John Devoy and The Friends of Irish Freedom

According to the census taken in 1900 there were almost five million Americans who were Irish-born or had Irish parents living in the United States. A census taken in Ireland the following year recorded that the population of the country was 4.5 million people. Therefore, there were more Irish in America then living on the island of Ireland.

In 1871 Kildare-born John Devoy was freed under an amnesty with the stipulation that he live anywhere else but Ireland. He choose the United States and soon after arriving joined the influential Irish-American organisation – Clan na Gael (Family of Ireland).

Writing in 1924 Devoy said that Jerome J. Collins founded the Napper Tandy Club in New York on 20 June 1867 – Wolfe Tone’s birthday. This club expanded into others and at one point at a picnic in 1870 was named the Clan na Gael by Sam Cavanagh, who had killed the informer George Clark, when he exposed a Fenian pike-making operation in Dublin to the police. However, there was a lot of disunity in Irish-America and the various organisations were often at loggerheads.

With the rise of nationalist feeling in Ireland and the formation of the Irish Volunteers, it was clear that only a large public organisation could effectively represent and rally the support of mainstream Irish America for Ireland’s fight for freedom. On 4 March 1916 at the first Irish Race Convention, Clan na Gael launched the Friends of Irish Freedom ‘to encourage and assist any movement that will tend to bring about the national independence of Ireland’.

By the summer of 1920 the Friends of Irish Freedom had 100,000 regular members and 175,000 associate members affiliated to other Irish-American organisations. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Truce on 11 July 1921 the Friends of Irish Freedom sent congratulations to President Éamon de Valera and Dáil Éireann.