Based on extensive archival research, this fascinating monograph rescues from obscurity the lives of over a thousand Fenians. Fenianism railed against the depopulation of a post-Famine Ireland, asserting the rights of ordinary people in defi ance of the British Empire, then oft en supported by the emergent Catholic middle class. As a tenacious conspiracy, represented in these islands by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Fenianism propagated an independent, egalitarian republic through travelling organizers and radical newspapers, inspired by the ideals of Th eobald Wolfe Tone.

Soldiers of Liberty traces the secret organization throughout Ireland, Britain, North America and Australasia, highlighting the contribution of Fenian women and the often tragic lives of committed activists, while revealing the hitherto-unknown fate of ubiquitous informers enlisted by Dublin Castle.