The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)
In March, 1858, in Dublin the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was set up by James Stephens. Stephens had been a member of the Young Ireland Movement until he was injured in an uprising in 1848. After this, he ran to France where he stayed for a short while before returning to Ireland with the hopes of creating a new movement.
The secret organisation was formed to help create an independent republic from British rule. It must be remembered that Ireland was still very raw after the Great Famine of 1845, and many of the Irish had the view that the British Government done as little as possible to rid themselves of the ‘Irish Problem’. This led to the majority of the Irish people believing that to prevent something so horrific happening again to their country and themselves, independence from Britain was the answer. So, if the British would not hand over Ireland, then the Irish would fight them for it.
In America, John O’ Mahony (a colleague of Stephens) formed the New York counter-part, the Fenian Brotherhood. It was beneficial for Stephens to have O’ Mahony in America gathering his own brotherhood as it would provide American money and manpower to help his cause. The members of both wings would become known infamously the ‘Fenians’ (the word Fenian comes from an old Irish legend about an indestructible army called Fianna that constantly defended the beautiful isle of ‘Eireann’ against foreign invaders).
In 1863, Stephen’s founded the newspaper The Irish People which promoted Fenian ideas and helped to attract more recruits. By 1865 there were approximately 80,000 men in the Fenians in Ireland and America. Unluckily for the movement, a plan for an uprising in 1865 was thwarted by British Intelligence. This and other postponements in calling the beginning of the rising, could eventually be a main reason for the end of the movement to begin. But the Fenians weren’t finished fighting for their cause just yet.
In February 1867 a small, local rising took place in Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry. Then on March 6th1867 the long awaited national uprising took place. However, after this the movement suffered internal divisions over the leadership and strategy. After resolving the issues within the organisations and the release of its two main leaders from prison (Jeremiah O’ Donovan Rossa and John Devoy), “its constitution was amended in 1873 and therefore to be governed by partially elected eleven-man supreme council as a representative of its seven British and Irish electoral divisions”. Members of this swore to regard the council as the ‘Government of the Irish Republic’ from there on in.
1916 seen the historic event of the Irish Easter Rising and was said to be planned by a 7 man IRB military council whose activities were concealed from the IRB Supreme Council and a lot of republicans blamed the secretiveness of the IRB for the confusion
