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‘A Mexican Fenian movement’

Published in Irish Republican Brotherhood / Fenians, Issue 1 (Spring 1998), Letters, Letters, Volume 6

General Lopez de Santa Anna

Sir,—General Lopez de Santa Anna, who so admired the St Patrick’sBattalion, did not forget the martial qualities of the Irish soldier.In 1866 while living in exile in New York he offered his support to theMexican Republic in its fight against the French. This was rejected buton 29 September 1866 the New York Herald, under the headline ‘A MexicanFenian movement, Mexico for the Milesians’, reported that Santa Annahad declared himself ‘General-in-Chief of the Mexican Republic’, andwas negotiating to hire the army of the Roberts wing of the FenianBrotherhood.
Santa Anna’s initiative was timely coming as it did the day afterit had been announced that Roberts was not to be prosecuted for hispart in the abortive Fenian invasion of Canada, and that the FenianBrotherhood’s confiscated arms were to be returned to them. The Heraldreported that Santa Anna had acquired three large steamers astransports and that he had held several conferences with William R.Roberts, Thomas W. Sweeny and other Fenian chiefs. Santa Anna, it wassaid, had laid matters before them in such a favourable light ‘thatthese gentlemen have shut their eyes to the advantages of Canada andare more zealously educating the Irish in the belief that Mexico is thecountry specially designated by Providence as best fitted for thedevelopment of the Milesian race’.
Roberts’ response to the Herald’s exuberance was more measured and might have been drafted for him by a modern press agent:

Colonel Roberts said a number of interviews had taken place betweenhimself and General Santa Anna, several of which were of a private andpersonal nature, and the balance of which were in relation to publicmatters of which he was not at liberty to give details.

—Yours etc.,
DONALD BARRETT
Hertfordshire

On this Day

April 25

1922 Commandant O’Neill, 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area over the following four days.
1920 RIC Sergeant Cornelius Crean, brother of the explorer Tom Crean, was killed by the IRA in an ambush near Upton, Co. Cork.
1870 Daniel Maclise (64), history and portrait painter who worked for most of his life in London, died.
1719 The life and strange adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe was published.
1819 Vere Foster, philanthropist and educationist, born in Copenhagen, where his Irish-born father was British minister.
1987 Lord Justice Gibson and his wife were killed by an IRA bomb as they crossed the border south of Newry, Co. Down.
1917 Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer, born in Newport News, Virginia.
1922 Commandant O’Neill of the third Cork Brigade IRA was shot dead at the home of a Protestant family in Bandon, Co. Cork. In a series of unattributed reprisals, thirteen Protestant civilians were shot dead in the surrounding area between 26 and 29 April.
1915 During the First World War, Allied troops landed on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula. The disastrous Gallipoli campaign, ending in January 1916, cost 46,000 Allied lives, including over 2,295 Irishmen.

‘A Mexican Fenian movement’

Personal Histories

On this Day

April 25