HST2046 - The Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858-85

HST2046 The Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858-85

20 credits (Semester 1)

Module Leader: Dr Colin Reid (2024-25)

Module Summary

Britain’s ‘Irish problem’ has long roots. This document module examines one of the most important violent Irish organisations that challenged British sovereignty in Ireland. Founded in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) (or the Fenian movement, as it was also known) was a transatlantic movement dedicated to the overthrow of the British state in Ireland. Fuelled by hatred for the British after the dreadful Famine in Ireland of the 1840s, the Fenians constructed a sophisticated organisation that was part secret society, terrorist cell and propaganda machine. It was the early forerunner of the Irish Republican Army.

Despite its secretive nature, the IRB published its own newspaper, the Irish People, providing insights into the Fenian mind. In 1867, the movement staged a failed rebellion, which saw an outpour of popular support for the patriotic virtue, if not the methods, of the Fenians. During the 1870s, the Fenians gave support to constitutional movements acting to restore a self-government in Ireland, but violence returned the following decade. In 1881, the IRB launched a bombing campaign in Britain; the following year, two prominent British officials were brutally murdered by a faction of the IRB. The dynamite campaign was called off in 1885, with the constitutional struggle for Home Rule seemingly in the ascendance.

Fenianism was never static, but showed a remarkable ability to change with the times. This document option investigates aspects of Fenianism from a range of angles, such as the rationale for violence, the fraternal impulses of the movement and its relationship with constitutional movements. Using sources written and produced by contemporaries, from within the IRB and outside of it, we will consider the dynamics of Fenianism and its place within nineteenth-century Ireland. 

Teaching and Assessment

Lecture-workshops are for the whole group and are designed to help you achieve a broad awareness of the events that we’re covering, what they mean, and what historians have said about them. I’ll use them to introduce you to individuals, events, and debates, but they are also a place where you’ll be participating: your group projects will fall in the weekly lectures, and you’ll be called on to participate in activities and talk to each other. That’s where we’ll do some initial source criticism, and where I’ll start to introduce you to the principles that you’ll employ in your gobbet commentaries. 

Seminars will focus around analysis of the primary source texts, supported by selected secondary literature. In the seminars, we’ll think about ideas concerning provenance, meaning, and arguments around the sources. The seminars are designed to make you think about the underlying questions. Each week I’ll suggest a few discussion topics and ideas that you should consider while doing the reading, but the seminars rely on you bringing in your own thoughts. Does anything strike you as interesting or odd from the reading? Is there anything that has confused you, or where you want to hear other people’s ideas? 

Make sure that you also bring a copy of the sources with you to the seminars. This can be on paper or on a laptop or tablet. Mobile phones are not acceptable, however: they should be away and on silent throughout the seminars. I will ask you to put them away if I see you using one even if it’s to read sources. If any of this presents a problem then come and talk to me. 

Assessment

Please see this page for assessment details: Level 2 assessment

Introductory Reading

You can pick up an overview of nineteenth-century Irish history from a number of general texts, which will help you gain a sense of the context in which the IRB operated. I recommend these general histories in particular; you will find it helpful to return to these texts throughout the module. 

• Paul Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity, 1798-2006 (Oxford, 2007). 

• D. G. Boyce, Nineteenth-Century Ireland: The Search for Stability (Dublin, 1990). 

• R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 (London, 1988). 

• T. K. Hoppen, Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (London, 1989). 

• Alvin Jackson, Ireland, 1798-1998 (Oxford, 1999; second edn. 2010). 

You might also might it useful to occasionally dip into the (small) number of works on Irish republicanism, all of which have some interesting things to say about Fenianism:

• Tom Garvin, National Revolutionaries in Ireland, 1858-1928 (Dublin, 2005; first published 1987). 

• Iseult Honohan (ed), Republicanism in Ireland: Confronting Theories and Traditions (Manchester, 2008). 

• Norman Porter (ed), The Republican Ideal: Current Perspectives (Belfast, 1998). 

• Hereward Senior, ‘The place of Fenianism in the Irish republican tradition’, University Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (1967), pp. 250-9. 

There is only one book that provides a narrative overview of the history of the IRB, which is Leon Ó Broin, Revolutionary Underground: The Story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858- 1924 (Dublin, 1976). It is, alas, long out of print, out of date and the library doesn’t hold a copy. 

There are, however, several excellent books that we will use frequently. I mention them here to flag them in advance: 

• R. V. Comerford, The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics and Society, 1848-82 (Dublin, 1998; first published 1985) [This is a revisionist classic. Read either the 1998 or 1985 editions, they are largely the same] 

• Feargal McGarry and James McConnel (eds), The Black Hand of Republicanism: Fenianism in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2009) [This is an invaluable collection of essays that touch on a wide range of issues] 

• Owen McGee, The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood, from the Land League to Sinn Fein (Dublin, 2007) [quirky but rich in detail] 

• John Newsinger, Fenianism in Mid-Victorian Britain (London, 1994) [A short primer, written from a Marxist perspective]