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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
The political threat posed by the growth of Fenianism in Ireland in the late 1850s and early 1860s has generally been underplayed by much present-day historiography. Even contemporaries were not disposed to see American Fenianism as much of a danger to the constitutional stability of Ireland. The Dublin police authorities decided to recall sub-inspector Thomas Doyle from his surveillance work in America in July 1860. By that time Doyle had sent dozens of reports on Irish-American revolutionary activity. On the basis of his reports the authorities knew that John O'Mahony and Michael Dohney, both of 1848 notoriety, were prominently involved in Phoenix and Fenian conspiracy. They also knew the general points of the ‘phoenix theory’ that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity, that men were being recruited and drilled in large numbers in the U.S. for a possible invasion of Ireland, that ‘O'Mahony's theory [was] … to root out the Government, to cut down the landlords, and to confiscate the land of Ireland’, and that John Mitchel had gone to Paris as an agent for the ‘phoenix confederacy’ in the U.S.
1 For example George Boyce, D., Nationalism in Ireland (2nd ed. London, 1991) p. 183;Google Scholar Garvin, Tom, Nationalist revolutionaries in Ireland 1858–1928 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 33ff;Google Scholar MacDonagh, Oliver, States of Mind: a Study of Anglo-Irish Conflict, 1780–1980 (London, 1983), p. 83;Google Scholar and most importantly of all Comerford, passim, also, ‘Conspiring Brotherhoods and Contending Elites, 1857–63’ in Vaughan, W. E. (ed.), A new history of Ireland (Oxford, 1980) v. pp. 396–430;Google Scholar ‘Anglo-French Tension and the Origins of Fenianism’, in Lyons, F. S. L. & Hawkins, R. A. J. Ireland under the Union: Varieties of Tension, Essays in Honour of T. W. Moody (Oxford, 1980), pp. 149–71;Google Scholar ‘Patriotism as Pastime: the Appeal of Fenianism in the Mid-1860s’ I.H.S. xxii (1980–81), pp. 239ff.
2 The term ‘Fenian’ occurs in Doyle's reports for example on 27.9.59, 15.11.59, 23.3.60, and in a number of instances after June 1860. Brendan MacGiolla Choille was of the opinion that ‘Before the end of 1863 it is unlikely that the historian will find in the registered papers (or indeed in any of the contemporary State papers) documents which mention persons in Ireland as fenians ipso nomine or activities under the title of fenianism, ‘Fenian documents in the State Paper Office’, I.H.S. xvi (1968–9), p. 266. Sir Robert Anderson (A great conspiracy, (London, 1910), p. 37), records that many of the reports on early Fenianism in America and Ireland were not registered but kept in a special cupboard in Dublin castle. Anderson made use of these for his The Fenian Conspiracy. See note 10 below for a discussion of this neglected source.
3 NAIFPR Box 1, Doyle reports 9.8.59 and 23.11.59.
4 See for example the report of sub-inspector Bernard Potter of Bandon, NAIFPR Box 1. 13.6.1861. Such a practice was however technically illegal.
5 NAICSO Letter Book 264 19.9.1858, 20.9.1860 and passim. On each occasion the amount remitted was in excess of £1,150.
6 NLILP, MS 7697.
7 In 1860 the Marquess of Clanricarde had told the House of Lords that Ireland ‘now is one of the most tranquil countries of Europe,’ see McCord, Norman ‘The Fenians and Public Opinion in Great Britain’, University Review, X (1967), p. 228.Google Scholar By May 1862, while still maintaining that the country on the whole was not especially distressed, he observed that there was a ‘frightful amount of crime and assassination,’ Hansard 3rd Series, 166, 1740. See also The Times, 13.12.58, & 1.4.59. The chief secretary, Sir Robert Peel spoke in the Commons in February 1862 refuting what he took to be Ireland’s ‘alleged grievances, and imaginary wants …,’ Hansard 3rd Series, 165, 82. As late as the autumn 1863 The Times could comment that Ireland had never been so peaceful since the Union, and that there was ‘an entire absence of complaints against the government,’ The Times, 23.10.63.
8 Fenian opponents within the ‘nationalist’ camp bated them that the government was too contemptuous of their schemes to take any notice of them, Denieffe, Joseph, A personal narrative of the Irish revolutionary brotherhood (New York, 1906),Google Scholar Appendix p. 170. Jeremiah O’ Donovan Rossa on the other hand was convinced that the government ‘with all the experience they have on record were pretty well able to give a good guess at what it all meant,’ Rossa's recollections, 1838–1898), pp. 242–3. The Tablet, on 9th November warned that the government's apparent indifference to the funeral and the motivating spirit behind was allusive. It further claimed that the Irish administration was fully informed and ‘perfectly alive to all the contingencies and we know that its indifference would be exchanged at a moment's notice into the most ruthless and determined activity.’
9 For a brief discussion of the disordered state of the 1848 rising see Donnelly, James C., Jr., ‘A Famine in Irish Polities’, A new history of Ireland, v, (Oxford, 1989), pp. 367ff,Google Scholar and Kee, Robert, The Green Flag, i, (London 1972 & 89), pp. 270ff.Google Scholar
10 The Fenian newspaper, The Irish People, returned to the topic on a number of occasions during its brief existence, see, for example, 5.12.63 and 13.2.64, (in the course of which the paper used a phrase, a slight variant of which was to have an enormous significance for future generations of militant nationalists. The paper enjoined upon the Irish people to depend on none but ‘themselves alone’); also Rossa, O'Donovan, Rossa's recollections, p. 176;Google Scholar Denieffe, A personal narrative, p. 71, and Appendix, pp. 168 & 170, where he gives James Stephen's letter of 1862 to O'Mahony in which he states that a successful revolution could have been staged on the day of the funeral had there have been adequate American support. The government official who knew most about the workings of Fenianism, Sir Robert Anderson, also came to accept that the funeral was an enormous recruiting occasion for the Irish republican brotherhood, during which the ‘Fenian oath was zealously administered and eagerly taken’, NLILP 7517, p. 96. This history of Fenianism was drawn up by Anderson at the request of Lord Mayo, probably in 1867. Curiously more than sixty of the initial pages are missing from the Larcom Papers, a rough draft of some of them being preserved in NAIFPR Box 4.
A heavily edited version of the document, which is almost five hundred pages long in two volumes, appeared as ‘Fenianism: a Narrative by One Who Knows’ in the Contemporary Review, xix (1872), pp. 301–16, and pp. 624–46.
11 This is Comerford's thesis as advanced for example in The Fenians in Context, pp. 77–8.
12 The undersecretary, Sir Thomas Larcom, was sufficiently concerned to consult the law officers on the question. They counselled that the funeral should be allowed to proceed with the least possible interference, NAICSORP 1861/8418.
13 A copy of this handbill is preserved with the police report on the funeral in NAICSORP 1877/3591. Cullen in writing to Bishop Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham on 13.11.1861 makes clear that the expressed purpose of the funeral's organisers was ‘to proclaim their adhesion to the principles of revolution, for which he [MacManus] suffered, and their admiration for his conduct in taking up arms against the government in 1848’, DDA CP Letter Book Bo. 3. None of the recent authorities on Cullen and the Fenians viz, Comerford, Larkin, Emmet, The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1860–1870, (Dublin, 1987),Google Scholar or Norman, Edward, The Catholic Church in Ireland in the Age of Rebellion, (London, 1965),Google Scholar make use of this important source.
14 The Tablet, 9.11.61, p. 714.
15 12th November 1861. NLI Gillolly Papers M/F p7622 Series B. f.44.
16 Ibidem, ff.51–2.
17 DDACP AB4/41/3, 14 November 1861.
18 DDACP, Furlong to Cullen, 7 November 1861.
19 DDACP, Gillooly to Cullen, 16 November 1861.
20 I am grateful to professor Cornelius Buckley of the University of San Francisco for drawing this to my attention. See also Larkin, Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 65.
21 Thomas Waller, John, Fenianism and Romanism, (Dublin, 1866).Google Scholar Norman, The Catholic Church and Ireland, p. 98, indicates that the original source of this comment was the Morning News 6 November 1861. Because it was an organ of Protestant opinion Norman was inclined to be wary of it, and he indicated that it was unlikely that Maynooth students had any sympathy with Fenianism. ó Fiaich, Tomás, ‘The Clergy and Fenianism, 1860–70’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th Series 109, (1968), p. 82,Google Scholar shows no such reserve. Larkin sees Maynooth as the seminary of constitutional nationalism. Its heightened political awareness he attributes to its Gallicanism, its role in the Catholic emancipation campaign, and the effects of the Protestant evangelical revival from 1859 on. Cullen of course stood outside the Maynooth tradition and was severely critical of it, He wrote to his secretary George Conroy on 1 May 1870, ‘The young American-Irish bishops … nearly all seem wrong [on the question of Papal infallibility]. The old teaching of Maynooth has left its traces,’ Peadar MacSuibhne, Paul Cullen and his Contemporaries with their Letters, i-v, ‘(Nass, 1961–77), here v. p. 102. K. Hoppen, Theodore, Elections, Politics and Society in Ireland 1832–1885, (Oxford, 1984), p. 187,Google Scholar is inclined to see the MacManus demonstration at Maynooth as a protest against Cullen's increasing control over the seminary. He also indicates (p. 188) how unpopular Maynooth was with the Fenians generally. However it is perhaps best to share Norman's caution in using the Morning News, and Waller.
22 The Tablet, 2.11.61.
23 Even by 1861 Lavelle had a reputation as a trouble maker. He had already incurred the suspicions of Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster, (Archives of the Diocese of Westminster, Wiseman Papers, W3/37), for his involvement in resisting evictions in his parish. He had also been expelled from his position as a theology lecturer at the Irish College Paris on 24 March 1858, because the Rector thought him to be a bad influence on the students. Ferghas O'Fearghail ‘A stormy Decade in the Irish College Paris, 1849–1859’, in Swords, Liam (ed.), The Irish French Connection (Dublin & Paris, 1978), p. 110.Google Scholar
24 The Freeman's Journal, 6.11.1861.
25 A copy of the poster is preserved in the NAI CSORP, 1877/3591.
26 Larkin, Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 65.
27 DDACP, Letter Book No. 3, 13 November 1861.
28 Whyte, J. H., The Independent Irish Party, 1850–9 (Oxford, 1958).Google Scholar
29 For a discussion of the Thomistic and Suarezian traditions underlying much of the theoretical outlook on Church/State relations, with which Cullen and his contemporaries were familiar see, Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, 1978), ii, pp. 135–173;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Entreves, A. P. (ed.) Thomas Aquinas: Selected Political Writings (Oxford, 1970).Google Scholar The conventional wisdom is that until the Thomist revival of the late nineteenth century Aquinas would have been read through the eyes of Francisco Suarez. See Opera Omnia, v & vi De Legibus. (Paris, 1856). The edition in use early in the nineteenth century may well have been that of Louvain, 1612. It must also be said however that the actual experience of the attitude taken by the British government to the unification of Italy caused Vatican officials to be less sympathetic to British political problems in Ireland than might otherwise have been the case. See, for example, Kirby-Cullen 6 December 1861 DDACP: ‘In general it is well to remember that rebellion & its promotion is reprobated by all as usual; still whoever writes or acts against perfida alba is sure to be sympathized with by ail … The sentiments of people here have greatly changed on this point since the time of Greg[or]y XVI.’
30 As Steele, E.D., ‘Cardinal Cullen and Irish Nationality’, I.H.S., xix (1974–5), p. 240,Google Scholar misleadingly suggests. Steele also approvingly quotes O'Farrell, Patrick, Ireland's English Question: Anglo-Irish Relations, 1534–1970, (London, 1971),Google Scholar that in Cullen's opinion Ireland should be like Rome, and be ruled by ecclesiastics, p. 243. This is a travesty of Cullen's outlook; his theological training taught him to respect the two swords theory of the relationship between Church and State. Furthermore his adulation of O'Connell hardly supports a view that he wanted an Irish theocracy. At most, one can say that in his education policy he resisted the idea of State control, since he regarded education as, above all, a religious activity. This is not to deny that he saw a role for priests in politics, but he hoped their influence would be to restrain the more ardent and radical elements in Irish politics. This was also the view advocated by that bastion of English Catholic Tory opinion. The Tablet. See for example 28.11.61, p. 822.
31 Ireland and the Holy See: a Retrospective, Illegal and Seditious Movements in Ireland Contrasted with the Principles of the Catholic Church as shown in the Writings of Cardinal Cullen. (Rome, 1883), p.7.Google Scholar
32 DDACP, Cullen-Kirby 12 November 1861, Letter Book No. 3.
33 Larkin, The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 78.
34 Again in his letter to Ullathorne he emphasised that he considered it contrary to the spirit of the gospel to, in any way, foster a spirit of opposition to authority, ‘especially in a country like this where resistance to one of the most powerful governments in the world on the part of our unarmed and undisciplined peasantry, could not be recommended except by men devoid of common sense …’ loc. cit. 13 November 1861.
35 7 August 1831. Cf. the useful summary in Carlen, Claudia (ed.), Papal pronouncements: a guide1740–1978 (Ann Arbor, 1990), p. 25,Google Scholar and Kelly, J. N. D., The Oxford Dictionary of popes (Oxford, 1986), p. 308.Google Scholar
36 Carlen, (ed.). The Papal Encyclicals, 1740–1878 (Ann Arbor, 1990), p. 234.Google Scholar
37 Although he had supported Catholic emancipation, Palmerston nonetheless distrusted Catholics and felt that they had no right to political office in a Protestant country. Much of his religious policy was heavily influenced by his evangelical son-in-law Lord Shaftesbury, and possibly by his situation as a major Irish landlord. This in turn influenced the government's attitude towards the Roman Question and Italian unification. See Judd, Denis, Palmerston (London, 1975), pp. 32–6;Google Scholar Ridley, Jasper, Lord Palmerston (London, 1970), pp. 500–01;Google Scholar Vincent, John, The Formation of the Liberal Party 1857–1868 (London, 1966) pp. 50–51,Google Scholar & 262; Bell, H. C. F., Lord Palmerston (London, 1936), ii, pp. 34–7.Google Scholar
38 NAISPO, Anderson Papers. FPR, Box 4.
39 DDACP, AB4/41/3. Adverse comment was not confined to Catholic sources. Sir Robert Anderson (whose son and biographer described him as ‘uncompromisingly unionist’ Moore-Anderson, A. P., Sir Robert Anderson: a Tribute and Memoir, (London, 1919), p. 29),Google Scholar described Peel as ‘a political Bohemian, who regarded his sojourn in Ireland as a picnic, and meddled but little with the work of his office.’ A Great Conspiracy, p. 49.
40 23.11.61, p. 737. The following March the paper declared that the Orangemen ‘admire Palmerston and magnify Peel.’ 51.3.62, p. 169. Suspicion of Peel's anti-Catholicism inspired all sorts of theories. Dr. Kirby wrote to Cullen from Rome on 16 November that ‘it is not at all unlikely that … Sir Robert may be a freemason like Palmerston and may be only carrying out a part of his oath for the destruction of the christian religion …’ DDACP
41 Hansard, 3rd Series, 105, pp. 268–9, 548–9, 55–61,567, and 573; also Archbishop John MacHale's letter to Palmerston, on the extent of distress in the country, The Tablet 14.12.61, p. 790. There are also many letters in the DDA and the Archives of the Archdiocese of Armagh which show an extensive amount of financial assistance was sent from Britain, North America and Australia to Ireland. Peel however was adamant that reports of distress were exaggerated. He accused Cullen of having extracted certain passages from his speeches in Hansard ‘and with Jesuitical ingenuity … endeavoured] to construe them into an accusation against myself, The Tablet 23.11.61 p. 742. See also Lee, J. J., The Modernisation of Irish Society,1848–1918 (Dublin, 1973) p. 55,Google Scholar also Cullen, L. M., An Economic History of Ireland since 1660 (2nd ed. London, 1987), p. 137.Google Scholar
42 Hempton, David and Hill, Myrtle, Evangelical Protestantism in Ulster Society, 1740–1890 (London, 1992), pp. 159–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
43 Norman, The Catholic Church and Ireland, op.cit., p. 11; Macaulay, Ambrose, Dr. Russell of Maynooth (London, 1983) p. 229.Google Scholar
44 Corish, Patrick, The Irish Catholic Experience: an Historical Survey (Dublin, 1985) p. 208.Google Scholar
45 Norman, op.cit., The Catholic Church and Ireland, p. 73.
46 See for example McGrath, Fergal, Newmans university: Idea and Reality, (London, 1951), pp. 501–2.Google Scholar
47 The adulation of Garibaldi was to provoke serious rioting in London in September 1862, when working class Irish Catholics fought pitched battles with their English Protestant counterparts. Gilley, Sheridan, ‘The Garibaldi riots of 1862’, Historical Journal, xvi (1973), pp. 697–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48 An editorial in the paper on 14.12.61 declared that The Tablet had always expressed the heartfelt conviction ‘that the close connection between Catholics and the great Liberal party was an evil …’ p. 792. Since 1856 The Tablet had been working for a Tory-Catholic rapprochement which some believed would make ‘a Tory Govt possible in Ireland,’ Bodleian Library Oxford Disraeli Papers. B/VII/16. The major obstacle to such a possibility was the relationship between the Orange Order and the Conservatives, a fact which even The Tablet recognised; see 25.1.62, p. 56. Norman, Edward, Anti-catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968), p. 20,Google Scholar says that the Order was the only ‘recognisably significant permanent organization against Catholic claims …’
49 Cf. Quinn, Dermot, ‘English Roman Catholics and Politics in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’, D. Phil, thesis (Oxford, 1986), especially pp. 101–23;Google Scholar Leslie, Shane, Henry Edward Manning: His Life and Labours (London, 1921), pp. 208–10;Google Scholar Grey, Robert, Cardinal Manning: a Biography (London, 1985), pp. 222–3;Google Scholar Weintraub, Stanley, Disraeli: a Biography (London, 1993), pp. 484 ff.Google Scholar However there was rarely a community of interest in the respective political aspirations of Irish and English Catholics, see for example Parry, J. P. Democracy and religion: Gladstone and the Liberal party 1867–1875 (Cambridge, 1986) p. 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
50 Palmerston to Carlisle, 9 February 1863: Palmerston Papers ‘Private Letter Book 1862’, See also Vincent, The formation of the Liberal Party, p. 51.
51 4,490,583, out of a total population of 5,764,543.
52 As late as 1869 Lord Spencer was writing to O'Hagan discussing the desirability of promoting Catholics, but he also remarked ‘I fear there is immense difficulty in getting fit men to become J.P.'s, D.L.’s, members of boards of superintendence …’ Spencer-O'Hagan, 15 July 1869, P.R.O.N.I., O'Hagan Papers, D.2777/8/71; see also on same topic, D.2777/8/13 and D.2777.8.85.
53 Feingold, W. L., The Revolt of the Tenantry: The Transformation of Local Government in Ireland, 1872–1886 (Boston, 1984), pp. 40–1,Google Scholar & 79–93.
54 Hoppen, Election, Politics and Society, pp. 410, 412–13, and also pp. 262–4, and 304 for a general discussion of this issue.
55 Cf Edinburgh Review, 119 (1864), pp. 279–304, and Dublin Review. 52 (1863) pp. 279–318, for contrasting discussion on emigration and the extent of alienation of Catholics from the British government's rule in Ireland. In Ulster of course both Catholic and Protestant communities were effected by emigration.
56 Townshend, Charles, Political Violence in Ireland: government and resistance since 1848 (Oxford, 1983), p. 102.Google Scholar
57 Leahy to Kirby 12.3.63. Bowen, Desmond, Paul Cullen and the Shaping of Modern Irish Catholicism (Dublin & Ontario, 1983), p. 265.Google Scholar
58 Moran, Patrick (ed.), The Pastoral and Other Writings of Cardinal Cullen (Dublin, 1882), i, p. 869.Google Scholar This was a theme which Cullen and other Irish bishops were to return to time and again. In this they were following several important papal precedents on the matter. Cf. In eminenti (1725), in Denzinger, H. & Schonmetzer, A. (eds.), Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, (36th ed. Rome, 1976), pp. 2511–13;Google Scholar Providas (1751), Ecclesiam (1821) and Quo Graviora (1825). These can be found in summary form in Carien, Papal pronouncements, op. cit., pp. 8, 20, 22.
59 Correspondence between John Martin and William Smith O'Brien relative to a French invasion (Dublin, 1861).Google Scholar A copy of this document is preserved in the NLILP, MS 7697.
60 DDACP, O'Ferrall-Cullen I December 1861. Mitchell's Jail Journal had been recently published and had scandalised sections of Catholic opinion. The Tablet on 9th November quoted the journal to the effect that Ireland would get its independence in spite of the priests. Cullen had just read the journal and was suitably horrified by its contents, particularly given its Cariylean influence.
61 O'Fiaich, op. cit. p. 82. The full text is Rutherford, The Secret History of the Fenian Conspiracy; its Origin, Objects and Ramifications (London, 1877) i, pp. 187–91.Google Scholar Extracts can also be found in Cavanagh, Michael, Memoirs of Thomas Francis Meagher (Worcester, Mass. 1892);Google Scholar Pigott, Richard, Recollections ofan Irish Journalist (Dublin, 1883 & Cork, 1979) pp. 111–12,Google Scholar and Ryan, The Fenian Chief, pp. 174–5. One place from which it is conspicuously absent is Hughes.
62 Hughes, ii, p. 530.
63 Hughes, ii p. 538.
64 Hughes, ii p. 528.
65 The Tablet, 16.8.62 p. 521.
66 Hughes, i, p. 13. Also Kirby-Cullen DDACP, 14 December 1861: ‘Dr. Hughes is expected here (Rome) towards Xmass. The object of his mission is now well known.’ Washington feared that the Vatican might support the South. Later in the war Pius IX did send a blessing to the Confederacy.
67 DDACP, Hughes-Cullen 17 November 1861.
68 Ibidem, 1 January 1862. In this letter he also told Cullen that he had it on good authority that the government was puzzled he did not land in Ireland since they imagined his mission to be to stir up trouble in that country.
69 NAICSORP, 1861/12486, Superintendent Daniel Ryan relayed a report of an acting Inspector Rice to this effect. The Freeman's Journal had carried advertisements placed by the National Brotherhood of St. Patrick inviting young men to go to the United States. Some of those who responded admitted to Rice that they were going to fight for the union army, and would return to Ireland to fight the English. Rice recognised some of these as having taken part in MacManus’ funeral. Government concern about this continued for several years: on a number of occasions such would-be recruits and their recruiters were prosecuted. See NAICSO Letter Book 264, p. 410 Larcom-Waddington.
70 Henry B. Hammond to Chief Secretary's Office, 29 March 1862, NAICSOPR, 1861/12486
71 Rutherford, Secret history, p. 286. Although something of a suspect source on these issues this view does receive support from Bishop Gillooly, who wrote to Kirby on 10 January 1863 that owing to the distress in Ireland there was much emigration to the U.S., ‘where our venerable friend the archbishop of New York is using his influence … for their (the emigrants’) destruction.’ ‘Kirby papers’, Archivium Hibernicum, xxx (1972), p. 38. Later that same year Cullen told Kirby that the Fenians were publicly and recklessly promoting treason, and that their objective was not to free Ireland but ‘to get poor Irish fools to fight for America’. MacSuibhne, Paul Cullen, iii (1965), p. 158.
72 Comerford, p. 79.
73 The Irish hierarchy was thrown into high dudgeon in 1865 when the Bishop of Boston, Dr. John B. Fitzpatrick refused to allow collections in his diocese for projects in Ireland. Cf. Archives of the Archdiocese of Armagh Dixon Papers, VII, folder 7.
74 Hughes, ii pp. 359–60.
75 DDACP, 340/2/122.
76 DDACP, Letter Book No. 3, 29 November 1861.
77 DDACP, 340/1/1.
78 Comerford, p. 78. His source for the chaplain incident is Underwood to William Smith O'Brien, 1 January 1862, NLl, O'Brien Papers, MS 447.
79 Delany-Murray, DDACP, 340/1/1. It is also clear that Lavelle's role at the graveside was not as impromptu or unexpected as has been suggested, O'Leary, John, Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism (Dublin, 1896), i p. 160;Google Scholar Ryan, The Fenian Chief, p. 177, and Larkin, The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 72.
80 The Tablet, 23.11.61, p. 745.
81 Corish, Patrick, ‘The Radical Face of Paul Cullen’, in Corish (ed.), Historical Studies (Belfast, 1985), xv, p. 175.Google Scholar
82 Cullen-Kirby 4 March 1864, quoted in Bowen, Paul Cullen, p.267.
83 DDACP, Letter Book 3, 12 November 1864.
84 It is also apparent however that Cullen was temperamentally and theologically predisposed to favour the government of the day. He once told Frederick Lucas that he did not see ‘that there was any harm in supporting the government; that if opposing government was a virtue, one ought in Italy to co-operate with Mazzini and in Hungary with Kossuth … The first duty of every Catholic is to support the government unless it attacked the Church.’ Cf. MacSuibhne, i, p. 378, and Lucas, Edward, The Life of Frederick Lucas M.P. (London, 1886), i, p. 287.Google Scholar Ironically in this Cullen's views are similar to those of his immediate predecessor, the ‘castle Catholic’ Daniel Murray, with whom he is often unfavourably compared. Murray believed that the palpable lesson of the French Revolution was that the crown and altar stood or fell together, Murray-4th Earl of Clarendon, 8 January 1848, Bodleian Library Oxford, Clarendon Papers Irish Deposit.