Welcome to the History Unplugged Podcast, the unscripted show that celebrates unsung heroes,

Mythbust's historical lies, and rediscoveres the forgotten stories that changed our world.

I'm your host, Scott Rank.

Did you know the group of 800 Irish Americans invaded Canada in 1866?

What the goal of taking it over is to make a pressure Britain into granting Ireland's freedom?

Well, this actually happened. This was the 1866 Fienian Rates, in which a group of Irish American civil war veterans

crossed the border on ship and actually won a few battles, no matter how implausible it seems.

Today I'm talking with Christopher Klein, who's the author of the new book,

when the Irish invaded Canada, the incredible true story of the civil war veterans who fought for Ireland's freedom.

When the Fienian Rates happened, Ireland had been subjugated by Britain for over 700 years,

and when the Great Hunger struck in the 1840s, and many Irish starved, this planted the seeds of a revolution.

Those who escaped famine in Fledger America were inspired by revolutionary actions of the civil war

to fight for their own country's freedom. So a group, the Fienian Brotherhood,

planned on how they could do this.

First, they thought of going to Ireland and liberating it directly,

but then they realized that would never work because they had no navy and they couldn't launch an amphibious assault.

Then they thought, why not go to British Canada? It's right across the border.

Interestingly enough, this group received a promise from President Andrew Johnson

and Secretary of State William Seward not to interfere in any military plans

because America was still soar of some soft British support of the Confederacy during the civil war.

So the Fienian Brotherhood, which included a one-armed civil war hero,

an English spy posing as a French sympathizer, and an Irish revolutionary who faked his own death to escape capture,

...