Cheryl MacDonald - Canada Under Attack: Irish-American Veterans of the Civil War and Their Fenian Campaign to Conquer Canada

Thomas DArcy McGee

After watching the events in Europe, the leaders of Young Ireland determined it was time for action. Ireland had fallen into hard economic times, made worse by an Gorta Mr (the Great Hunger). Beginning in 1845, when the country had a population of about 8.5 million, a disease had attacked the potatoes that were almost the sole source of food for about one in three Irish. Starvation, malnutrition, and disease would kill a million Irish between 1845 and 1852 and cause another million to leave the country.

Meanwhile, the British government did little to relieve the situation, fuelling the anger of nationalists, such as the Young Irelanders. The fury over the famine, plus the inspiration of the revolts on the European continent, they reasoned, might combine to win Irish independence once and for all. But the British government, realizing what had happened on the continent could spread to the United Kingdom, suspended the long-established right of British subjects to habeas corpus on July 22, 1848. This made it possible for the government to imprison without trial anyone accused of a crime.

It was too much for the Young Irelanders. On July 23, the leaders called for open revolt, travelling through the counties of Wexford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary. On July 29, matters came to a head at the small village of The Commons, when supporters of Young Ireland leader William Smith OBrien barricaded an area to prevent his arrest. When a group of Irish constabulary approached, the rebels chased them. The forty-seven policemen took shelter in a two-storey farmhouse, where they found the five children of widow Margaret McCormack and held them hostage.

In response to pleas from Mrs. McCormack, OBrien persuaded the constabulary to free the children and shook hands with some of the officers through the window of the house. Then one of the policemen opened fire and a battle erupted. James Stephens and another Young Irelander dragged OBrien to safety and were both wounded in the process.

The shooting went on for several hours. The constabulary in the McCormack house were running low on ammunition, but it became clear that reinforcements were on the way. The rebels dispersed. The leaders of Young Ireland became hunted men. Some, including OBrien, were captured and transported to Bermuda or Van Diemens Land (Australia). Others managed to escape. James Stephens, who had pulled OBrien out of the line of fire, and another young man, John OMahony, made it safely to France, and OMahony eventually sailed for the United States.At the time the fighting erupted at The Commons, another Young Irelander, twenty-two-year-old Thomas DArcy McGee, was in Scotland recruiting for the cause. At the age of seventeen, McGee had emigrated to the United States from Ireland with a sister. Over the next few years, he had a successful career as a writer, orator, and eloquent voice for Irish independence. Because of his work, in 1845 he was invited to return to Ireland and write for the Freemans Journal in Dublin. This led to his involvement in the Young Ireland movement. McGee was back in Ireland by July 31, 1848. Although there was constant risk he would be recognized as an activist and arrested, he tried to rally his countrymen to finish what had been started at the McCormack farmhouse, frequently posing as a student studying for the priesthood as he travelled around. Unable to drum up support for an armed revolt, he left for America on September 1.

At this time, McGee was a married man with a young family. Although he resumed his career in the U.S. and continued to impress audiences and readers, he became disillusioned with American republicanism and the discrimination directed at Irish Catholics. By the spring of 1857 he had moved to Montreal, where he decided to enter politics.

In the interim, two of his cronies, James Stephens and John OMahony, were again working for Irish independence. Although exiled for a period, Stephens had returned to Ireland in 1856. On St. Patricks Day 1857, discussions with Stephens resulted in the formation of a new organization, the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. Its purpose was to achieve independence for Ireland. The following year, in New York City, James Stephens was made supreme organizer and director of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in America. Within a short time, Stephens renamed the organization the Fenians.