The Ulster Irish Liberty Legion: Chicago's Irish Nationalists, from Partition to the Provos

The Ulster Irish Liberty Legion:Chicago's Irish Nationalists, from Partition to the Provos Andrew J. Wilson (bio) chicago's irish community has its roots in the wave of immigrants who came to the city in the mid- to late 1830s, primarily to work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal.1 Congregating mostly in Bridgeport, these Irish laborers remained after the canal was completed in 1848 and were joined by waves of their compatriots fleeing Ireland during the Great Famine. In the second half of the nineteenth century, as Chicago grew into an industrial and commercial metropolis, the steady stream of Irish immigrants found employment in the city's factories, domestic service, steel mills, railroads, meatpacking plants, and, after the Great Fire of 1871, in building and construction. In addition, as Irish political power rose in the latter decades of the century, a large percentage found employment in city service occupations, particularly in the police and fire departments. While Chicago's Irish immigrants never rose beyond about one-fifth of the city's population, in terms of economic and political impact they held considerable power. By 1900, with almost 74,000 residents who had been born in Ireland, Chicago emerged as one of the foremost Irish cities in the United States.2 Significant numbers of the Irish immigrants who came to Chicago in the late 1830s had supported or participated in nationalist agitation in Ireland and were committed to continuing activism from their adopted homeland in the Midwest. From the mid-1840s onward these nationalists were reinforced by the arrival of famine refugees. The grim experiences they had endured in Ireland [End Page 102] left many with a burning sense of bitterness and a desire for vengeance, feelings fueled by a conviction that the British had driven them from their homeland through a calculated policy of genocide. Their Anglophobia was accentuated by the harsh living and working conditions they faced in Chicago and by the sting of nativist discrimination. In the alien environment of the city from mid- century onward, many also joined nationalist organizations for the comradeship and sense of ethnic solidarity they provided, and for the possibility of economic and social advancement.3 In 1858 John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny, both Young Ireland exiles, founded the Fenian Brotherhood in New York. They affiliated the new organization with the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland and began providing financial and material support for an armed uprising against British rule. Chicago quickly became a hotbed of "advanced nationalist" activity. The city hosted the first Fenian national convention in 1863, and the following year an "Irish National Fair" raised almost $54,000 to buy weapons in preparation for rebellion.4 At both events Fenian leaders urged members to enlist in the Union Army, as they believed Britain was about to come in on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War—a development that would offer Irish recruits the opportunity to directly take on "England's myrmidons" this side of the Atlantic.5 Later, some of these Chicago veterans formed the nucleus of Fenian forces that launched a series of failed invasions of Canada, partly in the hope that they could seize a piece of the British Empire to use as a bargaining chip for Irish freedom.6 The failure of both the Canadian raids and the 1867 uprising in Ireland helped create conditions for the emergence of Clan na Gael as the most potent force in militant Irish American nationalism. The first Clan camp in Chicago was established in 1869 in Bridgeport, and the organization soon expanded in Irish enclaves throughout the city. Under the leadership of Alexander Sullivan, an unscrupulous lawyer and political operative, the Chicago Clan staged a continuous round of mass rallies and picnics, often attended by leading nationalists from Ireland, and became a powerful force in the city's political machine. By the early 1880s, driven by this level of activism and influence, the Windy City became the center of Irish republicanism in America. [End Page 103] At the Clan's 1881 convention in Chicago, Sullivan floated the idea of forming a hit squad to assassinate Queen Victoria and urged delegates to back a dynamite campaign...

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