CHAPTER II
FENIAN HISTORY
"This is serious business now," said a clever English, literary man when he heard of the Fenian organization. "The Irish have got hold of a good name this time; the Fenians will last."
The Fenians were the ancient Irish militia organized in the third century by Fionn or Finn, who is said to be the Fingal of Ossian. In Scott's "Antiquary," Hector M'Intyre, jealous for the honor and the genuineness of Ossian's songs of Selma, recites a part of one in which Ossian asks St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, whether he ventures to compare his psalms "to the tales of the bare-armed Fenians."
"There can be no doubt," writes Justin McCarthy, "that the tales of the bare-armed Fenians were passed from mouth to mouth of the Celts in Ireland and the highlands of Scotland, from a time long before that at which any soothsayer or second-sighted sage could have dreamed of the landing of Strongbow and the perfidy of the wife of Breffni. There was an air of Celtic antiquity and of mystery about the name of Fenian which merited the artistic approval given to it."
