Erin's Exiles

At present,globalization and economic uncertainty promote the construction of global capital network,the increasing population mobility and the development of communication technology,and promote the increasingly close social relations across national boundaries,thus developing social trends and political mobilization beyond national boundaries.Surrounded by such transnational forces,nationalist expression and political practice are not necessarily confined to specific countries and their territorial boundaries.To some extent,nationalists can also play in the transnational space of imagination.To historians,there is nothing new under the sun.There are historical precedents for this kind of transnational nationalism.In 1858,Irish political exiles tried to achieve Irish national independence,and the establishment of the Fenian brotherhood on American soil was a typical example of this nationalism.Against the background of the wave of nationalism emerging in the Atlantic world in the mid-19 th century,the exiles of the 1848 uprising inherited the tradition of Irish-American transnational nationalism and established a new Irish nationalist republican organization in the United States,aiming to seek the independence of the Irish nation.The transnational nationalism attribute of the organization is not only reflected in the transnational nature of the organizational goal,but also in the influence of the organization.The group's establishment marked the first Irish nationalist organization in the wake of the failed Irish uprising of 1848,in which Irish Americans preceded the Irish mainland.And the influence of the group and its leaders extends across the Atlantic.The establishment of the nationalist group in the United States has prompted the creation of similar groups in Ireland.When the two organizations were established,it was established that the Fenian brothers would regularly provide financial and human support to local Irish organizations.In contrast to the Irish-American nationalist organizations that preceded it,the Fenian Brotherhood was a transnational nationalism organization when it was founded.In the first two years of its existence,the Fenian Brotherhood did not enjoy widespread Irish American support and grew slowly.The economic crisis of 1857 left Irish Americans with limited means unable to help the organization;The expansion of the Catholic church in the United States and the promotion of Irish nationalism in the 1840 s and 1850 s made it the main rival of the Fenian brotherhood.Criticism of the Fenian brotherhood by members of the us Catholic church's elite,such as its anti-clerical,clandestine associations and tendency to violence,has prevented the organization from promoting and recruiting members within the Irish American community.However,the failure of the 1848 uprising had a great psychological impact on Irish nationalists,and some political exiles living in the United States did not think it was the right time to establish nationalism and launch a national independence movement again,so they showed little interest in the organization.In the first few years of its existence,the Fenian Brotherhood received little attention from mainstream American society.This can be explained by the fit and non-fit between the nationalist discourse of the leaders of the organization and the nationalist discourse of the United States at that time.At the level of citizen nationalism,the two are the same in human rights,national sovereignty,criticism of the old regime and other republican discourse.But there are subtle differences in the fight against British tyranny.At the level of cultural nationalism,from the colonial era to the American civil war,the cultural exclusivity of American nationalism was carried out by nativism thought and practice.Both the rejection of religions other than protestantism and the fear of foreign radicals were obstacles to the Catholic and violent Fenian brotherhood.In ethnic nationalism level,before the civil war,social Darwinism has not yet been forming,racial discourse is limited in the range of the meaning of the national character,the nationalism of the emphasis on "producers" of the republic of made by British-born American and native American representative of even more strengthened the Irish immigrants lazy in my heart,vice of ethnic prejudice.In response to the organization's slow growth,the Fenian brotherhood organized a trans-Atlantic political funeral in 1861.The funeral was effective in galvanizing Irish American ethnic identity,but in the short term the effect on the organization's recruiting efforts was muted.A major influence on the organization's subsequent development was the bravery of members of the Fenian brotherhood in the American civil war.It was their blood and their contributions to the federal cause that prompted mainstream society to recognize and acknowledge the existence of the organization.In a relatively liberal and popular public opinion,the Fenian brotherhood grew rapidly after 1863.This development result not only benefits from the organization's institutional standardization and the Americanization of its constitution,but also benefits from its leadership's dual loyalty value orientation and the characteristics of the development of American nationalism during the civil war.In order to maintain the pursuit of Irish national independence,more American civil discourse should be used to construct the identity of the American nation.The pattern of dual loyalty in the period of civil war is in sharp contrast to the period when the organization was founded.After the end of the American civil war,the transnational nationalism of the Fenian Brotherhood officially shifted from the construction of ideology to the practice of military operations of transnational politics.On the one hand,the group secretly planned to attack Canada to threaten the British government to exchange Canadian territory for Irish national independence.In 1866 and 1870,the Fenian Brotherhood made two incursions into Canada,which would have led to an uneasy relationship between Britain and the United States.When the group attacked again in 1871,the grant government intervened militarily.The group's series of attacks on Canada did not effectively advance the cause of Irish national independence,but stimulated the political interest of the local people in breaking away from colonial status and establishing a Canadian federation.On the other hand,the Fenian Brotherhood was involved in organizing the Irish uprising of 1867,and large Numbers of American civil war veterans returned to Ireland to practice transnational politics.During this period,the organization leadership changed the dual loyalties of the civil war and focused the issue of national identity on the issue of Irish national independence.A kind of radical republican nationalism dominated the ideology of the organization,with less attention paid to American domestic affairs and American national identity.Under the vision of American nationalism,the American civil war was actually an undercurrent of anti-Fenianism,finally burst out in the era of reconstruction.Americans,battered by the civil war,could no longer accept the group's violent tendencies.Across the Atlantic world,the group's activities have been characterized by bloodshed and violence.This is also the historical memory and national legacy left by this organization for Irish independence in the early 20 th century.