Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland: John F. Armstrong’s Letter to John Devoy

January 19, 2017

The Cuba Five: Freed Irish political prisoners (left to right) John Devoy, Charles Underwood (seated), Harry Mulleda, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (seated), and John McClure pictured after their arrival in New York in January 1871 aboard the SS Cuba, Released from British prisons under a general amnesty, they were hailed as heroes by Irish-Americans, Image (cropped) courtesy of the Library of Congress

In June of 1883, John Devoy (1842-1928) lost a libel suit filed against him by New York banker August Belmont. Devoy had made accusations against Belmont that were later proven false. Found guilty, he was sentenced to sixty days in the prison on Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) in Manhattan’s East River.

A Dedicated Fenian

Considered one of the most important leaders of the Fenian movement, Devoy was born in County Kildare in 1842. In 1866, he was arrested for recruiting Irish soldiers in the British army into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor, he was released during an amnesty in 1871 on the condition that he leave Ireland for the remaining years of his prison term.

In the United States, Devoy became an influential member of the Clan na Gael, the secret American Fenian organization. He was a founding member of the International Directory of the IRB (Ireland) and the Clan na Gael (US) in 1876, an agreement which channeled Clan funds and weapons to the IRB. That same year, Devoy arranged the Clan’s bold rescue of six Fenian prisoners in Australia.

Devoy promoted the idea of Fenians and constitutional nationalists working together to achieve Irish independence. He also backed Irish agrarian reform as a basic principle of the Irish independence movement. A journalist, he started the Irish Nation newspaper in New York in 1881.

In the 1880s, Devoy strongly opposed Clan factions that financed and carried out the Dynamite War in Great Britain in the 1880s. He later played a major role in providing Clan na Gael funding and support for the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland.

Armstrong of Georgia

John F. Armstrong would have been known to Devoy before his imprisonment at Blackwell’s Island. In Philadelphia the previous April, Armstrong had been appointed to the Council of Seven of the newly founded Irish National League of America. The April 29th, 1883 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that six of the seven council members – including Armstrong – were members of Clan na Gael.

Below is a letter JF wrote on July 8, 1883 to Devoy at Blackwell’s Island. He told Devoy that he hadn’t written earlier because his baby son had recently died, and he was still recovering from a bout of malarial fever. He went on to praise the Irish Nation, Devoy’s newspaper, and its contributions to “the Cause”. Concerned that it might have to shut down, he wrote that he would work to get more subscribers. He ended the letter: “With best wishes, I remain faithfully and fraternally yours, John F. Armstrong”.

JF’s Letter to Devoy at the NLI

JF’s letter has been preserved as a part of the John Devoy Papers at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin. Last year, Marie obtained a copy of it and, at her request, the NLI granted us permission to publish it at jfarmstrong.com.

The building depicted on the first page was the Masonic Lodge on Broad Street in Augusta, where the dry goods store Daly & Armstrong was located.

Easier-to-read images of the letter may be found here.

References

Armstrong, John F. (1883, July 8). [Letter from John H. Armstrong to John Devoy regarding a recent bereavement]. John Devoy Papers. National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

**Note that the name “John H. Armstrong” listed in the National Library of Ireland’s online catalog should be “John F. Armstrong”, as shown on the envelope above.

Chicago Daily Tribune. “Irish-Americans”. 29 April 1883, p. 9. Accessed February 2017. https://www.newspapers.com/image/28483709/.

Golway, Terry. Irish Rebel: John Devoy and America’s Fight for Ireland’s Freedom. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Print.

Kenna, Shane. War In The Shadows: The Irish-American Fenians Who Bombed Victorian Britain. Ireland: Irish Academic Press, 2014. Print.

Moody, T.W. and F.X. Martin, Editors. The Course of Irish History. Dublin: The Mercier Press, 1993. Print.

O’Brien, Gillian. Blood Runs Green: The Murder That Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. Print.