Fenian Brotherhood The Fenian Brotherhood was an Irish republican organisation founded in the United States in 1858 by John O ' Mahony and Michael Doheny . It was a precursor to Clan na Gael , a sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood . Members were commonly known as " Fenians " . O ' Mahony , who was a Celtic scholar , named his organisation after the Fianna , the legendary band of Irish warriors led by Fionn mac Cumhaill . Background . The Fenian Brotherhood trace their origins back to 1798 and the United Irishmen , who had been an open political organisation only to be 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 . 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led the emancipation campaign , then attempted the same methods in his campaign to have the Act of Union with Britain repealed .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 that attracted vast popular support , the government thought the Union was more important than Irish public opinion . In the early 1840s , 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 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 . During the famine , the social class comprising small farmers and labourers was almost wiped out by starvation , disease and emigration . The " laissez – faire " economic policies persued by the government meant that help was " slow , hesitant and insufficient . " The Great Famine of the 1840s caused the deaths of one million Irish people and over a million more emigrated to escape it . 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 . Shocked by the scenes of starvation and greatly influenced by the revolutions then sweeping Europe , the Young Ireland ers 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 elsewhere . The reasons for the failure were obvious : the people were totally despondent after three years of famine , and being prompted to rise up 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 . 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 . After the collapse of the ' 48 rebellion James Stephens and John O ' Mahony went to the Continent to avoid arrest . In Paris they supported themselves by teaching and translation work and planned the next stage of " the fight to overthrow British rule in Ireland . " In 1856 O ' Mahony went to America and founded the Fenian Brotherhood in 1858 . Stephens returned to Ireland and in Dublin on St . Patrick ' s Day 1858 , following an organising tour through the length and breadth of the country , founded the Irish counterpart of the American Fenians , the Irish Republican Brotherhood . Fenian raids into Canada . In the United States , O ' Mahony ' s presidency over the Fenian Brotherhood was being increasingly challenged by William R . Roberts . Both Fenian factions raised money by the issue of bonds in the name of the " Irish Republic , " which were bought by the faithful in the expectation of their being honoured when Ireland should be " A Nation Once Again " . These bonds were to be redeemed " six months after the recognition of the independence of Ireland . " Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants subscribed . Large quantities of arms were purchased , and preparations were openly made by the Roberts faction for a co - ordinated series of raids into Canada , which the United States government took no major steps to prevent . Many in the US administration were not indisposed to the movement because of Britain ' s failure to support the Union during the civil war . Roberts ' " Secretary for War " was General T . W . Sweeny , who was struck off the American army list from January 1866 to November 1866 to allow him to organise the raids . The purpose of these raids was to seize the transportation network of Canada , with the idea that this would force the British to exchange Ireland ' s freedom for possession of their Province of Canada . Before the invasion , the Fenians had received some intelligence from like - minded supporters within Canada but did not receive support from all Irish Catholics there who saw the invasions as threatening the emerging Canadian sovereignty . In April 1866 , under the command of John O ' Mahony , a band of more than 700 members of the Fenian Brotherhood arrived at the Maine shore opposite the island with the intention of seizing Campobello from the British . British warships from Halifax , Nova Scotia were quickly on the scene and a military force dispersed the Fenians . This action served to reinforce the idea of protection for New Brunswick by joining with the British North American colonies of Nova Scotia , Canada East , and Canada West in to form the Dominion of Canada . The command of the expedition in Buffalo , New York , was entrusted by Roberts to Colonel John O ' Neill , who crossed the Niagara River ( the Niagara is the international border ) at the head of at least 800 ( O ' Neill ' s figure ; usually reported as up to 1 , 500 in Canadian sources ) men on the night and morning of 31 May / 1 June 1866 , and briefly captured Fort Erie , defeating a Canadian force at Ridgeway . Many of these men , including O ' Neill , were battle - hardened veterans of the American Civil War . In the end the invasion had been broken by the US authorities ' subsequent interruption of Fenian supply lines across the Niagara River and the arrests of Fenian reinforcements attempting to cross the river into Canada . It is unlikely that with such a small force that they would have ever achieved their goal . Other Fenian attempts to invade occurred throughout the next week in the St . Lawrence Valley . As many of the weapons had in the meantime been confiscated by the US army , relatively few of these men actually became involved in the fighting . There even was a small Fenian raid on a storage building that successfully got back some weapons that had been seized by the US Army . Many were eventually returned anyway by sympathetic officers . To get the Fenians out of the area , both in the St . Lawrence and Buffalo , the US government purchased rail tickets for the Fenians to return to their homes if the individuals involved would promise not to invade any more countries from the United States . Many of the arms were returned later if the person claiming them could post bond that they were not going to be used to invade Canada again , although some were possibly used in the raids that followed . In December 1867 , O ' Neill became president of the Roberts faction of the Fenian Brotherhood , which in the following year held a great convention in Philadelphia attended by over 400 properly accredited delegates , while 6 , 000 Fenian soldiers , armed and in uniform , paraded the streets . At this convention a second invasion of Canada was determined upon ; while the news of the Clerkenwell explosion was a strong incentive to a vigorous policy . Henri Le Caron , who , while acting as a secret agent of the British government , held the position of " Inspector - General of the Irish Republican Army , " asserts that he distributed fifteen thousand stands of arms and almost three million rounds of ammunition in the care of the many trusted men stationed between Ogdensburg , New York and St . Albans , Vermont , in preparation for the intended raid . It took place in April 1870 , and proved a failure just as rapid and complete as the attempt of 1866 . The Fenians under O ' Neill ' s command crossed the Canadian frontier near Franklin , Vermont , but were dispersed by a single volley from Canadian volunteers . O ' Neill himself was promptly arrested by the United States authorities acting under the orders of President Ulysses S . Grant . After resigning as president of the Fenian Brotherhood , John O ' Neill unsuccessfully attempted an unsanctioned raid in 1871 , joining the forces of his remaining Fenian supporters with exiled members of the Red River Rebellion . The raiding party crossed the border into Manitoba at Pembina , Dakota Territory and took possession of the Hudson ' s Bay Company trading post on the Canada side . US soldiers from the fort at Pembina , with permission of Canadian official Gilbert McMicken , crossed the border into Canada and arrested the Fenian raiders without resistance . The Fenian threat prompted calls for Canadian confederation . Confederation had been in the works for years but was only implemented in 1867 , the year following the first raids . In 1868 , a Fenian sympathiser assassinated Irish - Canadian politician Thomas D ' Arcy McGee in Ottawa for his condemnation of the raids . Fear of Fenian attack plagued the Lower Mainland of British Columbia during the 1880s , as the Fenian Brotherhood was actively organising in Washington and Oregon , but raids never actually materialised . At the inauguration of the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 , photos taken of the occasion show three large British warships sitting in the harbour just off the railhead and its docks . Their presence was explicitly because of the threat of Fenian attack or terrorism , as were the large numbers of troops on the first train . 1867 and after . During the latter part of 1866 Stephens endeavoured to raise funds in America for a fresh rising planned for the following year . He issued a bombastic proclamation in America announcing an imminent general rising in Ireland ; but he was himself soon afterwards deposed by his confederates , among whom dissension had broken out . The Fenian Rising proved to be a " doomed rebellion , " poorly organised and with minimal public support . Most of the Irish - American officers who landed at Cork , in the expectation of commanding an army against England , were imprisoned ; sporadic disturbances around the country were easily suppressed by the police , army and local militias . After the 1867 rising , IRB headquarters in Manchester opted to support neither of the dueling American factions , promoting instead a new organisation in America , Clan na Gael . The Fenian Brotherhood itself , however , continued to exist until voting to disband in 1880 . In 1881 , the submarine " Fenian Ram " , designed by John Philip Holland for use against the British , was launched by the Delamater Iron Company in New York .