] ‘Henceforth,’ wrote Luby to O’Leary "we denied that we were technically a secret body. We called ourselves a military organization; with, so to speak, a legionary oath like all soldiers." [ Ryan Desmond, p. 91.]

The revised oath ran:

In yet a later version it read:

"In the presence of God, I, ..., do solemnly swear that I will do my utmost to establish the independence of Ireland, and that I will bear true allegiance to the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Government of the Irish Republic and implicitly obey the constitution of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and all my superior officers and that I will preserve inviolable the secrets of the organisation." [http://www.nli.ie/1916/pdf/3.2.1.pdf]

Irish War of Independence

The IRB was greatly influential during the 1919–21 Irish War of Independence, as its president since the summer of 1919 was Michael Collins, who was also a leader in the Irish Republican Army.

Anti-Treaty republicans like Ernie O'Malley, [In his book "The Singing Flame", O'Malley, who was not an IRB member, describes attending an IRB meeting in Limerick in 1922, in which members were ordered to accept the Treaty. He viewed this as an attempt to manipulate the IRA by a secret oath-bound organisation.
] who fought during the civil war against the Treaty, saw the IRB as being used to undermine the Irish Republic. Following the end of the civil war in 1924, the Supreme Council, under Collins' protégé Richard Mulcahy as chairman, voted to dissolve the organisation, deeming that its goals had been achieved.Fact|date=March 2008

Presidents of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (1858-1922)

What follows is a list of known IRB presidents. As no formal records exist for the IRB, accurate dates cannot be provided in all cases. The position of president was, at times, merely honorific.Fact|date=February 2008

No.	Name	Assumed position	Left position	Source
1	James Stephens (Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic)	March 17, 1858	December 1866
2	Thomas J. Kelly	August 1866	11 September 1867
3	James Francis Xavier O'Brien	c. 1869	c. 1872
4	Charles Kickham	15 January 1873	22 August 1882
5	John O'Connor	1882	1891
6	John O'Leary	1885	16 March 1907
7	Neal O'Boyle	1907	1910
8	John Mulholland	1910	1912
9	Seamus Deakin	1913	1914
10	Denis McCullough	1915	1916
11	Thomas Ashe	1916	1917
12	Seán McGarry	November 1917	May 1919
13	Harry Boland	1919	1920
14	Patrick Moylett	September 1920	November 1920
15	Michael Collins	1920	1922

References

ources

*M J Kelly, "The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882-1916", Boydell, 2006. ISBN 1843834456
*Sean Cronin, "The McGarrity Papers", Anvil Books, Ireland, 1972
*Joseph Denieffe, "A Personal Narrative of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood", The Gael Publishing Co., 1906
*Michael Kenny, "The Fenians", The National Museum of Ireland in association with Country House, Dublin, 1994, ISBN 0 946172 42 0
*F. S. L. Lyons, "Ireland Since the Famine", Fontana, 1973
*Owen McGee, "The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from The Land League to Sinn Féin", Four Courts Press, 2005, ISBN 1 85182 972 5
*Leon Ó Broin, "Fenian Fever: An Anglo-American Delemma", Chatto & Windus, London, 1971, ISBN 0 7011 1749 4.
*John O'Leary, "Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism", Downey & Co., Ltd, London, 1896 (Vol. I & II)
*Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, "Rossa's Recollections, 1838 to 1898" Mariner"s Harbor, NY, 1898
*Dr. Mark F. Ryan,"Fenian Memories", Edited by T. F. O'Sullivan, M. H. Gill & Son, LTD, Dublin, 1945
*Kathleen Clarke, "Revolutionary Woman: My Fight for Ireland's Freedom", O'Brien Press, Dublin, 1997, ISBN 0 86278 245 7
*Christy Campbell, "Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria," HarperCollins, London, 2002, ISBN 0 00 710483 9
* [http://www.anphoblacht.com/news/detail/26244 "An Phoblacht" 13 March 2008]
*"Irish Times"
*"Encyclopædia Britannica", 1911.

See also

* Catalpa rescue,The escape of six Fenians from Australia.
* [http://www.ucd.ie/archives/html/collections/irb.html UCD Archives]

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/profiles/po17.shtml The Irish Republican Brotherhood] , from the BBC History site
* [http://www.charleslivermore.com/keogan/ Irish Nationalism and Anglo-American Naturalization: The Settlement of the Expatriation Question 1865-1872]