In March 1858 James Stephens founded a secret revolutionary organization in Dublin. Its purpose was to end British rule in Ireland and transform the country into an independent republic. In 1859 the leader of the movement’s American branch, John O’Mahony, gave the secret society the name by which it became generally known: the Fenian Brotherhood. As part of a strategy to hit the British empire where it was most vulnerable – Canada – American Fenians attempted a number of invasions of British North America between 1866 and 1871. Fenians and British-Canadian militiamen fought battles in Ridgeway, Ont., and Frelighsburg, Que.
