<HTML><PRE>Subj:	Fwd: Spies Targeted Irish Groups in US
Date:	97-10-23 15:42:59 EDT
From:	Buni1957
To:	DeeMcA, Love irela, RedAxe66, Browniette
To:	Connemara7, FenianBoyo


-----------------
Forwarded Message: 
Subj:	 Spies Targeted Irish Groups in US
Date:	97-10-23 14:14:08 EDT
From:	brycum@netset.com (Bryan J Cummings)
Sender:	owner-ireland_list@email.rutgers.edu
To:	ireland_list@email.rutgers.edu (Ireland News List)

Spies targeted
     Irish groups in US 

     The Irish Times  23Oct97
     By Richard Norton-Taylor 

     British secret agents were ordered to infiltrate Irish-American
     groups at the end of the 19th century, according to previously
     unpublished documents which show the British government was
     as concerned then as 100 years later about transatlantic support
     for republicanism in Ireland.

     Increasing anxiety about American influence on and financial
     backing for republicanism emerges from secret dispatches
     contained in a file marked Irish Political Societies, 1876-1914,
     released this week at the British Public Record Office.

     The file, suppressed until now on grounds of "national security",
     was the oldest closed Home Office file. It was released by Mr Jack
     Straw, the Home Secretary, after he was asked by Mr Norman
     Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, to identify documents
     withheld beyond the normal 30-year rule.

     Agents report that republican groups helped the Boers in South
     Africa and were in contact with Russian diplomats and Indian
     nationalists. The assumption, reported one agent in 1905, was "that
     the native in India is as anxious to throw off the British yoke as
the
     malcontent Irishman professes to be . . . an Irish revolt would be
     aided by a simultaneous Indian rising".

     In November 1895, Maj Gosselin of the Special Branch had
     warned the Home Office that "the leaders of secret societies both
     here and in America have shown increased activity", adding that
     "the whole of Ireland is completely organised".

     The following month he reported that "the movements of Irish
     American Extremists" were becoming so serious that the
     Marquess of Salisbury, prime minister and foreign secretary,
     should instruct British consuls in the US to pass intelligence
reports
     to secret agents in New York.

     Britain's chief agent in the US, who signed himself "Z", monitored
     meetings of the Clanna Gael, a fast-growing Irish republican
     movement. It developed close links with the Irish Republican
     Brotherhood, whose activities led to the setting up of the
     Metropolitan Police Special Branch in 1883. It later provided funds
     for the 1916 Easter Rising.

     Some papers are missing from the file on the grounds that they
still
     need protection for national security reasons. The names of
     Special Branch informants are blacked out. - (Guardian Service)



  
-- 
Bryan J. Cummings
Irish Northern Aid, Columbus
Email: brycum@netset.com
Unit Web Site: http://www.netset.com/~brycum

Noraid - Over 25 years in support of Irish Prisoners of War and their
families.
<FONT  COLOR="#0f0f0f" BACK="#fffffe" SIZE=3>

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Organization: Irish Northern Aid, Columbus
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