The Politics of Condemnation

Abstract

The question of amnesty for the Fenian political prisoners, as Isaac Butt told Gladstone, was a mark of whether or not Ireland was in the United Kingdom as an equal partner with England, or was a subject nation held by force of arms.¹ For his part Gladstone would have been willing to release all the Fenian prisoners in 1869, but was prevented from doing so by pressure from the Whigs in his cabinet. In the event, 49 out of 81 prisoners were released, though Kickham was the only prominent member in this group.² Sympathy for the Fenian prisoners had been intensified throughout late 1868 and early 1869 by tales of systematic mistreatment and by the activity of the amnesty movement under the careful direction of its indefatigable secretary and prominent Fenian, John Nolan. By the time the amnesty movement was founded in November 1868, the prisoners had become a symbol of the general discontent experienced in Ireland at the hands of London rule.