The Fenians

Parnell, Home Rule and Tom Merry

From 1883 to 1892 in Britain, a periodical called St Stephen’s Review was one of the many journals that catered to a conservative (and Conservative) view of the Empire – a Unionist, Loyalist position that saw anything that threatened the social and political order as anathema to the best interests of Britain. Magazines like this employed cartoonists to illustrate their pages and encouraged them to be as savage as they liked. One of the masters of the genre was William Mecham who took the professional name of Tom Merry, and in each issue he provided a political cartoon commenting on the times. Each one was as superbly drawn as it was vicious and as pointed as it was unsubtle.

In this one, designed to appeal to Unionists, Lord Randolph Churchill is depicted as King William of Orange trampling the Home Rulers. Merry’s portraiture was outstanding (that’s Churchill below) and his readership would have instantly understood who his subjects were.

In order to place these cartoons in their historical context, a little Irish history is called for, so what follows is a brief and necessarily over-simplistic outline of what Tom Merry was responding to in his cartoons.

During this period the British Parliament was obsessed with The Irish Question. According to historian Conor Mulvagh, “The rise of Charles Stewart Parnell within the Irish Parliamentary Party of the late 1870s ran parallel to a rapidly evolving agrarian crisis.”* In fact, three overlapping and often conflicting strains of Irish activism run through the 1880s. The first is that of national self-government through constitutional means – Home Rule – the goal of the Irish Parliamentary Party led by Parnell.

Gladstone, depicted by Merry always as the main threat to stability and Empire, hangs by a thread because of his dependence on the Irish vote

The second strain is that of land reform and this was a period of significant agrarian action led by Michael Davitt and the Land League. After spending much of his youth involved in the IRB, Davitt had become an advocate of non-violent agitation and civil disobedience and used these techniques to great effect in the Land League (see Robert’s post on Michael Davitt). Despite the emphasis on peaceful protest, clashes and skirmishes did occur, including the Mitchellstown Massacre in 1887.

In case the message wasn’t clear enough, Merry would add labels. Erin is sporting Plan of Campaign (more about that next time) and Murder, while a potion bottle on her table has the word Dynamite on it. The discarded clothes are Law and Order, Rights of Property and British Rule

William Ewart Gladstone by Millais, courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

The third strain was represented by the Fenians – Irish revolutionaries who had staged an unsuccessful uprising in 1867 and many of whom were living in exile in the United States. In the 1880s, orchestrated by O’Donovan Rossa from his base in New York, the Fenians carried out their Dynamite Campaign in England, causing injuries, deaths, and real terror (see my post, O’Donovan Rossa – The First Terrorist?, for more about the Fenians’ operations on Britain). While the Fenian Dynamite Campaign was condemned by the Irish Parliamentary Party and by Davitt’s Land League, both of whom saw it as undermining their objectives, it had an enormous impact in Britain, hardening sympathies against the Irish.

Gladstone and Parnell leap into the void together

The causes of constitutional and agrarian reform, however, found much common ground and the Parliamentary Party and the Land League, Parnell and Davitt, eventually entered an alliance known as the New Departure. “For Parnell, the New Departure offered the alluring prospect of hitching the the rather abstract concept of Home Rule and national Self-Government to the more emotive, popular and established political cause of the land.”*

Parnell, looking stressed, plays chess against a confident William Henry Smith. Smith (that’s him below) was the original book seller who founded the modern chain that bears his name. A member of the Conservative party, at one point he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. Each of the chess pieces is labelled. Can you recognise Victoria?

The British Parliament was in essence a two-party system by the 1880s – Liberals represented fiscally progressive and socially liberal ideals, while Conservatives represented pride in Empire and loyalty to monarchy and tradition. Elected parliamentarians from Ireland from the Unionist tradition aligned with the Conservatives, whereas Parnell’s nationalists supported Gladstone’s Liberals on a quid pro quo basis.

W H Smith courtesy if the National Portrait Gallery

Given the Conservative politics of the St Stephen’s Review, Tom Merry’s cartoons cast Parnell and Gladstone as villains. The cartoons often feature shadowy Irishmen in the background, masked and carrying dynamite. Although his Irish caricatures were not as outrageously simian in their features as those of the infamous Punch cartoons, they are often shown as drunken and thuggish.

Two sailors wearing HMS Union hats are bing tempted to join the other side

This post will serve as a brief introduction to Tom Merry’s cartoons on The Irish Question. In a subsequent post I will include examples with more Irish politicians who played a leading role in the great events of the times. I will leave you with one of my favourite Merry Cartoons below – every nation, it seems, loves Victoria and being part of her Empire, except the ‘scapegrace’ Irish man, skulking away with his dynamite, his gun, and his shillelagh.

 

Many thanks to John Lubbock and to Wellcome Images who have made these cartoons freely available on Wikimedia Commons so that they can be used under the Creative Commons license.
*’Home Rulers at Westminster’ by Conor Mulvagh, The Cambridge History of Ireland Vol IV, 2018

O’Donovan Rossa – the First Terrorist?

Fiery Rossa

The world was shocked this week by appalling acts of terror. Terrorism is rightly and universally condemned in modern Ireland – and yet this year we celebrated the centenary of the death of a man whom many, including his fellow patriots, denounced as a terrorist in his lifetime while others hailed as a hero.

Our American and Canadian readers might be surprised at how relevant his story is to their own countries.

Rossa Prisoner

I write of course of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa of Skibbereen, the ‘Unrepentant Fenian’, whose state burial in 1915 was the occasion of a fiery speech by Patrick Pearse that is commonly seen as a catalyst to the 1916 Rising. In March Back in Time I introduced him and wrote about the awful background that turned him into a revolutionary – the death of his father from famine fever and his family’s eviction and departure from Ireland. To the end he refused to call the cataclysmic events of 1845 to 1850 a famine: there was no shortage of food, he pointed out, just a shortage of humanity. It fired in him a lifelong hatred of British rule which hardened through terrible treatment in prison and which he brought with him to exile in America, where he and his fellow Fenians were accorded a hero’s welcome.

The Cuba Five were so named for the ship that brought them to America. Courtsey Library of Congress

The Cuba Five were so named for the ship that brought them to America. Courtsey Library of Congress

The Fenian brotherhood Rossa joined in America in 1870 had organised several raids on Canadian communities during the 1860s and early 70s. All were unsuccessful, but resulted in loss of life and a worsening of relationships between Canada and America, seen as harbouring and tolerating Fenian activity. The raids involved hundreds of Fenians, many of them battle-hardened veterans of the American Civil War. (For more on the Irish in the American Civil War – the numbers and the stories will amaze you – see Damian Shiels’ meticulously researched blog and website.)

According to this article on the Fenian Raids:

Ironically, though they did nothing to advance the cause of Irish independence, the 1866 Fenian raids and the inept efforts of the Canadian militia to repulse them helped to galvanize support for the Confederation of Canada in 1867. Some historians have argued that the affair tipped the final votes of reluctant Maritime provinces in favour of the collective security of nationhood, making Ridgeway the “battle that made Canada.”

Fenian Raid on Canada

The Battle of Ridgeway, courtesy Library of Congess

Embracing this militaristic approach, Rossa became as notorious an extremist in America as in Ireland. He founded a newspaper, The United Irishman, to propagate his views and raise funds for his infamous skirmishing fund. This fund, in fact, was to pay for a bombing campaign carried out in Britain from 1881 to 1885, causing injuries and deaths (to civilians, including children) – and real terror.

One of the exhibits in Skibbereen this summer consisted of newpaper clippings from American newspapers about Rossa, amply testifying to his notoriety. The top right clipping consists of snippets about Well Known People – Rossa is listed alongside William Morris, Geronimo and the Csar Of Russia

In many ways O’Donovan Rossa encapsulates a central dissonance at the heart of Irish History: he was a passionate patriot who believed in armed struggle, while many of his contemporaries espoused a pacifist (see Michael Davitt as a prime example – he referred to Rossa as O’Donovan Assa) or parliamentary approach and saw Rossa’s campaign of violence as undermining their objectives. Now, in 21st Century Ireland, we are faced with the dilemma of how to deal with historical figures who are both important markers in the struggle for independence and echoes of a violent past many no longer wish to glorify.

The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins opened O'Donovan Rossa Park in Skibbereen

The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins opened O’Donovan Rossa Park in Skibbereen

In Skibbereen this summer Rossa was celebrated in several ways. We attended not just the March, but a play, two exhibitions, a lecture, and the grand opening of a refurbished park in Rossa’s honour by Michael D Higgins, the President of Ireland. In Dublin his 1915 state funeral and graveside oration were given a full scale re-enactment, attended by the President, the Prime Minister (Taoiseach) and many dignitaries.

We toured Glasnevin Cemetary on Dublin this summer. The tour included a re-enactment of Patric Pearse's oration at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa

We toured Glasnevin Cemetary on Dublin this summer. The tour included a recital of Patrick Pearse’s oration at the grave of O’Donovan Rossa

To give you a flavour for how Rossa is revered as a hero watch this YouTube clip – the ultra-nationalist ballad features Pathé News footage of the actual funeral.

But not everyone felt that it was appropriate for the Irish government to underwrite such commemorations. This was expressed well by the historian, Carla King writing to the Irish Times. She summed up thus:

…while O’Donovan Rossa is a figure for whom we can feel some pity, his philosophy, with its commitment to mindless and counter-productive violence, launched a tradition of which we should be ashamed.

Another historian, Marie Coleman wrote:

It was unclear whether the focus of the event was Rossa himself or the significance of the funeral as signifying the rejuvenation of republicanism as a precursor to the Easter Rising. If the former, the State’s endorsement of an archaic form of irredentist Irish nationalism will sit uncomfortably with many in 21st-century Ireland and with unionist opinion in Northern Ireland.

Another exhibition opening - this one at the Skibbereen Library

Another exhibition opening – this one at the Skibbereen Library

Like many Irish people growing up in the 50s and 60s I was brought up on stories of the epic Fight for Irish Freedom, although in my family’s case it was also complicated by ancestry on both sides of the divide. In that narrative, Rossa was one in a long line of heroic freedom fighters. To dig a little deeper still into the story of O’Donovan Rossa, I went looking for signs of the man himself around Skibbereen and found them in some surprising places.  My next post will relate to Rossa’s time in Skibbereen and the legacy he left in this West Cork town.