"Christopher Klein's fresh telling of this story is an important
landmark in both Irish and American history." --James M. McPherson
Just over a year after Robert E. Lee relinquished his sword, a band of
Union and Confederate veterans dusted off their guns. But these former
foes had no intention of reigniting the Civil War. Instead, they fought
side by side to undertake one of the most fantastical missions in
military history: to seize the British province of Canada and to hold it
hostage until the independence of Ireland was secured.
By the time that these invasions--known collectively as the Fenian
raids--began in 1866, Ireland had been Britain's unwilling colony for
seven hundred years. Thousands of Civil War veterans who had fled to the
United States rather than perish in the wake of the Great Hunger still
considered themselves Irishmen first, Americans second. With the tacit
support of the U.S. government and inspired by a previous generation of
successful American revolutionaries, the group that carried out a series
of five attacks on Canada--the Fenian Brotherhood--established a state
in exile, planned prison breaks, weathered infighting, stockpiled
weapons, and assassinated enemies. Defiantly, this motley group,
including a one-armed war hero, an English spy infiltrating rebel
forces, and a radical who staged his own funeral, managed to seize a
piece of Canada--if only for three days.
When the Irish Invaded Canada is the untold tale of a band of fiercely
patriotic Irish Americans and their chapter in Ireland's centuries-long
fight for independence. Inspiring, lively, and often undeniably comic,
this is a story of fighting for what's right in the face of impossible
odds.
