In Phila., their hearts remained with Ireland

In the mid-1800s, a transatlantic cadre of armed nationalists called Philadelphia home.

Founded in the late 1850s, the Fenian Brotherhood was the American offshoot of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, a radical organization dedicated to Irish Home Rule. Many historians credit the Fenians with preserving the Irish national identity during one of its darkest periods.

Philadelphia's Irish population grew dramatically during Ireland's potato famine of the 1840s. "The Great Hunger" had precipitated a mass exodus, draining the country of a fourth of its population.

Included among the hunger-stricken emigrants were many with bitter memories of English rule in Ireland. In 1848, the year when revolution was almost palpable in the European air, English authorities had cruelly stamped out earlier nationalist movements such as "Young Ireland." Thus, by the late 1850s, there were a number of plots by Philadelphia Irishmen to liberate the old country.

The secret oath sworn at the initiation of new Fenian members offers a summary of their ideology: "Labor with earnest zeal for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of England and for the establishment of a free and independent government on Irish soil."

Plans were formulated to recruit Union soldiers into the Brotherhood, to use their military expertise in future campaigns against England. A raid on Canada was deemed more expedient and launched in 1866, to disastrous results. Many Irish Americans also traveled to Ireland to take part in the failed 1867 uprisings.

Factionalism eventually led to the disruption of the Fenian Brotherhood's activities in the United States. Clan Na Gael superseded the group as the avant garde of Irish independence in 1867. The Brotherhood continued some underground operations but slowly dissolved over the course of the 1870s and 1880s.