Overview

Based on extensive archival research, this fascinating monograph rescues from obscurity the lives of over a thousand Fenians. Fenianism railed against the depopulation of a postFamine Ireland, asserting the rights of ordinary people in defi ance of the British Empire, then oft en supported by the emergent Catholic middle class. As a tenacious conspiracy, represented in these islands by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Fenianism propagated an independent, egalitarian republic through travelling organizers and radical newspapers, inspired by the ideals of Th eobald Wolfe Tone. Soldiers of Liberty traces the secret organization throughout Ireland, Britain, North America and Australasia, highlighting the contribution of Fenian women and the oft en tragic lives of committed activists, while revealing the hitherto-unknown fate of ubiquitous informers enlisted by Dublin Castle.

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9781843517528

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Reviews

'Eva O Cathaoir's panoramic survey is the first comprehensive scholarly account of the movement from secretive beginning on St Patrick's Day 1858 to enigmatic end in the mid-1920s. Rejecting depictions of Fenianism as mere pastime , all she demands of the reader is that it be taken seriously. She succeeds brilliantly in showing that most historians have underestimated the soldiers of liberty as, in the end, the authorities did. Her comprehensive history of the bold Fenian men will be seen as an important landmark. It will also prove an invaluable source-book, thanks not least to its short biographies of a thousand Munster and Kilkenny Fenians and its resonant and comprehensive list of our Fenian dead .' -CORMAC O'GRADA, author of Black '47 and Beyond (Princeton, 1999) and Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce (Princeton, 2006).

Author Information

Eva Ó Cathaoir moved from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany, to Ireland on winning an Irish government scholarship to continue her studies at Trinity College Dublin. A historian and promoter of Irish heritage, she specializes in nineteenth-century history and has been published widely on the Poor Law, the Famine and the Fenian movement. Her works include A Portrait of Bray (1998) and contributions to Enniscorthy: A History, edited by Colm Tóibín (2010).

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