FENIANS or FENIAN BROTHERHOOD, the name of a modern Irish-American revolutionary secret society, founded in America by John O'Mahony (1816-1877) in 1858. The name was derived from fiann, f einne, the legendary band of warriors in Ireland led by Find Mac Cumhaill (see FINN MAC CUMHAIL). After the col lapse of William Smith O'Brien's attempted rising in 1848, O'Ma hony, who was concerned in it, escaped abroad, and about 1858 established, in the United States, the "Fenian Brotherhood," whose members bound themselves by an oath of "allegiance to the Irish Republic, now virtually established," and swore to take up arms when called upon and to yield implicit obedience to their superior officers. The organization was modelled on that of the French Jacobins at the Revolution, and it had ramifications in every part of the world, the "Fenians," as they soon came to be generally called, being found in Australia, South America, Canada, and above all, in the United States, as well as in the large centres of population in Great Britain such as London, Manchester and Glas gow. It is, however, noteworthy that Fenianism never gained much hold on the tenant-farmers or agricultural labourers in Ire land. The movement was denounced by the priests of the Catholic Church.
After a convention held at Chicago under O'Mahony's presi dency in Nov. 1863 the movement began to show signs of life. About the same time the Irish People, a revolutionary journal, was started in Dublin by James Stephens. At the close of the American Civil War, in 1865, numbers of Irish who had borne arms flocked to Ireland, and the plans for a rising matured. The Government, well served as usual by informers, now took action. In Sept. 1865 the Irish People was suppressed, and several of the more prominent Fenians were sentenced to terms of penal servi tude, though Stephens, through the connivance of a prison warder, escaped to France. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in 1866, a considerable number of persons were arrested, and some small disturbances were suppressed by the police.
In the United States the Fenian Brotherhood made open plans for a raid into Canada. The command was entrusted to John O'Neill, who crossed the Niagara river at the head of some Boo men on June. I, 1866, and captured Fort Erie. But large numbers of his men deserted, and at Ridgeway the Fenians were routed by a battalion of Canadian volunteers. On June 3 the remnant sur rendered to the American warship "Michigan." A second raid, in 187o, was equally unsuccessful, Henri Le Caron, "Inspector general of the Irish Republican Army," being a secret agent of the English Government. An attempt at insurrection in 1867 in South and West Ireland and Lancashire had also been frustrated by an informer, John Joseph Corydon. On Sept. 18, 1867, when Thomas J. Kelly and Capt. Deasy, two prisoners arrested during this "rebellion," were being conveyed through Manchester from the court-house, the prison van was attacked by Fenians and in the scuffle Police-sergeant Brett was shot dead. Condon, Allen, Larkin, Maguire and O'Brien, who had taken a prominent part in the rescue, were arrested. All five were sentenced to death ; but Condon, who was an American citizen, was respited at the request of the United States Government, his sentence being commuted to penal servitude for life, and Maguire was granted a pardon. Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hanged on Nov. 23, and are frequently referred to as the "Manchester Martyrs." In the same month, one Richard Burke, a Fenian agent, was lodged in Clerkenwell prison in London. While he was awaiting trial a wall of the prison was blown down by gunpowder, the explosion causing the death of 12 persons, and the maiming of some 120 others. For this Michael Barrett suffered the death penalty. In 187o, Michael Davitt (q.v.) was sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude for participation in the Fenian conspiracy; and before he was released the name Fenian had become practically obsolete, though the "Irish Republican Brotherhood" and other organiza tions in Ireland and abroad carried on the same tradition. (See IRELAND, History.)