Word: fenian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Blarney. Clonbrony was a fiasco that began when a band of poorly organized and inadequately armed Fenian nationalists tried to take the local police barracks, and ended with the attackers scattered into the trees and hunted down one by one. Blood was drawn but no honor satisfied. The participants became public heroes and martyrs, but privately their failure bred resentment, which thrived on blame, which in turn sought enemies within. They were not in short supply, given the tangle of feudal alliances and tribal betrayals that confounded the ideals of nationhood. The wounds of Clonbrony festered and spread violence...
...Tenants of Time. Absentee landholders and bankers squeeze the squires, who drain the tenant farmers. Eviction, the workhouse and starvation are common fates. The women cling to the church and the men to the bottle, but a growing number, like Edward Nolan, take to the gun. Nolan was a Fenian leader at the time of Clonbrony; later he is hardened in Portland prison and becomes experienced in conspiracy and vengeful murder on both sides of the Atlantic...