 Hi everyone, this is Dan O'Neill, the Executive Director of the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum. Before we get to our third Sunday presentation, I would like to thank the following businesses for sponsoring today's lecture. They made a vital investment in our museum, and their support is why we are able to bring you this lecture series at no charge. This month, we are really excited to bring you William McCown. Born and raised on the Mexican border of Texas in 1937, McCown is embraced for his home in Cambridge since 1984. A former intelligence analyst with the National Security Agency with a Masters in Military History, he writes about certain aspects of the struggle for Irish independence in the American Civil War of 1861-65. The published history of Captain John Lonergan, who received a Medal of Honor for gallantry in leading his Irish company at Gettysburg, and was the head of the Finians in Vermont, will hopefully be joined by several other books that are in the works. Welcome, everyone, to a presentation jointly sponsored by the Ethan Allen Homestead and the Finian Historical Society about the relations of Vermont, Quebec, and the Irish question over the years. The Finian Brotherhood, of whom I am the president, is undeservedly neglected in the history of the United States and Ireland, and in particular, Vermont, and we'll see at the end of the presentation here the significance for this unit, this organization. Just to review the starting point here, the nations in the 19th century were quite different in terms of configuration. You can see a map of 1809 arbitrarily, which includes Ireland as part of the United Kingdom, as it became, and here's the current configuration of the counties of Ireland, and the unfortunate situation where it is, the island is currently divided with the northeastern part, still part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, and the rest of the 26 counties in the south. So the original Finians that we're referencing here is a Gaelic term of the Irish, Fin as a warrior, the collective is Finia, and the agitival form is Finian. The Fina were selected young men in various countries, including Scotland, sworn to defend their country, serving the Archery, the High King. The best known was Fenmukul, whose exploits are recounted in the Finiachta, the tales of the Finia, quite interesting reading in the translation, for those of us who don't have the Irish, because of the conquest of Ireland by the English, basically, became the British, there was, and what amounted to cultural genocide practiced as they tried to obliterate the Irish language and culture. Many of these people, in order to get an education, immigrated to France and to Spain, welcomed there as fellow Catholics, as opposed to the Church of England, and many got their education in one of those countries. The model of Ireland as an oppressed and exploited plantation served as the model to exploit plantations overseas. It was rather clear to the United States that this was largely the fate if they continued under the monarchy. The French positions of extensive territory in North America were conquered by the British. The crucial battle at the plains of Abraham near Quebec City took place in 1759, and then the British crown was ceded to all the French territory in 1765. Ethan Allen, who is homestead, sponsors this presentation, acted largely through what might be considered self-interest because of his conflicting land claims between New York and New Hampshire, and he assaulted Fort Ticonderoga, a key fortification on Lake Champlain at the start of the American Revolution. He then went on to follow Montgomery and the unsuccessful attack on Montreal, where he was captured in 1775, held prisoner until 1778. Part of this time he was kept on prison hulks, decommissioned ships, and he was also shipped back to what would become the United States, and was delayed in Cork, Ireland by the weather, where he was visited and celebrated by a number of Irishmen who bestowed gifts on him and saw his example of revolution against the monarchy very favorably. Republic of Vermont governed the Green Mountain area 1777 and 1791 before becoming the 14th state in the United States. Before and during this period, the Allens toyed with discussions about forming a united Columbia, which would consist of territories in Quebec and Vermont, and 1796, Ira Allen traveled to France, where he bought supposedly for the Vermont militia 20,000 muskets, far in excess of what the demand was, along with cannon supplied by the French, and shipped on the Ali branch, the most ironic name one can think of for such a shipment of armament. The shipment was seized by the British on suspicion that he was intended to provide the weapons either for the Irish who are in the throes of the United Irishmen rebellion where the French were supporting them, or perhaps in the United Columbia effort of forming a country of Vermont and Quebec. Things were not peaceful in Canada throughout the whole period. There was disputes about the rights of the Irish of the French that led to a movement called the patriotes. We see here on the top, a meeting in the six counties, the eastern townships. Below is the handsome portrait of Louis Papineau, and alongside is the black and white drawing of his second command Edmundo Callahan. Callahan was the editor of the Vindicator in Montreal where he pushed the cause of Ireland. Both men fled to Vermont when the rebellion failed. Of their supporters, a dozen or so were hanged in the square in Montreal, and hundreds were transported to the new penal colonies in Australia, the first shipments after the British had lost Georgia as a dumping ground for their convicts. They decided that Australia was suitably distant and needed population. So that began the practice that many Irishmen ended up in Australia in exile. Many of the Irish had come to the New World places like Canada as a chance to improve themselves by choice, but many more were doomed to flee the country in desperation. Conditions continued to deteriorate. The English landlords who owned all of the property, essentially, squeezed the increasing population with restrictions based on the Catholic religion and the ownership of property, which was almost impossible, both of which would have encouraged people to leave if they could afford it. That was the cheapest way to travel was by British ship. So many people came to Canada, but then continued their journey to the United States by water if they could afford it or on foot if they could. The series of failures that took place over the 1840s or the potato, which the average family had depended upon, failed with the blight. There was about eight million Irish on the island at the time. Famine and disease killed roughly a million of them, while another million fled the island in despair. Many of whom got as far as Montreal, even into Kingston, and were buried in mass graves, having survived a terrible journey, but dying. At the time of the worst of Angora Tumor, the Irish call it the Great Hunger, a rising of what was called the Confederate clubs took place in 1848. There was a mass rally of 50,000 men who climbed Mount Sleeve-Damon, a place very much associated with Fin Makul, the first of the Finian heroes, where the first flag of the Irish Republic, as we know it today, was flown at the rally in Sleeve-Damon. Thomas Francis Marr had been given this flag of this pattern when it was in France. Very similar to what the patriots flew in there were by in Canada, although the stripes were horizontal, and it was green, white, and red. This is green, white, and orange, and it's for green for the Irish, orange for the Protestants, the orange order, William of Orange conquered the Ireland, conquered Ireland, and white was a hope for peace between the two. This is the official flag today in Ireland. The 1848 revolution was repressed. The two major leaders of this political movement took up residence in Paris, where they were involved with the Commune and the revolution there, and learned a thing or two about how to form a revolution. So 10 years later, John O'Mahony, who had immigrated to New York City, formed the Finian Brotherhood and in parallel with that, James Stevens created the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in England in Ireland. O'Mahony was responsible for choosing the name of Finian as the Brotherhood. He was an Irish scholar, had translated a significant study of Irish history from the Irish to the English, and he included his flag that he created that would demonstrate to you in the mostly illiterate Irish that this was a revolutionary movement, included the Sunburst, which was the flag of Fenmukul, and Mato and Irish, which at a point, many of the Irish still spoke English among themselves. And he included a harp that did not have the required British crown atop it that made it clear that this was a revolution against the monarchy. The Irish were prepared to carry the fight from the United States back to Ireland to free their homeland, but unfortunately, the American Civil War of 1861 to 65 interfered with that. You can see here the various revolutionary themes, including the cloudburst, the Sun, the harp without the crown, and the inscription at the bottom which translates roughly as who never fled from the sound of battle. Now military units of the Finian Brotherhood were very cleverly created and identified as Finian in the state militias. So you had many fanciful names like Brian Borus, Rifles, and the Sarge Field militia, companies that were very clearly identified with this movement of the Finian Brotherhood. And the plan, generally speaking, was to get trained and to learn to compete with the British forces, but unfortunately the succession of the southern states in 1861 preempted this action against the British. Many Irishmen fought at times against each other on the competing Union and Confederate sides, which resulted in the loss of many, many Finians to the cause. After the war ended, this is an illustration from the Finian bonds that were sold in various denominations, and you can see the appeal was that the soldier should again pick up his sword and fight for Ireland, as you can see in the upper right, the iconic crown around tower, where the person with the harp and the wolfhound is saying this person should go. There was not too surprisingly political infighting that resulted in the Finian Brotherhood's leadership splitting in October 1865, at a crucial time when there was hopes of a successful revolution in Ireland itself. One wing, the Roberts wing, insisted on taking action in North America in preference to Ireland. Omané, the leader at the time, did organize a very abortive attack on Canada through Maine, but as a result lost his position. There was an uprising in Ireland that was easily crushed, as unfortunately there were some very successful informants who were keeping the British involved, informed about the plans. The new president, Roberts, instigated an attack on Canada in 1866, and the Finians crossed from New York and Vermont into Canada. You can see here that there was no dominion of Canada at the time. The major portions of the population were divided into Upper Canada and Lower Canada along the lines of the Ottawa, also referred to as Canada West and Canada East, and you can identify Upper Canada with more of the English settlement and Lower Canada with the French, although a very heavy smattering of Celtic immigrants, both from Scotland and Ireland, were present in both these sections, these divisions. In 1860, it's my understanding that about a fifth of the population of Canada spoke either Scots or Irish Gaelic as their first language, but with their policy of cultural amalgamation, the languages have virtually died out in Canada despite efforts to revive them. So the plan to attack Canada in 1866 was rather ambitious. They had recruited many, many experienced Irishmen from who had fought in the American Civil War, and you can see that their ambition was to have a multi-pronged attack which extended from west to the Great Lakes all the way up to an access from Vermont. For various reasons, not the least of which was an informant who kept everyone advised in the British system. He claimed to be a Frenchman named Henri Lecauron. He was in fact Thomas Beech, and he worked his way up into a responsible position in the Fenian Brotherhood. They kept the authorities in Canada quite well informed. They're also logistical issues and difficulties but the two, the Central and the East Wing, did in fact organize, assembled soldiers and attacked into Canada. They hope by doing this to either seize part of the empire to swap for Canada, for independence for Ireland, or to draw British troops over into Canada to make it easier to do an uprising in Ireland, and the idea that they might demonstrate the experience and power of the Fenian soldiers who for the first time were taking the field as the Irish Republican Army. Now the IRA is developed into quite a different 20th century, 21st century reputation, but these were the armed Fenians of the Fenian Brotherhood acting as the Irish Republican Army. They had hoped politically to proclaim the presence of the Irish nationhood to be recognized by other countries like the United States, and this was their first act on attacking Canada. In 1866 the main action took place with under John O'Neill who brought about 600 armed soldiers across from Buffalo and there was heavy fighting between British regulars and the Malaysia which cost several dozen lives on both sides. The IRA was cut off from its supply by U.S. action. Many of the Irish were taken prisoners and those who had been born in the United States and Britain were convicted of treason because the policy was you could not give up British citizenship, you could not discard that in favor of Canada. They result immediate although plans had been made beforehand of the attack, the incursion by the Fenian Brotherhood was the confederation of provinces into the Dominion of Canada in 1867. So if you've ever wondered why Confederation Day is the first of July 1867, it was at least in part a response to this attack by the Fenians. Now the Fenians took the field once more in 1870. This time they attacked from Malone, New York, upstate New York to avoid the difficulty of crossing a buffalo with the Niagara River and they again attacked from their original staging area from Franklin, New York. There was no military success but there were casualties, two Irishmen, John Rowe from Burlington and Michael O'Brien from New York were shot and killed during this battle but they left some left a legacy that lingered on for future generations. The term Fenian became or remains the word to describe militant Irish nationalists. The Fenian Brotherhood after the last assault in 1870 was largely replaced by the Klanda Gale, a similar organization. It also called for the establishment of a republic, not a monarchy, the abolition of nobility and the return of the property to the Irish and this was very much brought to mind at the funeral of O'Donovan Ross, a prominent Fenian who had been imprisoned, was quite aged, died in New York, was brought back to Ireland. In 1915, Patrick Pierce was called upon to give the eulogy at the graveside of the Fenians and his moving statement there about the situation where Ireland was still under the monarchy and still repressed. What you see on the bottom of this slide are the two great grandsons who have commemorated a documentary of O'Donovan Rossa, Skibarine and the statement by Patrick Pierce. He said, the fools, the fools, the fools they left us are Fenian dead while Ireland holds these graves. Ireland and free shall never be at peace. The next year there was a proclamation to the people of Ireland declaring the Republic of Ireland in effect. Pierce read it from the steps of the general post office in Dublin and been seized by the rebels in a heroic but unequal fight. Heavy artillery was brought in to destroy the post office, the men surrendered and in a series of executions were killed in twos and threes by firing squad and killed me in jail. But we honor and respect their their sacrifice and the rest of the Fenians that formed the Fenian Historical Society some years back have recruited re-enactors. Here's a picture of St. Patrick's Day in 2016, the Fenians on the march again and I invite anyone with an interest in Irish history in general or the Fenian movement and particular to join the Fenian Historical Society, Fenian Historical Society.org will get you to it and we'd welcome anyone interested in the culture, the history, the language of that period that was very significant and underappreciated as part of the history of Ireland and Vermont and Quebec and Canada and the United States. So it's my role is to gather this information and to make it accessible on the website and through meetings such as this. So thank you for recording, thank you for attending our little presentation here and I will just leave you with the tip of the Irish hat saying slantja. Thank you William for a wonderful presentation. Next month we will not have a third Sunday lecture presentation but we invite you to take part in our virtual midwinners eve. A page on our website where we have activities, songs, dances, recipes and other things that all took place around the holidays in 18th century Vermont. We hope you'll tune in and try some of these activities at home. Thank you very much and as always if you enjoyed this presentation and would like to support the Ethan Allen Homestead please go to the donation link in the description box below or on our website EthanAllenHomestead.org. Thank you very much and we'll see you next month.