Qualla: Fenian Rising

Fenian Rising: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CeltBrowne, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the night of 5 March 1867, several hundred Fenians walked out of Dublin into a snowstorm. Their orders were to converge on Tallaght Hill, where the leadership had promised a coordinated nationwide rising. Most of them were unarmed or carried pikes. The Dublin Castle administration knew exactly where they were going, having been informed by paid agents inside the Irish Republican Brotherhood for over a year. The Royal Irish Constabulary intercepted them near the police barracks at Tallaght and drove them off with rifle fire. Twelve people died across Ireland that day. The rising never coalesced. Within a week the leadership was in custody. The Fenians had failed almost completely—and within fifty years their failure had become the founding moment of modern Irish republicanism.

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Image: CeltBrowne | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fenian Rising: The Transatlantic Brotherhood

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fenian Brotherhood, Public domain. The Fenians were a single movement with two heads. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was founded in Dublin by James Stephens in 1858, taking its name from the Fianna of legend. The same year, in the United States, John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny founded the Fenian Brotherhood as ...

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Image: Fenian Brotherhood | Public domain

Fenian Rising: Chester Castle and the Kerry Rising

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Tenniel, Public domain. In February 1867, Michael Davitt and a small Fenian party planned a raid on Chester Castle in England to seize weapons for the planned Irish rising. Irish immigrants in England were to cut telegraph lines, commandeer trains to Holyhead, hijack ships, and launch a surprise attack ...

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Image: John Tenniel | Public domain

Fenian Rising: 5 March: Snow, Confusion, Defeat

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Tenniel, Public domain. Risings took place that day in Dublin, Cork City, and Limerick. Bodies of men moved along the Crumlin, Greenhills, and Rathmines roads towards Tallaght Hill. The historian William Domville Handcock, writing in 1877, noted that the authorities had let the Fenians collect arms and ...

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Image: John Tenniel | Public domain

Fenian Rising: The Manchester Martyrs and the Clerkenwell Outrage

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit C. Dammann (London), Public domain. The failure of the rising in Ireland did not end the campaign. On 18 September 1867, a Fenian rescue party in Manchester attacked a prison van carrying Thomas J. Kelly and Timothy Deasy. Sergeant Charles Brett, inside the van, was killed when the lock was shot off. Three Fenians—...

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Image: C. Dammann (London) | Public domain

Fenian Rising: The Political Aftermath

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Tenniel, Public domain. A military failure became a political success. Large protests in Ireland against the death sentences led to many of them being reprieved. Isaac Butt founded the Amnesty Association for Fenian prisoners; he went on to found the Home Rule League. In 1879, John Devoy and the IRB lea...

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Image: John Tenniel | Public domain