I'm reading a book about the history of Irish Nationalism and this isn't the first book in this genre that I've read. The Fenian Movement features prominently in all of these books but it confuses me every time. There were Nationalist movements before the Fenians. There were Nationalist movements after the Fenians. So why do the Fenians figure so prominently in Irish history? What makes them so significant?
There has been a debate about this for some time. R. V. Comerford argued that by the 1880s the Fenians were pretty irrelevant but more recent work has argued that they remained active.
I think the following are the main reasons for their importance :
They were the most powerful physical force republican group for several decades.
They remained influential as a secret network (the IRB) into the twentieth century.
They were the first republican group to really exploit the potential of the Irish diaspora IN the USA.
They represented a clear break between the Catholic Church and Irish Republicanism.
Their actual rising was really the least important thing about them. I also don't see them as terribly significant in terms of ideas.