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Updated: June 8, 2025


It commenced its Parliamentary action in 1874; but was ere long broken up by the more violent spirits within its own ranks. As had so frequently happened in similar movements in Ireland, France and elsewhere, the moderate men were thrust aside, and the extremists carried all before them. Fenianism, though apparently crushed in Ireland, continued to flourish in America.

For O'Donovan's elder sons were strong Nationalists and Fenians; so that, on the death of his old friend, Larcom was like an old hen having charge of a brood of ducklings who could not be kept from the troubled waters of Fenianism. There is no doubt that Larcom's influence kept them from or saved them from a lot of trouble.

The old Fenianism was politically of little account, socially of no danger, except to a few individuals who could be easily protected, and has been grossly exaggerated, either wilfully or through ignorance. Matters were very different after Mr. Gladstone, by successive acts, of what I maintain were criminal legislation, deliberately fostered treason and encouraged outrage in Ireland.

North and south, east and west, the English people were in a ferment of anxious alarm; and everywhere Fenianism was cursed as an unholy thing to be cut from society as an ulcerous sore to be banned and loathed as a pestilence a foul creation with murder in its glare, and the torch of the incendiary burning in its gory hand.

Such an outbreak was more dangerous than Fenianism, for to the credit of the Irish in Canada, it should be said that they gave no countenance to the Fenian intruders. The French people in Quebec, however, had strong sympathies for their race in the Red River Settlement.

Our position will be worse than that of Russia in this respect, that, while her Poland is only a province, our Fenianism is an element pervading every city of the United Kingdom in which Irish abound, and allying itself with kindred misery, discontent, and disorder.

It was about this time that the labourers began to think the young master rather more important than the old one; but for their connivance, James Rooney could never have been drawn into Fenianism. The conspiracy was just the thing to fascinate the boy's impressionable heart.

They afterwards got their "Patrick" in the little Duke of Connaught, but I fear were none the more disposed to die for the English Queen. Perhaps he came a little too late. The Queen on this trip expressed the intention of creating the Prince of Wales Earl of Dublin, by way of compliment and conciliation, and perhaps she did, but still Fenianism grew and flourished In Ireland.

It may be asked, after all, what did Fenianism do for Ireland? To those who ask the question I would answer that no honest effort for liberty has ever been made in vain. If Fenianism did nothing else, it kept alive the tradition and the spirit of freedom among Irishmen, and handed them on to the next generation.

Whatever censure may be attached to any portion of the career of the founders of Fenianism, after the organization had become a recognized power on both sides of the Atlantic, we cannot divest ourselves of the settled impression, that the men who were mainly instrumental in calling it into existence and sustaining its infancy, were actuated by the purest motives.

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