Making Fenians: the Transnational Constitutive Rhetoric of Revolutionary Irish Nationalism, 1858-1876
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Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE 8-2014 Making Fenians: The Transnational Constitutive Rhetoric of Revolutionary Irish Nationalism, 1858-1876 Timothy Richard Dougherty Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Modern Languages Commons, and the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Dougherty, Timothy Richard, "Making Fenians: The Transnational Constitutive Rhetoric of Revolutionary Irish Nationalism, 1858-1876" (2014). Dissertations - ALL. 143. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/143 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT This dissertation traces the constitutive rhetorical strategies of revolutionary Irish nationalists operating transnationally from 1858-1876. Collectively known as the Fenians, they consisted of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the United Kingdom and the Fenian Brotherhood in North America. Conceptually grounded in the main schools of Burkean constitutive rhetoric, it examines public and private letters, speeches, Constitutions, Convention Proceedings, published propaganda, and newspaper arguments of the Fenian counterpublic. It argues two main points. First, the separate national constraints imposed by England and the United States necessitated discursive and non- discursive rhetorical responses in each locale that made it near impossible to sustain transnational consubstantiality for the movement. Second, North American Fenian strategies to gain sovereign recognition for Ireland relied on and helped to further substantiate the palliative Constitutional wishes of equality that undergirded the racial and settler inequalities of the United States. After establishing the exigency and framework for the project, Chapter 2 examines the transnational attempts by Fenian leadership to constitute the “Irish nation” in the diaspora across existing national borders. It argues that, despite the shared vision and motives, the separate national constraints negotiated by each arm of the movement made it impossible to maintain a shared strategy for achieving Irish freedom. Chapter 3 then focuses on the Constitutions created by the North American organization in order to constitute Irish sovereignty, demonstrating how the scenic conditions wrought by these Constitutional enactments contributed to a legitimacy crisis that led to the schism in the Fenian Brotherhood and paved the way for multiple failed invasions of Canada. Chapter 4 examines the constitutive rhetorical strategies of The Fenians’ Progress, a propaganda tract used by the wing that sought to invade Canada, and limns the rhetorics of respectability this faction employed as they appealed to the U.S. for recognition of Fenian belligerent status. Chapter 5 juxtaposes the rhetorics of “skirmishing” and “settling” in The Irish World in the mid-1870s in the wake of the failed Canadian invasions, tracing the rhetorics of settler solidarity these otherwise anti-imperialist Irish-Americans invoke in print. It concludes by discussing the Fenian case’s implications for rhetorical theory. MAKING FENIANS: THE TRANSNATIONAL CONSTITUTIVE RHETORIC OF REVOLUTIONARY IRISH NATIONALISM, 1858-1876 By Timothy Richard Dougherty B.A. Pennsylvania State University, 2002 M.A. University of Minnesota, 2010 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric in the Graduate School of Syracuse University August 2014 Copyright 2014 Timothy Richard Dougherty All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I’ve always been drawn to the intellectual family tree preserved in the acknowledgments section, yet it had been tempting to see the litanies of thanks as merely a formulaic exercise. Tempting, that is, until I tried to write my own dissertation! I can now attest that the gratitude and wonder is absolutely real. In a gig that often feels incredibly isolated, it is astonishing how collective a process it actually is. First and foremost, I owe this project to the support of my big boisterous family. Thanks GC and Chuck for the thirst for learning, for the unconditional love, and for the gift of faith. Thanks, too, for the many crucial days of Finn-care this past year, Mom. Thanks Grammy and Pop for all the childcare, house projects, and loving support. Your generosity is bottomless, & your work ethic tireless. Thanks Laura and Dan for your warmth, the Sixers and Phillies talk, and the joy of watching our crews grow up together. Thanks to my siblings Ned and Pat and Laura B: though you are geographically far away, you’re always present in my head and heart. Thanks to Edward and Beth for the gentle listening as I follow you into college teaching. Kate and Rob, thanks for the couch in DC! Finn and Vera, thank you for choosing me as your Dad. What a gift, to be the bow for you beautiful arrows! Most importantly, thanks to my rock, my mirror, my love, my best friend: Tara, this accomplishment is yours as much as mine. Thank you for sharing the mountaintops and the valleys with me. Here’s to many more blessings and lessons, belly laughs and tears, shared achievements and savored moments in our decades to come. My chair, Lois Agnew, has taught me how to worry less and produce more by mixing support and understanding with equal parts challenge and accountability. You are v the gold standard for how I want to work with others, students and colleagues alike: be timely, be supportive, be insightful, and draw forth someone’s best self. Thank you! Thanks to the rest of my dissertation committee. Eileen Schell is a walking, talking, (running!) encyclopedia of rhetorical, feminist, and social movement insight. Thank you for your piercing questions on the page and in person, and for always punctuating your gut checks with wisecracking humor. Kevin Browne kept the big picture in focus and the smallest details smoothed out. Thank you for keeping me grounded in larger histories of rhetoric and power in this hemisphere and for letting me call you up in Saturday night panic after a particularly overwhelming dig in the archives. Gwen Pough has been there for me from day one. From your Grad Director phone call invitation into the program, to your Feminist Rhetorics course, to the impromptu counseling sessions in your office(s), to your enthusiasm for this project, thank you for setting the tone for my time at Syracuse. Finally, Niall Whelehan was generous enough to join my committee across the ocean. Thank you for your time, and for your powerful work that has been foundational to my own thinking. Thanks to Syracuse mentors Steve Parks, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Margaret Himley, and Collin Brooke for particularly important interventions along the way. Thanks also to Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Krista Kennedy, Becky Howard, Don Mitchell, Iswari Pandey, Linda Carty, Patrick Berry, Tony Scott, and Dana Olwan for your encouragement and insight, both formally in classrooms and informally in hallways. Thanks to my faculty mentors at UMN-Twin Cities, too: Patrick Bruch, Richard Graff, Chris Russill, Tom Reynolds, Cynthia Lewis, & Tim Lensmire. And thanks to my mentor-friends in the field who’ve helped me find my way, especially Malea Powell, Eli vi Goldblatt, Scott Lyons, Joe Janangelo, Carmen Kynard, Seth Kahn, Dom DelliCarpini, and Michelle LaFrance—though there are many others. Special thanks, too, to Michael, Lars, Mary Laurel, and the other Augsburg folks who put me on this path. Thanks to my colleagues, starting with the best cohort in the entire universe: Kate Navickas, LaToya Sawyer, and Ben Kuebrich. I’ve learned so much from each of you, I worry about the ink costs incurred if I was to spill it all here. May we continue to hold each other accountable and to build each other up. To my friends in the seminar rooms and beyond: Rachael Shapiro, Anna Hensley, Nicole Gonzales Howell, Missy Watson, Justin Lewis, TJ Geiger, Jason Luther, Allison Hitt, Seth Davis, Kurt Stavenhagen, Tamara Issak, Dianna Winslow, the list could go on ad infinitum. Thanks to my UMN friends, all my people from WPA-GO, & the American Indian Rhetorics seminar crew. Thank you to Syracuse University for the fellowship support. Thanks to Kristen, Chris, LouAnn, George, Faith, Anne, Kristi, and Alice for your friendly guidance through the program. Thanks to the archivists and librarians whose expertise and generosity enabled my work: Patrick Williams & Kelly Delevan in Syracuse; Timothy Meagher & John Shepherd at the Catholic University Archives; Hanan Ohayan, Kate Donovan, & Timothy Naftali at the NYU Tamiment Library; and Marietta Guarino at the New York Public Library. Photos on pages 62-63 are courtesy of the Catholic University of America Archives. Thanks, finally, to Recess, Mello Velo, Fennario, Soltane, & Artisan’s for letting me spend way too much time in your fine establishments. I am the product of these important relationships, and I owe any insights herein to these and many other unnamed fine folks. My workmanship’s inevitable defects, though, are mine alone. Thanks in advance for letting me claim sole ownership over them. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...........................................................................................................