THE FENIAN MOVEMENT 203 



to be much less than the Fenians expected. Those that did turn out, 

 3,000 in all, entered into their work half-heartedly. All the attacks were 

 easily repulsed. Arrests followed in a wholesale manner and the last 

 dignified attempt of the Fenian Brotherhood to gain the independence 

 of their beloved isle ended in ignominious failure. But the excitement 

 among the Irish population was more intense and the effect on industry 

 was more disastrous, than during any of the previous uprisings. Of 

 all the revolutions in Ireland, indeed, the uprising 1 of March, 1867, 

 was the severest and most destructive. 



Scattering outrages and demonstrations followed during the remainder 

 of 1867. The most notorious of these outrages was the attempt 2 of the 

 Fenians to rescue two of their number from the police of Manchester, 

 England. 3 A few were killed in the affray. Three of the rescuing 

 Fenians were captured, tried, convicted of treason, and hung. The 

 news of the execution was received with joy in England but its reception 

 in Ireland doomed to bitter disappointment all hopes of the English 

 that the Irish discontent had subsided. In Dublin a great commemora- 

 tive funeral, 4 participated in by 15,000 people of all classes, was held 

 in memory of the Manchester martyrs. 



In December, the revolutionary spirit again broke out in Ireland. 

 The immediate occasion was the renewed efforts of the American Fenians 

 and the reported departure of Stephens to the island personally to con- 

 duct an insurrection. 5 The excitement waxed warm indeed. Business, 

 scarce revived, was again prostrated, and once more panic ensued. 

 Then occurred, over in England, an outrage which was to arouse all 

 Englishmen to the portentous meaning of these repeated revolutions. 



1 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1867, Vol. I, p. 67; Lalor, Vol. II, p. 173; the London Times oi May, 1867. 



3 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1867, Vol. I, p. 149-51; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. IV, 

 p. 143; Irish Literature, Vol. VII, p. 2607. 



•J September, 1867. 



* "The Dublin procession, "says Mr. A. M. Sullivan, a persistent opponent of Fenianism, "was a marvelous 

 display. The day was cold, wet, and gloomy, yet it was computed that 150,000 persons participated in the 

 demonstration, 60,000 of them marching in a line over a route some three or four miles in length. As the three 

 hearses, bearing the names of the executed men, passed through the streets, the multitude that lined the streets 

 fell on their knees, every head was bared, and not a sound was heard save the solemn notes of the 'Dead 

 March in Saul' from the bands or the sobs that broke occasionally from the crowd." — O'Brien's Life of 

 Parnell, "Irish Literature," Vol. VII, p. 2609. 



s Diplomatic Correspondence, 1867, Vol. I, p. 35. 



