1 88 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



working in large gangs on the internal improvements of the country. 

 Such labor was poorly paid ; poor pay meant poor food and poor quar- 

 ters. 1 They crowded into low cellars and wretched tenements. These 

 miserable abodes become moral cesspools. No family life was possible; 

 no traditions could be cherished. Life in the gang, though far from the 

 city, was but little if any improvement upon this city life. With such 

 environment, and with the American people as a whole indifferent and 

 unsympathetic toward them, 2 assimilation went on very slowly, if at 

 all, and the mass of the Irish remained as distinctively Irish as they were 

 on the day they first set sail for the United States — Irish in prejudices 

 and attitude of mind. 



The characteristic bias of mind of these Irish was their hatred of 

 England. 3 The overwhelming majority of them had come from the 

 Provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, 4 where this anti- 

 English sentiment was strongest. Their life in the United States was 

 not such as to make them forgetful of their ancient grudge. Moreover, 

 among them were many of the exiled leaders of the Young Ireland upris- 

 ing 5 of 1848, and these took great care to see that the Irish in America 

 never ceased to be ardent lovers of Ireland and all things Irish and as 

 equally ardent haters of England and all things English. Under such 

 circumstances nothing could be more certain than that these Irish 

 Americans would form revolutionary societies. The first of these 

 societies, "The Irish Republican Union," 6 was established in the very 

 year that the Young Ireland Revolution failed. In 1855, a second, 

 "The Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society," 6 was organized. In 1858, 

 some forty Irish Revolutionists organized 7 the society which they happily 

 named the Fenian Brotherhood. 8 They chose O'Mahony as the head 



1 Edinburg Review, p. 261, April, 1868; Bagenal, The American Irish, p. 12. 

 1 North American Review, Vol. LII, p. 205. 



' Quarterly Review, p 130, January, 1868; Edinburg Review, p. 271, April, 1868. 

 « McCarthy, History 0} Our Own Times, Vol. IV, p. 132. 



s Irish Literature, Vol. XI, p. xi; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. IV, p. 132; "Proceedings 

 of the First Fenian National Convention," p. g. 



6 Geneva Arbitration, Vol. II, p. 254. (Foreign Relations Papers.) 



» Golden Smith, United Empire, Vol. II, p. 507; McCarthy, History oj Our Own Times, Vol. IV, 

 p. 132. 



8 There was an air of Celtic antiquity and mystery about the word "Fenian." Finna was the name of an 

 ancient Celtic caste of warriors. 



