THE FENIAN MOVEMENT 1 89 



of the organization, giving him the title, Head Centre. He received 

 his commission, he avers, 1 "from elsewhere," probably, that is, from 

 one or both of the revolutionary societies in Ireland. The Brotherhood 

 was organized for the purpose of gaining the independence of Ireland. 

 It was not an agitation for remedies, but a conspiracy for revolution. 2 

 It looked for no triumph save a triumph of arms. 3 



The Brotherhood, from the first, had no strong natural leaders. 

 For some reason, ostensibly because it was thought to be a secret order, 

 the Catholic clergy were bitterly opposed to the movement. Nor did 

 it find support among the Protestant Irish or among the Irish gentry. 

 It was thus deprived of the two classes from which alone intelligent and 

 competent leadership could come. The members of the Brotherhood 

 were from the peasant class 4 — day laborers and servant girls. Its 

 leaders and organizers, save those that were professional revolutionists, 

 must come from this class. The average local leader of the movement, 

 therefore, was ignorant and incompetent 5 with no grasp upon the 

 tremendousness of the task of dismembering the world's great empire. 

 As it was not a movement seeking to solve peaceably the great Irish 

 problems of the day, it did not attract the best of the Irish thinkers. It 

 had but few poets 6 and little literature. Deprived of the columns of 

 the Catholic Irish journals, it had to create its own journal. For general 

 notices, it made use of such of the American papers as were catering to 

 the Irish vote. 



During the first two or three years of its life, the Brotherhood had a 

 slow but steady growth. Local orders ("Circles") were organized 

 throughout the whole country, south as well as north. Urged on by 

 the leaders, many of the Fenians joined the militia 7 of their respective 



1 Proceedings of the First National Fenian Convention, pp. 6 and 8. 



* Said one of the Fenians: "Is it so very difficult for you to understand that the Irish people want to be 

 rid of England altogether — that they would rather have bad laws of their own making than good ones of yours, 

 and that no possible reforms would be acceptable to the Irish people?" — Quoted from a Fenian Magazine in 

 Quarterly Review, p. 137, January, 1868. 



3 Proceedings of the First Fenian National Convention, p. 6; also The Nation, Vol. II, p. 296. 



« Quarterly Review, p. 266, April, 1868. 



s As an example see the biography of P. H. Simnot in Providence Daily Journal, p. 1, January 9, 1866. 



6 Charles Kirkham, John Casey, and Ellen O'Leary, Irish Literature, Vol. Ill, p. xi. 



' Edinburg Review, p. 265, April, 1868. 



