![]() ![]() In what American author and journalist Christopher Klein describes as “one of the most fantastical missions in military history,” the Fenian Brotherhood – the American wing of the 19th-century Irish independence movement – set out to seize Canada, then hold it for ransom until the British relinquished Ireland. What could possibly go wrong? Even a former US president, Thomas Jefferson, had once declared that the capture of Canada was “a mere matter of marching”. Centuries of oppression and misrule would end, almost overnight. The British government, unable to defend its vast North American possessions and fearful of antagonising an already hostile American government, would quickly capitulate – or so the invaders assumed. Assemble a small army of Irish men at the northern border of the US, conquer Britain’s neighbouring Canadian colonies, then swap them for the real prize – the independence of their long-suffering homeland. ![]() The idea sounds as implausible and foolhardy today as it did more than 150 years ago. ![]()
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