AOH History

Original Article can be found Here

AN UPDATED HISTORY
OF
THE ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS IN AMERICA

by Mike McCormack
National Historian
(1988-1990; 1994-2020)

This updated history of the origins and activities of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) was completed by the National Historian’s Office in June, 2020. The difficulty in preparing this history were increased by the partisan character of a large portion of the evidence. James Madison well remarked, that the Irish nation has been as much traduced by the pen of history as it has been by the rod of power; so has the history of the AOH. Many well-meaning authors have recorded the genesis of our Order as they heard it from their elders or those they considered knowledgeable. Yet, memories and hearsay, while valuable, are poor foundations on which to build an accurate history. History is not just a ‘thing of the past’; it is a living study. Research constantly revises old beliefs, confirms former myths and reveals truths behind what was once considered legend. In addition, advances in digital technology make many formerly unobtainable documents available allowing us to double-check references and validate source data not previously practical. We are in a better position today to evaluate what early authors wrote about our history by returning to the sources they used, free from conflicting opinions of their day while consulting recent scholastic resources unavailable in their time.

My interest in Irish history intensified as I became Historian at the Division (1968), County (1978), NY State (1984) and National (1988) levels requiring monthly offerings. By 1998, I was so deep into the history of the AOH itself that I surrendered the County office allowing more research time. The more I learned of Ireland’s early history, the more convinced I became that our early histories of the AOH were inaccurate – even some that I had penned myself using the early writings as source data. However, before challenging them, I had to be sure and began a chase for facts. It was a long chase involving the purchase of rare books and travel, but I would not change it for the world; it was that worthwhile.

Now the true story of our origin and of those who wrote the story before us can be told. They were not wrong, they were just creative with what they had at hand and, in some cases, swayed by their own interpretation. Without access to the mountains of research now available, they created a scenario that matched the persona of the Order at the time. The early AOH was an organization of caring Irish, who stood against all threats to their heritage and homeland. How better to define that defiance than to claim all the similar societies that inspired them as predecessors. Then they, who still opposed an alien presence in Ireland, chose an early defender of that land like Rory O’More as an icon of that sentiment and founder. And as organizational unity was a point of pride, why not model it on the legendary societies of old, even if they weren’t really connected. And if that pride forced them to assumptions that fit the footprint they hoped to leave, who could challenge their right to do so? But now it’s time to synchronize our origins with the actual history of those turbulent times in Ireland as recently revealed.

As so much more historical data exists today, we run the risk of being thought of as keepers of a fairy-tale history, more legend than fact. Therefore, while applauding our early authors for their creativity and accuracy in defining our purpose, we should also know the true story for it is just as fascinating. This presentation contains the latest information gleaned from 40 years of first-hand research into the works of validated historians and independent authors as well as interviews with knowledgeable experts, the assistance of dedicated AOH Historians at all levels, museum archives and personal experience. The information contained herein is divided into eighteen categories which I hope you will enjoy:

Mike McCormack

THE QUEST

To determine the origin of the AOH, we went to the earliest versions written by Hibernians themselves. Most seem to have used an early version of the Order’s origin, written by Thomas McGrath in 1898, as source data. He wrote: According to such authorities as MacGeoghegan’s and Mitchell’s, Wright’s, Leekey’s(sic), O’Holleran’s, and Robinson’s histories of Ireland, it (the AOH) was organized in 1565 by one Rory Oge O’Moore in the county of Kildare, Province of Leinster, Ireland. In 1565, the Earl of Sussex issued a proclamation making the penalty death to any priest found in the Province of Leinster. It was then that Rory Oge O’Moore organized the Defenders. Hoping to expand on that, we began our quest and were led to a totally different conclusion!

We then consulted the History of the AOH written by John O’Dea for the 1922 Encyclopedia Americana. In it he cites our origin in the Military Order of the Golden Collar formed by King Munemon around 900BC, for the defense of the island when menaced by the Romans. We finally located the only reference to Munemon and a ‘Golden Collar in the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, MS: Laud 610. This ancient manuscript previously owned by the McCarthys of Desmond until early 1500, lists a pedigree from the Milesian leader, Mil, to Nuadat of whom is written: the seventh son from Nuadat was Munemon. In his time Gold was on necks in Ireland (lunula). His son was Akllergdoat who first invented bracelets on hands. That earliest reference to Gold Collars in Ireland indicates affluence rather than a Military Order. Project Gutenberg Book of Bronze Age Ireland puts early Irish Lunula at 1800 – 1500BC. And the Romans never menaced Ireland, they didn’t even reach Britain until 55BC.

In 1923, O’Dea published a 3-volume History of the AOH in which he revised our origin with King Munemon to 1300 BC (not 900) with the Order of the Golden Chain (Niadh Nask). We found no evidence of such an Irish order, but what we did find was what Ireland’s Sunday Times called the greatest Irish genealogical and heraldic fraud of modern times in a 1999 exposé. Terence MacCarthy of Belfast claimed to be a Gaelic Chief, MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond and head of an Eóghanacht Dynasty. His claim was based on a society known as the Niadh Nask, an ancient order whose members wore a golden chain. In July 1999 Ireland’s Chief Herald issued a statement that: the decision to grant recognition to Mr MacCarthy as MacCarthy Mór is to be regarded as null and void and the pedigree registered for Mr MacCarthy in 1980 is without genealogical integrity. According to Sean Murphy at the Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies: MacCarthy’s account of the Niadh Nask was laden with historical distortions and outright fabrications. O’Dea’ account then goes through a litany of ‘ancient orders of pagan Ireland from Finn MacCumhall’s Feni Erin to the Red Branch Knights of Uster. He calls them all: ancient Hibernian orders with rules, vows, ceremonies and constitutions not unlike those which operate today in our society. Today, any historian can easily refute that.

In 1948, Ntl Organizer George Reilly who became Ntl President in 1954, wrote Hibernians on the March in which he repeated O’Dea’s Order of the Golden Collar adding: whose members were knights. He also noted that in the sixth century they became the defenders of religion when at that time there was no external threat to the faith.

O’Dea and Reilly also noted: Rory O’Moore revived the ancient orders in the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1642. We found that there may have been an O’More involved in the 1641 Ulster rising whose leader was Richard Butler until July 1642 when Owen Roe O’Neill returned from Spain to lead the Irish and later join with the Anglo-Irish in the Confederation of Kilkenny. The Anglo-Irish negotiated with King Charles and the Confederation split. O’Neill advocated independence and the Anglo-Irish favored an Irish parliament under the English crown. Meanwhile England’s Puritan Parliament began a civil war, King Charles was executed, Cromwell came to Ireland and the Confederation was crushed! No revived AOH there, but our writers did the best they could with what they had.

Early in our research we visited Gerry Maguire, a member of the Cavan County Council. He introduced us to Eugene Markey, the Curator of the Co. Cavan Museum in Ballyjamesduff, a recognized expert in the history of Irish secret societies, who had just opened an exhibit called Banners and Flags. In it were early AOH banners, but none before the mid-1800s and Mr. Markey convinced us, in no uncertain terms, that the AOH was an American society exported to Ireland – not the other way around. That was confirmed by author Pearse Lawlor, whose research material on Irish history includes a manuscript on AOH history in northern Ireland. In Derry we were allowed to search the minutes of Division 1, which do not go back far enough, nor does the Belfast Division and Dundalk Division which started in 1890. Dr. Wallace of the National Museum of Ireland could give us no earlier date. We then did in-person interviews and internet enquiries to confirm Mr. Markey’s version of an American origin.

With a committee under National President Ned McGinley, we visited the town historian of Mauch Chunk, PA where one of the two original American AOH Divisions started as national HQ. With what we learned, we went back to the sources quoted by McGrath. We bought MacGeohegan & Mitchel’s National History of Ireland (1758) but only found: In 1522 the O’Morras and O’Connors and other Chieftains threatened the frontiers of the English province and: in 1528, O’Connor attacked the frontiers of the English province and carried off considerable booty. It also noted: in 1530, the Lord Deputy laid waste to O’Morras’ territory in Laois (not Kildare) and: in 1565, Kilkenny was attacked by the O’Morras. The History of Ireland by Thomas Wright (1849) covers the warring Norman earls of Ormond and Desmond and O’Neill, with no mention of O’More or trouble in Leinster. Historian William Lecky’s History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1892) covers a later time. However, in an opening chapter on Ireland before the 18^th Century, Lecky noted that during Elizabeth’s reign: The Irish Chiefs showed great indifference to religious distinctions and the English cared more for the suppression of the Irish race than for the suppression of its religion. There was little real religious persecution on the one side and little real religious zeal on the other. . . the cause which was more important was the confiscation of Irish land. He also confirmed: it was begun on a large scale in Leinster in the reign of Mary I (1553-58), when the immense territories belonging to the O’Mores, the O’Connors and the O’Dempseys were confiscated and planted with English colonies. The reference to Robinson’s is a History of the Church of Ireland by Rev. Thomas J. Robinson and Sylvester O’Halloran’s History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1171 (1850) covers the hereditary ownership of Ireland and the listing of clan and family names up to the coming of the Normans and denies Norman legitimacy over the Irish despite the submissions but makes no mention of the theft of land from the O’Mores and O’Connors and coverage ends before 1565. Despite the absence of information confirming the Irish formation of a secret oath-bound society in 1565, we did verify clan names in Co. Laois and accept that O’More and O’Connor were defenders (lower case d) of their lands in 1565, but the society called Defenders (capitol D) was a point of confusion.

The society called Defenders wasn’t formed until 1784 near Ballymacnab, Co. Armagh, to oppose Protestant Peep o’ Day Boys raiding Catholic homes. Brendan McEvoy’s Peep of Day Boys and Defenders in the Co. Armagh (1986) revealed that: The Defenders started as independent local groups, defensive in nature, but by 1790 they merged into a secret oath-bound fraternal society consisting of lodges, associated to a head-lodge led by a Grand Master and committee. McGrath had also noted that: In 1565 the Earl of Sussex issued a proclamation making the penalty death to any priest found in the Province of Leinster. It was then that Rory Oge O’Moore organized the Defenders. We now know that in 1565, while O’More was a defender of his lands, he was not a Defender! Nor does he appear to have been a protector of the clergy, as that need had not yet arisen.

Further, in a biography of the Earl of Sussex in the Luminarium Encyclopedia of English History we find: in 1564, commissioners were sent from England to report on the condition of the Irish government, and charges of corruption were brought against Henry Radcliffe, fourth Earl of Sussex who was committed to prison in January 1565. Also, there was little religious persecution in 1565 since Mary I as Queen of England until 1558 had reversed Henry’s reformation and Elizabeth had yet to seriously promote it; in fact, as late as 1579 she was even considering marriage to France’s Catholic Duke of Anjou.

Another element of confusion was introduced by the fact that Rory O’More was a family name handed down through the generations. From several O’More sources on the internet, we learned that the Rory Og O’More, who fought the English invaders after Queen Mary confiscated O’More lands, had a grand nephew, also named Rory O’More, who was involved in the 1641 rising in Ulster; however, we have found no evidence of anyone with the O’More name associated with the 1784 Defenders. (See Addendum) With that clarification, we should explain why oath-bound defensive societies were formed in the first place!

Around 330 AD, history’s best-known forgery, the Donation of Constantine, was attributed to Roman Emperor, Constantine, granting the western part of his empire to the Pope and his successors. Composed by an unknown in the 8^th century, by the 15^th century it was shown to be a forgery. Another forgery was penned by Gerald de Barry in his 1188 History of Ireland that told of a Papal Bull, Laudabiliter, supposedly authored by Pope Adrian IV (the only English Pope) which granted Ireland to Henry II based on that Donation of Constantine. Gerald, a low-level cleric, seeking a Bishopric from Henry, was not above false praise to achieve his goal. While Bishops required religious consecration, Kings could offer candidates since Bishops were officials of their state. Thus, Gerald created a baseless Papal Bull to legitimize Henry’s invasion of Ireland 17 years earlier. First, Ireland was not part of Constantine’s Empire so he could not have given it away. Second, Gerald’s fictional Bull, was backdated to 1155 to justify Henry sending Norman knights to Ireland in 1171. Neither document has ever been found and most historians agree they were bogus. In truth, Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinster, deposed by High King Rory O’Conor, requested Henry’s help to regain his throne and that is what brought the Normans to Ireland.

The Normans liked what they found and as more came and settled in, they began to adopt Irish customs, including Irish Brehon Law instead of Norman Feudal law. It was even said by historian Sylvester O’Halloran that ‘they became more Irish than the Irish themselves.’ But it was not until the Tudor invasions robbed them of the lands that they had stolen that they became ‘as Irish as the Irish themselves’, but never MORE Irish! To forestall such assimilation, the Crown under Edward III invoked the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367 forbidding the Normans to adopt Irish customs. This not only assigned a preferred status to the Norman invaders, but relegated the Irish to a subordinate class in areas under Norman control. Conflicts arose as the Normans attempted to extend those areas by taking more Irish land. And thus, it began! After Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome in 1533, he declared the Church of England as the State religion. His daughter, succeeding as Mary I, reversed the religious Reformation started by her father while still confiscating Irish land. Her attempt to restore Church property previously seized by the Crown was largely prevented by her Protestant Parliament but planting English settlers on Irish land continued and renaming Counties Offaly and Laois as Kings and Queen’s County led to many conflicts.

After Elizabeth I came to power in 1558, she agreed to re-establish Henry’s Reformation through her empire, of which she considered Ireland a part – though the Irish didn’t agree! Religion thereafter became a reason to confiscate Irish land as her Protestant Parliament added new restrictions and punishments for non-compliance. The restored Reformation was also marked by confiscation of the Roman Church’s wealth and the Papacy launched a counter-reformation. Ireland became a battlefield between the two as the Irish, who embraced the faith brought by St. Patrick, became targets of a campaign to reduce Rome’s power by turning the Irish to the Church of England. The Irish clung to their faith which drove the English to extremes in repression. However it wasn’t until 1691 that Penal Laws were imposed depriving the Irish of political, educational and economic rights in their own country, banishing Catholic bishops and restricting other clergy. Member of Parliament (MP) Edmund Burke described the Penal laws as: a machine as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.

Before 1691, the Irish had only contested the theft of their lands and early opponents were, in fact, Rory Oge O’More and Conor MacCormac O’Conor who, according to the Calendar of Carew Papers, 1515-74, began to gather friends and confederates, to the number of 100 swords, and so to revolt. According to the League of Ireland, Ireland’s Wars (2012): Ireland, by the mid-1520s, was rapidly coming to a boil as feuds between Anglo-Irish Nobles were getting worse. The religious fractures that were taking place in England and the rest of Europe were not yet fully felt in Ireland, but it was only a matter of time. That time came in 1691, with their religion outlawed and clergy on the run, the Irish became an underground society practicing their faith in secret. As conflicts became more religious-oriented, secret societies were formed to protect values under attack. Groups like Whiteboys, Blackfeet and Defenders not only attacked landlords but grew to include protection of the Roman Church and clergy.

In time, some societies were suppressed, but reorganized under new names for the same defense of faith and homeland. History provides us with the names of some societies, but limited details. It has been claimed that the motto of the 1790 society called Defenders was Friendship, Unity, and True Christian Charity, but the secrecy in which they operated left no records to verify that. However, according to Professor Kevin Kenny in his Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (1998), we do know that: In the 19^th century another term was used as a catchall for rural violence and that was Ribbonmen, even though there was also a distinct organization called the Society of Ribbonmen. That Society was an outgrowth of the Defenders. Eventually Ribbonmen attracted a collection of Catholic agrarian societies whose purpose was to safeguard tenants’ rights.

THE IRISH IN EARLY AMERICA

As a result of persecution, many Irish fled to other lands seeking a better life. Those who chose America often wondered if they had made the right choice. Colonial America was an extension of England in customs and traditions and, though American historians claim religious freedom, that freedom did not include Catholics, except in parts of Maryland. These were still English colonies and while they tolerated other Protestant sects, they denounced Catholics because of a biased belief that they owed their allegiance to a foreign prince – the Pope. Some Irish changed family names and religion to avoid intimidation against their loved ones and some Protestant Irish even adopted the counterfeit designation of ‘Scotch-Irish’ to distinguish themselves from those who courageously refused to hide their heritage. History shows that the early settlers of Scotland actually came from Antrim’s Dal Riada and modern DNA verifies that relation. As the Irish lent their hand to the winning of American independence, Catholics became tolerated, but only to a degree. The first banner raised by the Sons of Liberty in New York was inscribed at the bottom No Popery. Not much changed after independence as Catholics were barred from public office until they swore a Test Oath renouncing the authority of the Pope and other Catholic doctrines. This was the America to which a steady flow of Irish emigrated after the failed rising of 1798 and several crop failures up to and including the Great Hunger of 1845-52.

As the Irish population grew, anti-Catholic forces carried straw effigies of St. Patrick on March 17 which were desecrated to taunt Irish Catholics. The new American-Irish were quick to defend their honor; reaction was swift, and violence often resulted. Objections from the growing Irish population finally forced the city to ban such effigies in 1802. Then in 1806, parishioners of St. Peter’s – the first Catholic Church in New York State – filed a petition to allow a Catholic to sit in the State Assembly and Irish-American (Longford roots) State Senator DeWitt Clinton passed a bill that abolished the oath. That so angered nativists that on Christmas Eve that year, they attacked St. Peter’s and were held off by the Irish community whose homes were subsequently attacked and burned.

Anti-Catholic bigotry, cloaked as American patriotism, emerged in extreme intolerance in the 1800s that began with social segregation, resulted in discrimination in hiring and housing and concluded in the formation of nativist gangs such as the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, the True Blue Americans and others bent on violence against the Irish Catholic immigrant population. These gangs coalesced in 1854 into the American Party or Know Nothings. Reminiscent of the penal laws in Ireland, they sought legislation against the immigrants who, it was stated, diluted American principles. The growing numbers of Irish were driven to the most demanding forms of labor where even minimal safety, salary and welfare standards were ignored. As nativist prejudice grew, St. Mary’s Church – third oldest in NY City – was torched in 1831. In 1832, 57 Irish railroad workers sought help for a few fellow laborers suffering from Cholera near Malvern, PA and were not only refused aid, but all 57 were assaulted, killed and dumped in unmarked mass graves and in 1834, the Ursaline Convent in Massachusetts was burned down. In 1834 and 35, nativist gangs attacked the Irish neighborhood of Five Points in NY City resulting in major street brawls that lasted for days. Not surprisingly, societies that had been formed as Irish benevolent, fraternal societies to care for their own, assumed the responsibility of protecting the values under attack. In various areas, groups like the Hibernian Friendship Society in 1831 Arlington, VA; the Society of St. Patrick in 1832 Pottsville, PA; the O’Connell Guards in 1836 Manhattan, NY and others became more defensive.

In Ireland, British bias made it necessary to guard activities from public scrutiny; in America, prejudice from Nativists and abusive employers made similar secrecy necessary. Gradually, the fraternal societies morphed into the same type of secret societies that had protected them in Ireland.

SECRET SOCIETIES EXPORTED

In the 1820s, Ireland’s Ribbon Society expanded to include smaller societies in England and Scotland which were formed to protect Catholic rights and promote the independence of Ireland. Since the name Ribbonmen was outlawed by the British, branches began to spring up under the names of the Hibernian Benevolent Society and the Hibernian Funeral Society. Following suit, the church also forbade secret societies although some refused the name change and retained the name of Ribbonmen. In The Glories of Ireland (Phoenix Ltd. 1914), edited by J. Dunne and P.J. Lenox, we find that: About 1825 the Ribbonmen changed their name to the St. Patrick’s Fraternal Society and branches were established in England and Scotland under the name of the Hibernian Funeral Society. The combining of small societies into a larger organization for defensive purposes was also about to happen in America. It was reported that in 1836, a ship landed in New York with a courier who delivered a letter authorizing branches of a protective society in America. The original letter has never been found, but part of the wording was recalled as:

Brothers, greeting: Be it known that to you and to all whom it may concern that we send to our few brothers in New York full instructions with our authority to establish branches of our society in America. The qualifications for membership must be as follows: All the members must be good Catholics, and Irish or of Irish descent, and of good and moral character, and none of your members shall join any secret societies contrary to the laws of the Catholic Church, and all times and at all places your motto shall be: “Friendship, Unity, and True Christian Charity“.

The letter was dated: This fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1836, and 12 of the signers were from Ulster, Leinster and Connaught and one each from Scotland and England. It doesn’t identify the organization and only one signer has been found. In 76-year-old John Denvir’s 1910 book, Life Story of an Old Rebel about his life in Liverpool, he wrote: I was too young to have known John Murphy, who signed the letter for the Liverpool Hibernians, but, from what I knew of these men afterwards, it is likely that he was a dock laborer. If Murphy was a member of the Hibernian Funeral Society in Liverpool, then the letter was truly from representatives of 14 Ribbon Society Branches! Further, while some accounts say it was a reply to a request from America, there is no record of the requesting letter. Mindful of the secrecy involved, it was likely from the renamed Ribbon Society hierarchy to former Society members who had emigrated. The Irish signatories listed are from areas where the original Defenders existed and the Irish Ribbon Society operated before changing their name to the Saint Patrick’s Fraternal Society

NOTE

Years later, that wording was replicated on an AOH letterhead. This is absolutely incorrect since the name AOH was not used until at least 1838 and it gives the mistaken impression that there was a parent AOH organization in Ireland. That may have been intentional since at the time there was a jurisdictional dispute between the AOHs in America and the Board of Erin as to which was the parent organization. Further, challenging the accuracy of its wording, it accepts members ‘of Irish descent which was not allowed in either early society at the time and it is addressed to the ‘Brothers in New York’ when the original AOH national headquarters was in Pennsylvania.

According to The Miner’s Journal newspaper in Schuykill County PA and records of PA Hibernian Historian, John Garrah, a contingent of coal miners from the local Hibernian Benevolent Society (HBS) traveled to New York’s St Patrick’s Day parade in 1836. While there, they met with a group of like-minded activists from the Saint Patrick’s Fraternal Society (SPFS) – the same names that Ireland’s Ribbon societies had adopted in 1825 in Ireland and England. The discussions at the meeting were not recorded, but since nativist anti-Irish-Catholic activity was becoming a national threat, it is more than likely that they agreed to consolidate into one major protective society just as they had done in Ireland. Many of the men in both groups had been members of Ribbon Society branches in Ireland before emigrating to the States and they likely agreed that the time had come for an American branch of that Society. It seems that they agreed to write to the Irish headquarters of the Ribbon Society for permission to organize a branch of that society in America.

THE AOH IS BORN

The members of the HBS returned to Pennsylvania and two months later a letter from Ireland arrived. According to a history of the AOH in PA by Historian, John Garrah, the letter was sent to PA as well as NY and the American organization of SPFS was founded simultaneously in Schuylkill County, PA and near Manhattan, NY’s St. James Church – the second oldest Catholic Church in the city built in 1835 near the Five Points tenements. According to Capt. H.B.C. Pollard of the Irish Police in his 1922 book The Secret Societies of Ireland: In 1836, the Executive (SPFS) in Ireland allowed the Society to establish a branch in America. There the organization immediately prospered. In 1838, the SPFS of America changed its name to the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), and only gradually did the name AOH come to be adopted by Divisions in Ireland. As for the name, Hibernian surely came from the PA brother’s society, but we learned that many were also former members of the Ancient Order of Foresters, the largest friendly society in Ireland whose constitution called for ‘government for Ireland by the Irish people in accordance with Irish ideas and Irish aspirations.’ It is not hard to see a happy combination of titles for this new organization which was to be part of neither but held to the ideals of both!

Hibernian John O’Dea in his 1914 publication, Famous Irish Societies, recorded: In 1836 a charter was received by members in New York City and in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The headquarters were for some years in Pennsylvania, but in 1851, a charter was granted to the New York Divisions under the name of The Ancient Order of Hibernians. New York thus became the American headquarters moving it from PA. In 1914, O’Dea was an AOH Secretary and certainly knew that the 1851 Charter (as he called it) was a Certificate of Incorporation in NY State under the name AOH; as for the ‘Charter’ in 1836, he never said it was to the AOH, as others later assumed, since it was not known as AOH at the time; the years as well as differing views have also altered the wording.

A History of the AOH in PA by Historian, Ed Deenihan, verified: The SPFS came to New York City’s St. James Church, May 4, 1836. The message of the Society was quickly carried to the coal fields where considerable discontent had arisen. One version of AOH history records that the Division formed in PA is credited to a Jeremiah Reilly of Hecksherville, Schuylkill County. However, Pennsylvania AOH Historian John Garrah has found no records to authenticate that during his many years of research. To further confuse the issue, a misleading plaque was mounted on the wall of St. James church on the 100^th anniversary of the AOH in 1936. The plaque reads: Near this Church of St. James in May 1836, the first division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians was organized by authority of a charter sent from Ireland by the venerable Board of Erin. It was a time when some on the committee still believed that the Board of Erin existed before 1836. The previously cited interview with Eugene Markey of the Co. Cavan Museum and an expert on secret societies, confirmed otherwise. Considering research done in more recent time by valid historians, insulated from conflicting predetermined opinions, a more likely scenario appears.

It is that former Ribbonmen in America met in NY in March 1836 and agreed to form branches of that Society in America. Permission, requested from the SPFS in Ireland, was granted in 1836. Even though the exact wording of the original document has been compromised, we know that one did exist. The new SPFS in both NY and PA coexisted until 1838 when they agreed to change their name to the AOH since they had become a totally different society than the one that still existed in Ireland and England. As Deenihan also noted: The principles of the Ribbonmen, long dormant, no longer needed to be directed at religious injustice and land reform, their strengths would lay in the concentrated efforts at labor equality. In addition to organizing workers to reform abusive labor conditions, there were other issues facing the early Order like defense against know-nothing bigotry in hiring and housing, opening membership to Irish-Americans so that American-born sons of one Irish parent could join and, of course, a growing loyalty to America. Further an anti-British sentiment was growing in the freedom of America that would prove unacceptable to a parent society in a colonial Ireland. As more societies, with various names, began to join, the decision was made to incorporate as an organization under a new name to indicate their new direction and in 1851, they incorporated in New York State as the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

The early AOH remained a secret, defensive organization and not much is known of its specific activities. Membership was well-guarded from bigots and restricted to Irish Catholics. Some minutes books even used member numbers instead of names to protect identities. PA was the national headquarters of the Order until incorporation called for national conventions. The first ones were held in New York, but as the Order grew, other jurisdictions sought the honor, with Boston becoming the site of the first non-NY gathering in 1878.

In 1856, Bishop Joseph Cretin of St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote to the New York County AOH of the advantages of life on the western prairie as opposed to the slums of the Five Points. The Civil War halted westward migration, but afterward Bishop (later Archbishop) John Ireland renewed the appeal by writing in 1874, 75 and 76 to state and national AOH leaders regarding thousands of acres he purchased from the railroad and offered it to Irish Catholics from American city slums and the westward migration of Irish families began. According to O’Dea’s History of the AOH (1923): hundreds, if not thousands of those families were members of the AOH. The church was often the first building put up and around this, the earliest colonists chose their lands. The Irish Catholic population of Iowa and Minnesota doubled as the Irish and the AOH moved west. In 2008, a young Protestant boy from Minnesota performed the story of Bishop Ireland’s settlement at a National History Day competition and won the AOH Award of a trip to Ireland. He was even later invited to present his performance after Mass on the Altar of the Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul in Minnesota.

Some members continued recognizing the Ribbon Society as a parent and some Ribbon Society branches in Ireland even changed their name to AOH in the late 1840’s to acknowledge that relationship. Through the years the American AOH kept close ties with the Irish societies which later became the AOH Board of Erin (BOE). As the Order grew world-wide from Canada to Australia, the American AOH in 1887 entered an agreement to recognize the BOE as the titular head of a world-wide AOH organization based on Irish values and even offered stipends of $5.00 to any immigrating member from the BOE and allowing the BOE to periodically generate a password to be used by all. Ten years later, McGrath would begin writing his history of an Irish origin presumably to cement that agreement. However, the AOH in the U.S. was still uniquely American. A separate Constitution defined such differences as membership for Irish by descent so their sons could join, recognition of a loyalty to the U.S. and a growing anti-British public militancy. Then in 1894, they added a Ladies Auxiliary.

However, the American AOH always acknowledged that its roots lie in those ancient Irish societies organized to defend Gaelic values and claiming a continuity of purpose unbroken back to the earliest defenders of that heritage in 1565. That left many to assume incorrectly that the AOH had been formed in Ireland in 1565, especially with the misleading early written accounts by McGrath, Reilly, O’Dea and others, while in truth, though many early fraternal and benevolent societies in America and Ireland, including the Ribbonmen, can claim to have contributed to the birth of today’s AOH, it was actually born in America with many Irish Godfathers.

FIGHTING BIGOTRY

American Nativist or Know Nothing activities continued to spread across the country. In 1841 and 1844, nativist mobs planned to attack the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral in lower Manhattan and Archbishop ‘Dagger’ John Hughes called on the AOH. A winter, 2007 issue of the New York City Journal noted: When in the spring of 1844, anti-Catholic Nativists threatened to attack and burn Old St. Patrick’s, Hughes surrounded it with armed members of the AOH and warned Mayor James Harper that if harm came to any Catholic or any Catholic church, New York would burn. What the Archbishop actually said was that he would turn New York into another Moscow and, since the ruin of that city in the recent Napoleonic War was fresh in everyone’s mind, there was no mistaking his meaning. The AOH was often called on to protect church property and, through their heroic commitment, the attacks were few, but the long, cold and lonely nights of vigil were many. Just before the threat on St Patrick’s in 1844, the Irish neighborhood of Philadelphia had been put to the torch. Nativist bigotry reached a peak in 1854. When stones were contributed from many nations to build a monument to George Washington, construction of the Washington monument was halted when Nativists stole a granite block donated to the project by Pope Pius IX since they would not tolerate a Catholic stone in that icon to America’s first President. The following year, a nativist attack on an Irish neighborhood in Louisville, KY caused 22 deaths and considerable arson and looting. Although the secrecy surrounding the early AOH makes their reaction to such attacks difficult to define, it is not unlikely that, as members of earlier protective societies, they called on their collective past experience and, as part of this new organization, dispensed home-grown justice. As Nativist bigotry spread across America, so too did the AOH. True to their purpose, they provided social welfare benefits to members and stood guard to defend Church property.

As the heroism of the Irish Brigade and other Irish units in the American Civil War had America cheering for the exploits of the sons of Erin in American uniform, the personality of the Irish girls, who had found employment as domestic help, was winning admirers on the home front. The natural result of this new regard was a decrease in, though not elimination of, prejudice against the Irish and the Know Nothing movement, recognized for the bigoted group that it was, faded away. It would emerge again in organizations like the Ku Klux Klan which would also be opposed by the AOH. When the Klan was revived in the 1920s, Hibernian divisions across the country protested its message and its activities were continually opposed and exposed in the pages of the Hibernian Digest. The Klan was even attacked by a local Division at a rally in a Waukesha, Wisconsin hotel in February 1924. While the AOH has been particularly watchful for Irish defamation, it was sensitive to all ethnic bias. Major opposition also came from the American Unity League which was led by Hibernian Patrick O’Donnell. In 1959, members in Baltimore refused to participate in a local ethnic festival because of discrimination against African Americans. Groups dedicated to ethnic hatred and anti-Catholic propaganda always found an opponent in the AOH.

In 1985, the AOH established the MacBride Principles in memory of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize winner, 1916 Veteran, IRA Chief of Staff and co-founder of Amnesty International who dedicated his life to the peaceful separation of Ireland from England. The Principles called for recognition of human rights in Northern Ireland and launched a campaign to force municipalities to withdraw funds invested in Northern Ireland businesses that did not support Catholic equality in hiring. Many states removed their investments as a result.