Transnational Revolutionaries

The organization of several thousand Irish American men into a military outfit, which then attempted to invade Canada from within the United States, is a significant historical event that remains largely unexplored from an Irish and Irish American perspective. This study offers a fuller exploration of the details behind the Fenian invasion, asking why Irish immigrants were motivated to shape American international policy and examining the ways in which the Fenians defined identity as a transnational phenomenon. By taking a fresh look at the Irish foray, the author reveals new aspects to Irish immigrant negotiations of belonging - a prototypical transnationalism, accompanied by a broad-ranging anti-imperialism. This book places the Irish American Fenians in their proper context, demonstrating their central importance within American, Irish and Irish American history. Its publication coincides with the 150 anniversary of the Fenian invasion of Canada.

David Doolin holds a PhD from the University of Hawai`i at M-noa and is currently an occasional lecturer and tutor at University College Dublin, Maynooth University and the American College, Dublin. He previously taught American history and American studies courses at the University of Hawai`i, MCPHS University Boston, and Wheelock College and Endicott College in Massachusetts.

Contents: «A Hubbub - Where John Bull-s Calves of Canada Live» - The Fate of «Old Ireland» and the Past that Infused Fenian Thought - The Irish Republican Brotherhood: International Radicalism of the IRB - The Mass Irish in North America and Proliferating Fenianism - Imagining Irish Liberty: Carried to Ontariös Inland Sea - Campobello and Beyond - Conflict Across the Niagara: A Transnational Revolution - In a Decade of American Turmoil: Interpreting Irish Immigrant Insurgency.