Michael Scanlan (10 November 1833 – 6 March 1917) was an
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
nationalist, editor, poet and writer. He was known as the "Fenian poet" and is remembered as the author of stirring Irish ballads such as the "
Bold Fenian Men" and "The
Jackets Green".
Life
He was born in
Castlemahon,
County Limerick
"Remember Limerick"
, image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Limerick.svg
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Ireland
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 = Munster
, subdivision ...
. He emigrated to the United States at fifteen years of age and with his brothers, John and Mortimer, settled in Chicago. They started a sweets (candy) business which became very successful. Scanlan joined the
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; ) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924.McGee, p. 15. Its counterpart in the United States ...
and wrote articles and poems for a number of newspapers.
[Obituary in Gaelic American, March 1917]
He supported the
Fenian invasion of Canada (31 May 1866), following the leadership of
William R. Roberts
William Randall Roberts (February 6, 1830 – August 9, 1897) was a Fenian Brotherhood member, United States Representative from New York (1871–1875), and a United States Ambassador to Chile. Roberts, an Irish immigrant who became a w ...
, and was a member of a body known as the Senate. After the failure of that enterprise he was appointed editor of a new newspaper, the ''Irish Republic'' on which he worked with former Irish tenant-right activist and fellow IRB exile
David Bell.
In the ''Irish Republic'' Scanlon and Bell promoted the physical-force Fenianism, while disparaging the general
clericalism
Clericalism is the application of the formal, church-based, leadership or opinion of ordained clergy in matters of either the Church or broader political and sociocultural import.
Clericalism is usually, if not always, used in a pejorative sense ...
and pro-Democratic-Party leanings of rival Irish-American papers. The ''Irish Republic'' supported the
Radical Republican
The Radical Republicans (later also known as " Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reco ...
agenda for
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
, black suffrage and equal rights.
After the ''Irish Republic'' ceased publication in 1873, Scanlon continued writing for Irish and American newspapers. He later became a senior official in the American administration in Washington. In 1887 he was appointed chief of the Bureau of Statistics in the State Department. He retired in 1912.
He died, aged eighty-four years, in the hospital of St. Mary of Nazareth in Chicago, after having been ill for a week. He was survived by a son, Judge Kickham Scanlan,
and three daughters.
[
]
References
1833 births
1917 deaths
19th-century Irish poets
Writers from County Limerick
Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923)
Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood
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