Fenian
[5][need quotation to verify] James Stephens, one of the "Men of 1848" (a participant in the 1848 revolt), had established himself in Paris, and was in correspondence with John O'Mahony in the United States and other advanced nationalists at home and abroad.
Along with Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary and Charles Kickham he founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood on 17 March 1858 in Lombard Street, Dublin.
[7] In the face of nativist suspicion, it quickly established an independent existence, although it still worked to gain Irish American support for armed rebellion in Ireland.
In 1865, O'Mahony's leadership was challenged and the movement was split by a faction led by William B. Roberts, a wealthy New York City dry-goods merchant, more closely allied with the Democratic-Party machine.
In contrast to Roberts, Bell, committed to black suffrage and to Reconstruction, was allied to the Republicans and was calling a "cleansing" of the spirits of the Irish in America: "Let our people fling off the scales of bigotry and declare that all men are entitled to 'life, liberty, and happiness.
At the close of 1866, a conference of the refugees of the IRB and many of the American officers who had been in Ireland was held in New York and presided over by Stephens, at which the decision was taken that the fight should be made early in 1867.
The ultimate goal of the Fenian raids was to hold Canada hostage and therefore be in a position to blackmail the United Kingdom to give Ireland its independence.
Francis Bernard McNamee, the man who started the Fenian movement in Montreal (and who was later suspected of being a government spy), was a case in point.
The danger posed by the Fenian raids was an important element in motivating the British North America colonies to consider a more centralised defence for mutual protection, ultimately realised through Canadian Confederation.
The four Irish provinces (Connacht, Leinster, Ulster and Munster), along with Scotland, the north and south of England and London, had representatives on the council.
The Duke recovered but the attack was used by politician Henry Parkes to wage a sectarian campaign against Catholics and people of Irish origin.
The ship Catalpa was sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Fremantle, Western Australia, a distance of some 12,000 miles, and took the men back to the United States.
[20] In Northern Ireland, Fenian is used by some as a derogatory word for Irish Catholics;[21][22] in 2012, British National Party leader Nick Griffin was criticised by Unionists and Republicans for tweeting the term while attending an Ulster Covenant event at Stormont, Belfast; Griffin referred to Lambeg drums, saying "the bodran [sic] can't match the lambeg, you Fenian bastards".
[27] Use of the term as a religious slur carried criminal penalties in some contexts under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, before its repeal in January 2018.
In 2013, AFC Ajax was fined €25,000 by UEFA when its supporters displayed a banner reading "Fenian Bastards" at a match between the sides at the Amsterdam Arena on 6 November that year.
