Fenia

IRB organizations spread in the 1860s and 1870s in Ireland, the United Kingdom , and also among Irish immigrants in the USA, Canada , Australia, and others. The main goal of the Fenians was the creation of an independent Republic of Ireland through secretly prepared armed rebellion. The activity of the Fenians reflected the protest of the masses of Ireland against British colonial rule, in particular against the expulsion of Irish tenants from the land in the second half of the 19th century. However, conspiratorial tactics prevailed in their activities (the social and economic demands of the peasantry and the proletariat did not highlight the IRB leadership), which prevented them from gaining solid support among the masses.

In 1865, the persecution by the British authorities began: some of their leaders were arrested, the newspaper Irish People was occupied by the police.

From the very first days of 1866, open appearances of the Fenians , British troops in Ireland had to guard the landlords and city authorities. Habeas Corpus Act 'a has been suspended. Fearing the landing of the Fenians from America, the government surrounded Ireland with a watch fleet. By December, many British left Ireland, fearing an armed attack by the Fenians.

This state of affairs continued in 1867: on September 18, in Manchester, the Fenians attacked a prison carriage in which Irish political prisoners were sitting and tried to free them. In a clash surrounding the carriage between the phenies and the police, one of the last, Brett, was killed, the prisoners released, but twenty-three were detained, and five of them were tried on charges of Brett’s murder, although only one fatal hit (Allen ), the rest almost did not see Brett. However, the three defendants were charged (Allen, O'Brien and Larkin) and hanged ; the fate of the two was softened.

Three weeks after the execution of the comrades, the Fenians made an attempt to blow up the wall of the Clarkenville Prison in London where two members of the organization were kept. Twelve people were killed, more than a hundred wounded, several neighboring houses collapsed. This response to the Manchester execution shook the popularity of the Fenians in Ireland. Almost the first Irish who were caught were captured and put on trial on charges of explosion. Five of them were acquitted for the complete absence of anything that looked like evidence; but one ( Michael Barrett ), despite the almost proven alibi , was executed.

The beginning of the 1870s was the time of the comparative decline of the Fenian movement, although arrests, processes, and mysterious murders attracted public attention from time to time.

The First International supported the Fenians, although it condemned the conspiratorial tendencies in their activities, participated (in 1867 - 1870 ) in the campaign against the death sentences of the participants in the Fenian movement and for the amnesty of prisoners of the Fenians. In the 1870s - 1880s, phenies became increasingly involved in terrorist activities .

On May 6, 1882, a new, liberal governor, Lord Cavendish , arrived in Dublin ; while walking in Phoenix Park , he and his deputy Bork were suddenly attacked and killed; the killers fled. Murders and executions succeeded each other. By the way, two of the most severe judges were killed; the Jones family, consisting of six people, was cut out because of the suspicion that she might extradite the murderers of two judges. In Glasgow and in some other cities in Scotland and England , several explosions occurred, several attempts on the ranks of the police and administration. In the summer of 1883, James Carey, a member of the Phoenix Park assassination, was killed after testifying against his comrades , at the end of that year, his killer was hanged in Dublin; arrests occurred almost daily. But from the late 1880s, a boycott began to push back the violent methods of the Fenian struggle.

In the organizations of the Fenians in the USA, by the mid-1860s, the prevailing trend was that it advocated armed attacks on Canada in order to provoke a war between Great Britain and the United States and thereby create a favorable, from their point of view, environment for the struggle in Ireland itself. Therefore, the American organization “ Fenian Brotherhood "Arranged Fenian raids on Canada .

In the late XIX - early XX centuries, some of the members of the RBI moved to other organizations fighting for the independence of Ireland. IRB members participated in the 1916 Irish Uprising .

• In A. Ripley’s novel Scarlett , the sequel to Gone With the Wind , Scarlett O'Hara meets with her Irish relatives in the Fenian brotherhood ^[1] .
• In the story “Square Box” by A. Conan Doyle , the main character takes two passengers of the ship, Fleningen and Müller, for the Fenian terrorists who intended to blow up the ship ^[2] .

• Fenii // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.