Karl Marx  
Draft of the Lecture on Fenianism in the German Workers’ Educational Association, London, December 16, 1867

I.) What distinguishes Fenianism? It actually originates from Irish Americans, Irishmen in America. They are the instigators and leaders. But in Ireland itself the movement struck root only (and still finds its real seat) in the popular masses, the lower orders. That characterises it. In all earlier Irish movements the people merely followed the leadership of aristocrats or middle classmen and invariably the Catholic priests. In the rising against Cromwell Anglo-Irish chieftains and priests; in the war against William III even the King of England James II at its head, in the revolution of 1798 Protestant republicans from Ulster (Wolfe Tone, Lord Fitzgerald), finally in this century the bourgeois O’Connell supported by the Catholic clergy, which also plays the leading role in all earlier movements, with the exception of 1798. Fenianism has been placed under ban by the Catholic clergy. It has only abandoned its resistance since it feared losing all influence over the Irish popular masses thereby.

II.) What astonishes the English is this: Compared with the earlier oppression of Ireland by England, they find the present regime of the same mild. Why precisely now this most decided and most irreconcilable form of opposition? What I wish to show, and what is a secret even to the English, who take the side of Irish nationality and its right to severance from England, is that since 1846, although less barbarous in form, is in substance annihilating and allows no other way out than either the voluntary emancipation of Ireland by England or a life-and-death struggle.

III.) As far as past history is concerned, these facts are to be found in every history book. I shall therefore only give some indications, as far as necessary to make the difference between the present epoch and the earlier ones clear, and secondly to highlight a few points regarding the character of what is now called the Irish people.

a) The English in Ireland before the Protestant Reformation.
1172. Henry II conquers not yet 1/3 of Ireland. Nominal conquest. Gift of Pope Adrian IV (an Englishman). About 300 years later another Pope (under Elizabeth) (1576) – Gregory XIII takes the stuff off the English (Elizabeth) again. The “English Pale”. Capital: Dublin. Intermixture of the English Common Colonists with the Irish, of the Anglo-Norman magnates with the Irish chieftains. For the rest, the war of conquest was conducted as against the red Indians (originally). Until 1565 (Elizabeth) no English reinforcements were sent to Ireland.

b) Protestant epoch. Elizabeth. James I. Charles I. Cromwell.
Colonisation plan (16th, 17th century)
Elizabeth The plan was to exterminate the Irish, at least as far as the river Shannon, and to put English colonists in their place, to take the land from them, etc. In the struggles against Elizabeth the Anglo-Irish who had remained Catholic fought along with the natives against the English.
The avowed plan of the latter:
Clearing the island of the natives and stocking it with loyal Englishmen.
They succeeded only to plant a landowning aristocracy. English Protestant “adventurers” (merchants, usurers), who obtained from the English crown the confiscated lands, and “gentlemen undertakers” who were to plant the ceded states with native English families.

James I. Ulster. (Jacobean plantation. 1609-12.) British undertakers, “to stock the confiscated, stolen lands with Irish.” Not until 1613 are the Irish first treated as English subjects, until then as “outlaws” and “enemies”, and the Irish Parliament governed only within the Pale. Therewith persecution against the Catholics.

Elizabeth settled Munster, James I Ulster, but Leinster and Connaught have not yet been purged. Charles I tried to purge Connaught.

Cromwell: First national revolt of Ireland, its 2nd complete Conquest, Partial Re-colonisation. (1641-60).
Irish Revolution of 1641. August 1649 Cromwell landing in Dublin. (After him Ireton, Lambert, Fleetwood; Henry Cromwell).

In 1652 the 2nd complete conquest of Ireland completed. Division of spoil: the Government itself the “Adventurers” who had lent £ 360,000 for the 11 years of war, the officers and soldiers, by the Acts of the English Parliament 4 Aug. 1652 and 26 Sept. 1653. Smite the Amalekites of the Irish Nation hip and thigh, and replant the re-devastated land with new colonies of brand new Puritan English. – Bloodshed, devastation, depopulation of whole counties, transplantation of their inhabitants into other areas, sale of many Irish as slaves to the West Indian islands.

Through the Irish conquest Cromwell overthrows the English republic.
Since that time distrust of the Irish towards the English popular party,

c) Restoration of the Stuarts. William III. Second Irish revolt, and the Capitulation on Terms. 1660-1692. (1701) (Anne.)
At that time the British most numerous in Ireland. Never higher than 1/3, never lower than 1/6 of the Irish population.

1684. Charles II begins to favour the Catholic interest of Ireland, and to enlist a Catholic Army.
1685. James II gives full rein to the Catholics of Ireland. Catholic army increased and favoured. The Catholics soon began to declare that the Acts of Settlement must be repealed and the proprietors of 1641 re-established. James calls some Irish regiments to England.
1689. William III in England. 12 March 1689: James landed at Kinsale at the head of Irish soldiers. Limerick capitulates to William III, 1691. Shameful violation of the treaty, already under William III, still more under Anne.

d) Ireland defrauded and humbled to the dust. 1692–July 4, 1776.

a) All notions of “planting” the country with English and Scotch yeomen or tenant farmers were discarded. Attempt to settle German and French protestants. French protestants in the towns (woollen manufacturers) driven out by the English protectionist and mercantile system.

1694. The Anglo-Irish Parliament, (like obedient colonists) passed, on the command of the mother country, a prohibitory tax of Irish woollen goods export to foreign countries.

1694. In the same year, the English Parliament laid a heavy tax on the import of the home manufactures in England and Wales, and absolutely prohibited their export to other countries. She struck down the manufactures of Ireland, depopulated her cities, and threw the people back upon the land.

The Williamite (imported Lords) absentees. Cry against absentee landlords since 1692.

Likewise legislation of England against Irish Cattle.

1698: Molyneux pamphlet for the independence of the Irish parliament (i.e. of the English colony in Ireland) against the English. Thus began the struggle of the English colony in Ireland and the English nation. At the same time struggle between the Anglo-Irish colony and the Irish nation. William III resisted the shameful attempts of the English and Anglo-Irish Parliaments to violate the treaties of Limerick and Galway.

β) Queen Anne. (1701-13 – George to 1776.)
Penal Code built up by the Anglo-Irish Parliament with assent of the English Parliament. Most infamous means to make Protestant proselytes amongst the Irish catholics by regulations of “Property”. A code for the transfer of “Property” from Catholics to Protestants, or to make “Anglicanism” a proprietary title (Education. Personal disabilities.) (No Catholic able to be a private soldier.) To teach the Catholic Religion was a transportable felony, to convert a Protestant to Catholicism an act of treason. To be a Catholic Archbishop banishment, if returning from banishment act of high treason; hanged, disembowelled alive, and afterwards quartered.

Experiment to coerce the mass of the Irish nation into the Anglican religion. Catholics deprived of vote for members of Parliament.

This Penal Code intensified the hold of the Catholic Priesthood upon the Irish people.
The poor people fell into habits of indolence.
During the palmy days of Protestant ascendancy and Catholic degradation, the Protestants did not encroach upon the Catholics in numbers.

e) 1776-1801. Transitional period.
a) Before we come to this transitional period, what was the result of the English terrorism?
English incomers absorbed into the Irish people and catholicised.
The towns founded by the English Irish.
No English colony (except Ulster Scotch) but English landowners.
The North American Revolution forms the first turning point in Irish history.

β) 1777 the British army surrendered at Saratoga Springs to the American “rebels”. British cabinet forced to make concessions to the Nationalist (English) party in Ireland.
1778 Roman Catholic Relief Bill (passed by the Anglo-Irish Parliament) (Catholics were still excluded from acquiring by purchase, or as tenants, any freeholds interest.)
1779 free trade with Great Britain. Almost all restraints put upon Irish industry swept away.
1782 The Penal Code still further released. The Roman Catholics allowed to acquire freehold property for lives, or in fee simple, and – to open schools.
1783 Equal rights of the Anglo-Irish Parliament.
Winter 1792-93: After the French Government had annexed Belgium, and England resolved upon French war, another portion of the Penal Code was released. Irish could become Colonels in Army, elective franchise for Irish Parliament etc.

Rebellion of 1798. Belfast Republicans. (Wolf Tone, Lord Fitzgerald) Irish peasants not ripe.
Anglo-Irish House of Commons voted for the Act of Union passed in 1800. By the Legislature and Customs Union of Britain and Ireland closed the struggle between the Anglo-Irish and the English. The colony itself protested against the illegal act of Union.

1801-1846.
a) 1801-1831. During this period (after the end of the war) the movement for Catholic emancipation (1829) was common to the Irish with England.

Since 1783, legislative independence of Ireland, shortly after which duties were imposed on various articles of foreign manufacture, avowedly with the intention of enabling some of her people to employ some of their surplus labour etc.
The natural consequence was, that Irish manufactures gradually disappeared as the Act of Union came into effect.

Dublin. 1800 Master woollen manufacturers . 91&emsp;1840 … 2
Hands employed … 4918&emsp;602
Master woolcombers ... 30&emsp;1834 5
Hands employed ... 230&emsp;66
Carpet manufacturers ... 13&emsp;1841 1
Hands employed .... 720&emsp;0
Silk loomweavers at work ... 2500&emsp;1840 ...250
Kilkenny 1800: Blanket manufacturers ... 56&emsp;1822... 42
Hands employed .... 3000&emsp;1822: 925
Balbriggan 1799: Calikolooms at work ... 2500&emsp;1841: 226
Wicklow 1800: Handlooms at work ... 1000&emsp;…. 1841 0
Cork: 1800: Braidweavers..... 1000&emsp;…. 1834: 40
"&emsp;Worsted Weavers ... 2000&emsp;90
Hoosiers .... 300&emsp;28
"&emsp;Woolcombers ... 700&emsp;110
Cottonweavers ... 2000&emsp;220
etc. The linen industry (Ulster) no compensation.

“The cotton manufacture of Dublin, which employed 14,000 operatives, has been destroyed; the 3400 silklooms have been destroyed; the serge (Sersche) manufacture, which employed 1491 operatives, have been destroyed; the flannel manufacture of Rathdrum, the blanket manufacture of Kilkenny, the camlet (Camelot) trade of Bandon, the worsted manufactures of Waterford, the ratteen and frieze manufactures of Carrick-on-Suir have been destroyed. One business alone survives! ... That fortunate business—which the Union Act has not struck down—that favoured, and privileged, and patronised business is the Irish coffin-maker’s.”

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Draft of the Lecture on Fenianism in the Workers’ Educational Association

(Speech o/T.F. Meagher, 1847)

As often as Ireland was thus on the point of developing industrially, crushed and turned back into mere agricultural land.

After the last General Census of 1861:
Agricultural Population of Ireland (including all cottiers

and farm labourers with their families) ... 4,286,019
In the 798 towns (of which many are in fact
mere market-towns) ... 1,512,948

+ 5,978,967

Thus approximately (1861) /s purely agricultural, in fact perhaps h, if the
country towns are counted with them. |

 Since Ireland therefore purely agricultural: “Land is life.” (Justice Blackburn).
Land became the great object of pursuit. The people had now before
them the choice between the occupation of land, at any rent, or starva-
tion. System of rackrenting. “The lord of the land was thus enabled to
dictate his own terms, and therefore it has been that we have heard of the
payment of 5, 6, 8, and even as much as 10 /. per acre.” “Enormous rents,
low wages, farms of an enormous extent, let by rapacious and indolent
proprietors to monopolising land-jobbers, to be relet by intermediate op-
pressors, for five times their value, among the wretched starvers on po-
tatoes and water.” State of popular starvation.

Corn Laws in England give a monopoly to a certain extent for the
export of Irish corn to England. The average export of grain
in the first 3 years following the passage of the Act of Union about 300,000 qrs.

1820 over 1 million qrs.

1834 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yearly average of 2 4i millions qrs.

Amount to pay rent to absentes, and interest to mortgagees, (1834)
over 30 millions dollars (or 7 million £ St.). Middlemen accumulated for-
tunes that they would not invest in the improvement of land, and could
not, under the system which prostrated manufactures, invest in machin-
ery etc. All their accumulations were sent therefore to England for in-
vestment. An official document published by the British Government
shows that the transfers of Brit. securities from England to Ireland, i.e.,
the investment of Irish capital in England, in the 13 years following the
adoption of free trade in 1821, amounted to as many millions of £ St.;
and thus was Ireland forced to contribute cheap labor and cheap capital
to building up “the great works of Britain”.

Many pigs and export of the same.

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Karl Marx

1831-1841 Increase of the population of Ireland from 7,767,401 to 8,175,238.
in the 10 years 407,837.
during the same time Emigration: 450,873 (something
over 40,000 per year)
858,710.

O’Connell. Repeal Movement. Lichfield House Contract with Whigs.
Partial famines. Insurrection Acts, Arms Acts, Coercion Acts.

IV.) The period of the last 20 years (from 1846). Clearing of the
Estate of Ireland.

Formerly repeated cases of partial famine. Now general.

This new period is ushered in by the potato blight
(1846-1847), the famine and the ensuing exodus.

Over 1 million perish partly directly of hunger, partly in consequence of
diseases etc. (through hunger). In the 9 years 1847-55 there emigrated
1,656,044.

The upheaval of the old agricultural system initially a natural consequence of the
fields lying fallow. People fleeing. (The families clubbed to-
gether to send away the youngest and most enterprising). Hence natu-
rally merging of the small leases and displacement of tillage
by grazing.

But circumstances soon arose which transformed this into a conscious and
systematically pursued system.

Firstly: Main point: One of the immediate consequences of the Irish
catastrophe was the abolition of the Corn Laws. With that, Irish
grain lost its monopoly of the English market in ordinary
years. Fall of grain prices. Impossibility of paying the rents.
At the same time continual rise in the last 20 years of meat
prices, wool and other animal/animalistic products. Tremendous
upsurge of the woollen industry in England. Pig farming was partly
connected with the old system. Now especially sheep and horned cattle.
Deprived of the English market now, as by the Act of Union of her own.

As secondary circumstances which contributed to making this systematic:

Secondly: Transformation of agriculture in England. Caricature of it
in Ireland.

Thirdly: The desperate flight of the starving Irish to England
filled in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow cellars, dens,
workhouses with men, women, children in a state almost of starva-
tion.

Parliamentary Act passed, (1847/8), that the Irish landlords had to
support their own paupers. (English Poor Law extended to Ireland.)
Hence (namely England) the mania of the Irish landlords, who for the most part are very

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Draft of the Lecture on Fenianism in the Workers’ Educational Association

heavily in debt, to get rid of the people, and clear their
estate.
Fourthly: Encumbered Estates Act (= 1853?) “The landlord was ruined,
for he could collect no rents, and he was at the same time liable for the
5 payment of enormous taxes for the maintenance of his poor neighbours.
His land was encumbered with mortgages and settlements, created when
food was high, and he could pay no interest; and now a law was passed,
by aid of which property could be summarily disposed of at a public sale,
and the proceeds distributed among those who had legal claims upon it.”
10 Absentee Proprietors (English capitalists, Insurance societies etc. there-
by increased, likewise former middlemen etc., who wanted to run things in a modern
economic way.)
The displacement of the farmers partly by amicable notice to quit. But yet
more eviction on a large scale (Violent, crowbar brigade, crowbar bri-
15 gade (begins with destruction of the roof), forcible ejection. (Also
as political punitive measure) This continues from 1847 to now. (Abercorn, Viceroy
of Ireland) African raids. (Razzias of the little African Kings.)
(People driven from the land. The starving population of the towns large-
ly increased.) “The tenantry are turned out of the cottages by scores at a
20 time … Land agents direct the operation. The work is done by a large
force of police and soldiery. Under the protection of the latter, the Crow-
bar Brigade advances to the devoted township, takes possession of the
houses … The sun that rose on a village sets on a desert.” (Galway Paper
1852.) (Abercorn.)
25 First we shall see how the system acts on the soil, in
Ireland, where conditions are entirely different from those in England.
Decrease of cultivated lands. 1861-1866.

Decrease in cereal crops. Decrease in green crops.
1861-65 428,041 Acres 1861-65: 107,984 acres
30 1866 42,876 1866: 20,077
total 460,917 128,061. |

 Decrease of the yield per Statute Acre of every crop.
1847-1865 per cent: the exact decrease: oats 16.3, flax 47.9, turnips
36.1, potatoes: 50. Some years would show a greater decrease, but on the
35 whole it has been gradual since 1847.

Estimated average Produce per Statute Acre:

Wheat. Potatoes. Flax.

cwts. tons stones. 14 lbs.
1851 12.5 5.1 38.6
40 1866 11.3 2.9 24.9

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Karl Marx

Whereas Ireland formerly exported much wheat, now it declares it is only
good for growing oats anymore. (Which also continually declines, yield per
acre.)

In fact: 1866 Ireland exported only 13,250 qrs wheat, on the other hand
48,589 qrs of it imported (thus almost four times as much); on the other hand it exported
about 1 million qrs oats (for 1,201,737 £ St.)

Since the exodus, the land has been underfed and overworked, partly
from the injudicious consolidation of farms, and partly because, under
the cornacre system, the farmer in a great messure trusted to his labour-

ers to manure the land for him. Rents and profits (where the farmer is no 10

peasant farmer) may increase, although the produce of the soil decreases.
The total produce may diminish, and still greater part of it be converted
into surplus produce, falling to the landlord and (great) farmer. And the
price of the surplus produce has risen.

Thus sterilisation (gradual) of the land, like Sicily through ancient
Rome. (ditto Egypt).

We shall speak of the livestock immediately. But first the popula-
tion.

Decrease of the Population.

1801: 5,319,867. 1841: 8,222,664. 1851: 6,515,974. 1861: 5,764,543.
If the same progress, in 1871 it will be 5,300,000, thus less than
1801. I shall, however, show directly that the number in 1871 would be lower,
even if the rate of emigration remained constant.

The Emigration.

This of course accounts for part of the decrease, Irish emigrated 1845-66
1,990,244, thus about 2 million. (Unheard of.) (About
/s of the Total Emigration from United Kingdom 1845-1866: namely:
4,657,588. From 1831—41 | emigration was about = ’h of the increase
of the population during the decennium. Since 1847 it has been considerably
greater than the increase.

However, emigration alone does not account for the decrease of the
population since 1847.

Decrease of the natural annual increase of the population.

This increase (annual) 1831-1841 1.10 p.c., thus about 1½ p.c.
per year. If the population had grown in the same proportion
1841-51, then 1851 = 9,074,514. But it was only: 6,515,794. Thus deficit of
2,558,720. Of that accounted for by emigration for 1,274,213. Left to calculate
1,284,507. Over 1 million perished of famine. But not the
whole deficit of 1,274,213. Thus evidently the natural population
increase from 1841-1851 diminished.

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This is confirmed by considering the decennium 1851-1861.
No famine. The population fell from 6,515,794 to 5,764,543. Absolute
Decrease: 751,251. But emigration during this time over 1,210,000.
Thus increase of nearly 460,000 during the 10 years. Namely 751,251

5 + 460,000 = the number of emigrants = 1,211,251. Emigration
took away almost three times the increase. Its rate = 0.70
p.c. per year, thus considerably diminished compared to the 1.10 from
1831-41.

The matter can be explained very simply. The increase of a population by

10 births must principally depend on the proportion which those between 20
and 35 bear to the rest of the community. Now the proportion of persons
between the ages of 20 and 35 in the population of the United Kingdom
is about 1 : 3.98 or 25.06 p.c., while their proportion in the emigration
even of the present day is about 1 : 1.89 or 52.76 p.c. In Ireland proba-

15 bly even greater.

Physical deterioration of the population.

In 1806, with a total population of 5,574,107, there was an excess of
females over males by 50,469, whilst in 1867, with a total population of
5,557,196, there is an excess of the females over males. At the same time not only

20 a relative, but an absolute increase of deafmute, blind,
insane, idiotic, and decrepit inhabitants. Contrasting 1851 with 1861,
whilst the population had decreased enormously, the number of deaf-
mutes had increased by 473, on their former total of 5,180; the lame and
decrepit by 225, on their former total of 4,375; the blind by 1,092, on

25 their former total of 5,767; the lunatic and idiotic, by the immense num-
ber of 4,118, on their former total of 9,980; mounting up, in 1861, not-
withstanding the decrease in the population, to 14,098. |

 Wages.

Wages have not risen more than 20% since the potato famine. The

30 price of potatoes has risen nearly 200 %; 100 % the rise of the necessary
means of subsistence, coal etc. on an average.

Prof. Cliff Leslie, in the Economist of Feb. 9, 1867 says: “After a loss of
*h of the population in 21 years, throughout most of the island, the rate
of wages is now only Is. a day; a shilling does not go further than 6d. did

35 21 years ago.” “Owing to this rise in the ordinary food the labourer is
worse off than he was 10 years ago.”

Partial famines, especially in Munster and Connaught.

Bankruptcy of the shopkeepers permanent. Decay of the country towns etc.

Upshot of the process:

40. From 1855-66: 1,032,694 Irish replaced by 996,859 livestock (cattle, sheep and pigs). This, namely, the increase in livestock dur-

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Karl Marx

ing this period, if the decrease of horses during this time (20,656) is compensated by 4 sheep, these thus having been deducted from the increase.

Consolidation of farms.

From 1851-1861: total decrease of farms 120,000. (The number of farms of 15-30 acres, and those of 30 acres and over, increased.) Thus affected especially farms of under 1 – under 15 acres.

Now in 1861 (the total area of Ireland = 20,319,924 acres), of this about ⅔ of the area 12 mill. acres with 569,844 tenants under 1 – under 100 acres,

about ⅖ (8 mill. acres) holdings over 100 and up to 500 acres (31,927 tenants).

The process in finest progress: Ulster. (Flax-growing, Scotch Protestant tenants.)

Times etc. To this system Abercorn offers official congratulations as Viceroy. Himself one of these devastators. Lord Dufferin: Overpopulation etc.

Thus question of life and death.

Meagher, Hennessy, Irishman.

1101 Decrease of crime in Ireland,

Committed for trial. Convicted.
1852: 17,678 10,454
1866: 4,326 2,418.

V.) United States and Fenianism.

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