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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: American Civil War


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The Fenian Rising of 1867

The Fenian Rising of 1867, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), begins in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary on March 5, 1867.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood is founded in Dublin by James Stephens in 1858. After the end of the American Civil War, the IRB hopes to recruit willing Irish veterans of that war for an insurrection in Ireland aimed at the foundation of an Irish Republic.

In 1865, the Fenians begin preparing for a rebellion by collecting firearms and recruiting men willing to fight. In September 1865, the British move to close down the Fenian newspaper The Irish People and arrest many of the leadership. In 1866, habeas corpus is suspended in Ireland and there are hundreds more arrests of Fenian activists.

In early 1867, prior to the March 5 rising, Thomas J. Kelly, Stephens’ successor as leader of the IRB, tries to launch an insurrection but it proves uncoordinated and fizzles in a series of skirmishes. In February 1867, there is an unsuccessful rising in County Kerry.

The largest of the March 5 engagements takes place at Tallaght, when several hundred Fenians, on their way to the meeting point at Tallaght Hill, are attacked by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) near the police barracks and are driven away after a firefight. A total of twelve people are killed across the country on this day. When it becomes apparent that the coordinated rising that had been planned is not transpiring, most rebels simply go home.

The rising fails as a result of lack of arms and planning, but also because of the British authorities’ effective use of informers. Most of the Fenian leadership is arrested before the rebellion takes place.

Though the Rising of 1867 is unsuccessful, they proclaim an Irish Republic, almost 50 years before the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in Easter 1916. This proclamation sheds some light on early Fenianism as it is centered with the ideas of republican democracy but is, however, flavoured with socialist ideals and a class revolution rather than a nationalist revolution per se. The proclamation claims that their war is “against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish” which denotes that their ideology at this time is in some way embedded in class differences against the landed aristocracy rather than merely against British rule.

The rising itself is a total military failure, but it does have some political benefits for the Fenian movement. There are large protests in Ireland against the execution of Fenian prisoners, many of whose death sentences are, as a result, reprieved. In 1873, the Irish Republican Brotherhood adopts a new constitution, which states that armed rebellion will not be pursued again until it has mass backing from the people. The Fenians cooperate with the Irish National Land League in the land agitation from the 1870s onwards and in the rise of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Not all Fenians agree with the new policy and several breakaway groups emerge that continue to believe in the use of political violence in pursuit of republican objectives.


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Death of Shipbuilding Mogul John Roach

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John Roach, an American industrialist who rises from humble origins as an Irish immigrant laborer to found the largest and most productive shipbuilding empire in the postbellum United States, John Roach & Sons, dies in New York City on January 10, 1887.

Roach is born on December 25, 1815, at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland, the first of seven children to Patrick Roche, a retail salesman, and his wife Abigail Meany. In 1832, at the age of sixteen, he emigrates together with his cousin to the United States. Arriving in New York City, he is at first unable to find regular work, but eventually gains secure employment at the Howell Works of James P. Allaire on the recommendation of a former employee of his father.

In 1852, after 20 years in the employment of Allaire, Roach and three partners purchase the Etna Iron Works, a small New York City ironworks which has fallen into receivership. Roach soon becomes sole proprietor, and during the American Civil War transforms the Etna Iron Works into a major manufacturer of marine engines. He continues to prosper after the war and in 1867 he purchases the Morgan Iron Works on New York’s East River and relocates his business there.

In 1871, Roach purchases the Reaney, Son & Archbold shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania, which has fallen into receivership and renames it the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works. This becomes his main facility. Over the next few years, he founds a network of new companies in Chester to support the shipyard’s operations. To give his sons a stake in the business, Roach founds the firm of John Roach & Sons, which becomes the overall parent and marketing company. He also attempts to create his own shipping line with the establishment of the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, but this venture is a costly failure.

From 1871 until 1885, John Roach & Sons is easily the largest and most productive shipbuilding firm in the United States, building more tonnage of ships than its next two chief competitors combined. In the mid-1880s the firm runs into trouble when a series of U.S. Navy contracts become the subject of political controversy. Roach signed the contracts under a Republican administration, but when the Democratic administration of Grover Cleveland comes to power, it voids one of the contracts. Doubts over the validity of the remaining three contracts make it impossible for John Roach & Sons to obtain loans and, in 1885, the Roach shipbuilding empire is forced into receivership.

During the contract disputes, Roach falls ill with a chronic mouth infection which is diagnosed as cancer in 1886. Roach undergoes surgery in the spring of 1886, but it provides only temporary relief. He dies at the age of 71 on January 10, 1887, while his business is still in the hands of receivers. Roach’s eldest son, John Baker Roach, assumes control of the business which continues for another 20 years, although it never regains the pre-eminent position in American shipbuilding that it had enjoyed under Roach Sr.

During its existence between 1871 and 1907, the shipyard established by Roach builds 179 iron ships, 98 under Roach’s own management and an additional 81 under that of John Baker Roach.