What Happened When 800 Irish-Americans Invaded Canada to Liberate Ireland

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Speaker 1: And we continue with Our American Stories. Our next story comes from our regular contributor, Christopher Klein. Finds. The author of four books and a frequent contributor to the History Channel. He was clined with the story of when the American Irish invaded Canada. Let’s take a listen.

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Speaker 2: On the night of May thirty-first, eighteen sixty-six, residents of Buffalo, New York, saw the most unusual site as they looked outside their windows. Nearly eight hundred battle-hardened soldiers dressed in Union blues and Confederate grays marched through the city streets while hauling wagons full of ammunition and rifles. No, these former foes had not come to Buffalo to reignite the Civil War. Instead, they were improbable brothers-in-arms united against a common enemy, Great Britain. This ragtag army of Irish-American Civil War veterans was undertaking one of the most fantastical missions in military history: to hold Canada hostage and ransom it from the British government for Ireland’s independence. So why would any Americans want to attack sweet, peaceable, friendly Canada? Well, it may be hard to believe today, when the United States and Canada shared the longest peaceable international boundary in the world, but things between the United States and Canada weren’t always so polite. In fact, during the first century of the history of the United States, the idea of invading Canada was about as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July. Just a few months after the first shots were fired at Lexington and conquered in the American Revolution, the Countonda Army went due north to Quebec. There were numerous encounters on both sides of the border during the War of Eighteen Twelve. The other thing to keep in mind about this time period is that the flag flying over Canada isn’t the maple leaf that we’re all familiar with today, but it was the British Union Jack, which was a hated symbol from many of the Irish who were forced to flee their country. Now, the luck of the Irish was something you really didn’t want to have for about seven centuries or world history, because the Irish had the poor fortune of being in the backyard of what will become the world’s most powerful empire. And things were particularly bad for the Irish Catholics who lived under a British rule in the seventeen hundreds under what were called the Penal Laws. Under those laws, Irish Catholics were not free to worship, to run for public office, to send their children to Catholic schools, or own a horse that was worth more than five pounds. They were allowed to own one knife as long as it was chained down so it could not be used against the local police. And even in death, their rights were restricted since Catholic priests were not allowed to preside over grave size ceremonies. And when the potato crop failed in the eighteen-forties and eighteen-fifties, some Irish believed that the British were trying to exterminate them. Altogether, more than one million Irish died, and what would be called the Great Hunger; nearly two million fled as shipwreck of an island, and many of them arrived in the United States. These newcomers were like any America had seen before. For one thing, there were more refugees than they were immigrants. They weren’t necessarily hungering for American ideals as much as they were literally starving for food. About a quarter of them spoke the Irish language; did not speak English. Many of them were illiterate, but what really set them apart from most Americans at that time was that they were practicing what was considered an alien religion, Catholicism. And the more threatened they felt, the Irish turned inward like a snake coiling itself for protection. They clung together in church parishes, fraternal organizations like the Ancient of Hibernians, and beginning in eighteen fifty-eight, a new organization called the Fenian Brotherhood, which was established to launch a revolution in Ireland. Many members of the Fenian Brotherhood served in the Civil War to gain knowledge about battlefield tactics and weaponry that they could use for the real fight they wanted to have, which was the one against the British to free Ireland. After the Civil War, the Fenian Brotherhood established its own Irish government in exile right in the heart of New York City. It had its own constitution, its own Senate, and its own president. It even sold war bonds in denominations between ten dollars and five hundred dollars to raise money to buy weapons and ammunition. By eighteen sixty-six, many Fenian leaders had decided that it made more sense to strike the British right in America’s backyard, in the territory of Canada, rather than launching the revolution all the way across the ocean in Ireland. It was an idea that made sen and Stephenian member John O’Neill, who had been born in Ireland and witnessed firsthand the horrors of the Great Hunger. He had heard tales from his grandfather of ancestors You O’Neill and Owen Roe O’Neill, who had gained fame by rising up against the British. When O’Neill was summoned to the battlefield in May of eighteen sixty-six, he said goodbye to his wife and newborn son and went off to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers. O’Neill was placed in charge of those eight hundred men who came out of the woodwork in Buffalo on May thirty-first, eighteen sixty-six, in what was the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. “The governing passion of my life, apart from my duty to my God,” O’Neill had ridden, “is to be at the head of an Irish army battling against England for Ireland’s rights. For this I live, and for this, if necessary, I’m willing to die.” O’Neill knew that only one thing could prevent his forces from crossing the Niagara River into Canada, and that was the USS, which was docked into port of Buffalo. Unbeknownst to the ship’s captain, the Fenians had a sleeper cell of seventeen men who served aboard the USS Michigan, and they knew that ship was not going anywhere without its pilot, whose name happened to be Patrick Murphy. Don’t let the name fool you; however, Patrick Murphy was a loyal sailor who would follow all orders, and the Fenians knew it. They knew the only way they could sabotage the USS Michigan was to take Patrick Murphy out—and I don’t mean by killing him. They take him out for a night on the town in Buffalo. So when the orders were given to put the Michigan into the Niagara River, Patrick Murphy is reportedly spotted arm-in-arm with a woman stumbling down the streets of Buffalo, singing ‘The Wearing of the Green.’ With the path cleared, O’Neill and the Fenians crossed the Niagara River in the early morning hours of June first, and planned to the Irish flag on British soil. More than twenty-four hours passed before O’Neill encountered any Canadian defense forces, and it occurs in the early morning hours of June second, outside the village Ridgeway, about twenty miles south of Niagara Falls. There, the Fenians battle a ragtag army that included farm boys and even students from the University of Toronto who only days before were taking their final exams. Although outnumbered three to one, the Fenians had a much more seasoned fighting force thanks to the Civil War experience of their soldiers, and the Fenians end up being victorious at the Battle Ridgeway, which claimed the lives of about twenty men on both sides. John O’Neill would go down in history as the Hero of Ridgeway and be celebrated by many Irish-Americans. However, after the battle, O’Neill realized that his supply lines had been cut, and he was going to have no choice but to retreat back to the United States. O’Neill launched further attacks in eighteen-seventy and eighteen-seventy-one. Fact de Fenians attack Canada five times in what are collectively known as a Fenian rate. These attacks are sevenal moments in Canadian history and helped the establishment of the Canadian government in eighteen sixty-seven, spurred in part by Canadians who are none too happy with the lack of defense forces provided by the British government. As for what happened to the Fenians, I will give you the spoiler alert: The idea of holding Canada hostage and ransoming it for Ireland’s independence? Yeah, it didn’t work.

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Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Engler. And a special thanks to Christopher Klein. He’s a regular contributor to the History Channel, author of four books, and a freaking contributor right here on Our American Stories. And his client put it: The Irish had the poor fortune of being in the backyard of the British Empire, and things weren’t much better here. They were refugees. They weren’t coming here to the American Dream, but just, well, just to eat. But boy, the desire to free Ireland with this plan that included bringing Confederate and Union Irish together to invade Canada, hold it hostage. What a big, bald, and frankly American idea. The story of eight hundred Irish soldiers who tried to liberate Ireland by capturing Canada. Here on Our American Stories.