Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from

Radiotopia my name is Jody Avergan. This day June 8th

1866 now Now picture this listeners. You are wandering through the woods in

very southern Canada, just a few miles north of the Vermont border. It's very beautiful,

very green. It's, you know, early summer. Not too far from Lake Champlain. And as you get near the

outskirts of a very small town called Pigeon Hill, you notice something waving in the breeze. It's a flag. It is not the Canadian flag.

Canada did not exist as a nation for another year or so. It is not the British flag.

It is the Irish flag. The flag had been planted by a group of about 1,000 Fenians who had raided the village from across the

Vermont border and planted it as a proclamation of Irish sovereignty.

The larger context here are what's known as the Fenian raids, which are a series

of skirmishes and raids and attempts by the Fenian Brotherhood to use the US Civil War

as context to destabilize the British Empire, fight for independence, maybe establish an Irish state in Canada.

It's a little murky, a little hair-brained, but also really fascinating.

So here to discuss the Fenian Brotherhood and the moment when Irish

independence, the US Civil War, Canadian Independence, British Empire, and

lots more all mixed together in Northern Vermont and Southern Canada are as always Nicole Hammer of

Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there. Hello Jody.

I guess Nicky let's start with just what is the Fenian Brotherhood and who are these people roving

northern Vermont? So the Finian Brotherhood is a group that's established in 1858 in

the United States which you know is a tenuous moment in US history.

Things are a little unstable in the US at that time.

And it's based on the idea that Ireland should be independent self-governing. It's an idea we've heard a lot

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