Sir, —It is unfortunate that Myles Dungan chose to mar his interestingpiece (HI 17.5, Sept./Oct. 2009) on the efforts of William O’Shea tomaintain his political support in the constituency of Clare in the1880s by peppering his article with derogatory references to theFenians and other resistance movements in the county at the time.Nationalists and republicans are … Read more
Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland Marnie Hay (Manchester University Press, £55) ISBN 9780719079870 Marnie Hay begins her study of Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969) by claiming him to be one of ‘the losers of Irish history’. Despite Hobson’s tireless work as a republican propagandist and as a grassroots organiser for the IRB … Read more
The Fenian problem: insurgency and terrorism in a liberal state Brian Jenkins (Liverpool University Press, £65) ISBN 9781846311758 Some contemporary writers on terrorism argue that the British government’s response to Fenianism set a pattern of moral panic and the repression of civil liberties that has characterised state responses to such challenges down to the … Read more
When Charles Stewart Parnell’s coffin was drawn through the streets of Dublin on Sunday 11 October 1891, the carriages immediately following the hearse were occupied, appropriately, by members of his family. Four carriages back, however, was one carrying a number of prominent Fenians, most notably John O’Leary and James Stephens. Accompanying the two legendary IRB … Read more
The dynamiters tells the story of the first urban bombing campaign in history, that carried out by Irish-American Fenians in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. It provides a cogent analysis of Fenian urban bombings against the backdrop of transformations in late nineteenth-century revolutionary violence, and provides a detailed analysis of parallels between Irish-American … Read more