[Book Review]: Irish Republicanism in Scotland, 1858-1916: Fenians in Exile

In Irish Republicanism in Scotland, 1858–1916, Máirtin Sean O' Catháin provides a detailed and informative account of the various activities, aims and strategies of the small numbers of Irish immigrants in Scotland who were dedicated to the cause of revolutionary Irish nationalism. This study fills a major gap in the history of Irish immigrant political activity, as until now the only scholarly studies of physical-force Irish republicanism have been those by James Handley and Elaine McFarland on Fenianism in the 1860's, and by Ian Patterson on the events of 1916–23. In the main, accounts of immigrant politics have concentrated either on constitutional Irish nationalist movements such as Repeal and Home Rule, or on Irish involvement in campaigns and organisations alongside Scottish workers, such as the Chartist agitation of the 1830s and 1840s, or the Labour movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.