Fenian dynamite campaign
Encyclopedia
The Fenian dynamite campaign (or Fenian bombing campaign) was a bombing campaign that took place in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 from 1881 to 1885. It was carried out by the Irish Republican Brotherhood
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland during the second half of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century...

 (IRB), nicknamed the "Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...

s", who launched attacks on infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

 as well as government, military and police targets.

Background

Clerkenwell Prison explosion

In November 1867, Richard O’Sullivan-Burke, a senior Fenian arms agent, was arrested. O’Sullivan-Burke was subsequently imprisoned on remand in Clerkenwell Prison
Clerkenwell Prison
Clerkenwell Prison, also known as the Clerkenwell House of Detention or Middlesex House of Detention was a prison in Clerkenwell, London...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. On 13 December an attempt to rescue him was made by blowing a hole in the prison wall. The explosion was seriously misjudged; it demolished not only a large section of the wall, but also a number of tenement houses opposite in Corporation Lane (now Row) resulting in 12 people being killed and over 50 suffering a range of injuries.

Michael Barrett
Michael Barrett (Fenian)
Michael Barrett was born in Drumnagreshial in the Ederney area of County Fermanagh. In his adult years he became a member of the Fenians....

 was caught and charged for the Clerkenwell bombing. He was the last man to be publicly hanged in England.

The Clerkenwell Prison bombing was the most infamous action carried out by the Fenians in Great Britain. It resulted in a long-lived backlash that fomented much hostility against the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 community in Great Britain. The radical, Charles Bradlaugh, condemned the incident in his newspaper The National Reformer as an act "calculated to destroy all sympathy, and to evoke the opposition of all classes". The bombing had a traumatic effect on British working-class opinion. Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

, then living in London, observed:
The London masses, who have shown great sympathy towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries.


The day before the explosion, the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, had banned all political demonstrations in London in an attempt to put a stop to the weekly meetings and marches that were being held in support of the Fenians. He had feared that the ban might be challenged, but the explosion had the effect of turning public opinion in his favour.

Timeline of the campaign

1881 and 1882
  • 14 Jan 1881: A bomb exploded at a military barracks in Salford, Greater Manchester.
  • 15 Mar 1881: A bomb was found and defused in the Mansion House
    Mansion House, London
    Mansion House is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London in London, England. It is used for some of the City of London's official functions, including an annual dinner, hosted by the Lord Mayor, at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer customarily gives a speech – his...

    , London.
  • 1881: A bomb exploded at a military barracks in Chester
    Chester
    Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...

     and at Hatton Garden police station in Liverpool
    Liverpool
    Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

    . Another bomb was planted at Liverpool Town Hall
    Liverpool Town Hall
    Liverpool Town Hall stands in High Street at its junction with Dale Street, Castle Street, and Water Street in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, described in the National Heritage List for England as "one of the finest...

    , but a police officer moved the bomb away from the building before it exploded.
  • 12 May 1882: A bomb exploded at the Mansion House, London.

1883
  • January 1883: In Glasgow
    Glasgow
    Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

    , bombs exploded at a gasworks, a coaling shed and a canal viaduct. About a dozen people were injured.
  • 15 Mar 1883: In London, bombs exploded at government buildings at Whitehall
    Whitehall
    Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

     and at the offices of The Times newspaper. There were no injuries.
  • 30 Oct 1883: Two bombs exploded in the London Underground
    London Underground
    The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...

    . One at Paddington (Praed Street) station (injuring 70 people) and another at Westminster Bridge station
    Westminster tube station
    Westminster is a London Underground station in the City of Westminster. It is served by the Circle, District and Jubilee lines. On the Circle and District lines, the station is between St. James's Park and Embankment and, on the Jubilee line it is between Green Park and Waterloo. It is in...

    .

1884
  • 25 Feb 1884: A bomb exploded in the left-luggage room of Victoria station, London. The building was empty at the time and no-one was injured. Other bombs were defused at Charing Cross station
    Charing Cross tube station
    Charing Cross tube station is a London Underground station at Charing Cross in the City of Westminster with entrances located in Trafalgar Square and The Strand. The station is served by the Northern and Bakerloo lines and provides an interchange with the National Rail network at station...

    , Ludgate Hill station
    Ludgate Hill railway station
    Ludgate Hill railway station was a station in the City of London opened by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway as its City terminus on 1 June 1865...

     and Paddington station.
  • 30 May 1884: Three bombs exploded in London. The first exploded at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department
    Criminal Investigation Department
    The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...

     (CID) and the Metropolitan Police Service
    Metropolitan Police Service
    The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

    's Special Irish Branch
    Special Branch
    Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...

    . A second exploded in the basement of the Carlton Club
    Carlton Club
    The Carlton Club is a gentlemen's club in London which describes itself as the "oldest, most elite, and most important of all Conservative clubs." Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.-History:...

    ; a gentlemen's club
    Gentlemen's club
    A gentlemen's club is a members-only private club of a type originally set up by and for British upper class men in the eighteenth century, and popularised by English upper-middle class men and women in the late nineteenth century. Today, some are more open about the gender and social status of...

     for members of the Conservative Party
    Conservative Party (UK)
    The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

    . A third exploded outside the home of Conservative MP Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn
    Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet
    Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 6th Baronet was a Welsh Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1841 to 1885....

    . Altogether, ten people were injured. A fourth bomb was planted at the foot of Nelson's Column
    Nelson's Column
    Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in central London built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. It is a column of the Corinthian...

     but failed to explode.
  • 13 Dec 1884: Three IRB members, who were planting a bomb on London Bridge
    London Bridge
    London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...

    , were killed when their bomb prematurely exploded. One of the men was William Mackey Lomasney
    William Mackey Lomasney
    William Mackey Lomasney was a member of the Fenian Brotherhood and the Clan na Gael who, during the Fenian dynamite campaign organized by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, was killed in a failed attempt to dynamite London Bridge....

    .

1885
  • 02 Jan 1885: A bomb exploded at Gower Street station
    Euston Square tube station
    Euston Square is a London Underground station at the corner of Euston Road and Gower Street, just north of University College London and within walking distance of Euston railway station. It is between Great Portland Street and King's Cross St. Pancras on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and...

    , London.
  • 24 Jan 1885: Three bombs exploded in London. One exploded in the House of Commons chamber, one in Westminster Hall and another in the Banqueting Room of the Tower of London
    Tower of London
    Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

    . Altogether, two police officers and four civilians were injured. Two men were sentenced to penal servitude for life as a result.

See also

  • List of Irish uprisings
  • Fenian Rising
    Fenian Rising
    The Fenian Rising of 1867 was a rebellion against British rule in Ireland, organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood .After the suppression of the Irish People newspaper, disaffection among Irish radical nationalists had continued to smoulder, and during the later part of 1866 IRB leader James...

  • Fenian raids
    Fenian raids
    Between 1866 and 1871, the Fenian raids of the Fenian Brotherhood who were based in the United States; on British army forts, customs posts and other targets in Canada, were fought to bring pressure on Britain to withdraw from Ireland. They divided many Catholic Irish-Canadians, many of whom were...

  • Manchester Martyrs
    Manchester Martyrs
    The Manchester Martyrs – William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien – were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an organisation dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland. They were executed for the murder of a police officer in Manchester, England, in 1867, during...

     and Cuba Five
    Cuba Five
    The Cuba Five were a group of Irish rebels released from British prisons in 1871 on condition of not entering Britain until the expiration of their original sentences. They chose to accept exile in the United States, travelling on board the ship Cuba. The five men were John Devoy, Jeremiah...

  • S-Plan
    S-Plan
    The S-Plan or Sabotage Campaign or England Campaign was a campaign of bombing and sabotage against the civil, economic, and military infrastructure of the United Kingdom from 1939 to 1940, conducted by members of the Irish Republican Army . It was conceived by Seamus O'Donovan in 1938 at the...

     - a bombing campaign in England by the Irish Republican Army
  • Physical force Irish republicanism
    Physical force Irish republicanism
    Physical force Irish republicanism, is a term used to describe the recurring appearance of non-parliamentary violent insurrection in Ireland between 1798 and the present...

  • Vivian Dering Majendie
    Vivian Dering Majendie
    Colonel Sir Vivian Dering Majendie KCB, CB, RA was one of the first bomb disposal experts and Chief Inspector of Explosives to Queen Victoria from 1871 until his death in 1898.-Biography:...

    one of the first bomb disposal experts
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