Fenian violence and politics have been well scrutinized by scholars; research by Vincent Comerford, John Newsinger, Matthew Kelly, Niall Whelehan, Jonathan Gantt, and Owen McGee (among others) provides good examples of prior work. Shane Kenna’s detailed and impressive monograph War in the shadows could have engaged more fully and historiographically than it does with such scholarship. But the depth of work that has gone into Dr Kenna’s study allows it to offer a valuable addition to the relevant shelves in the library.

The Fenians’ aim of establishing through their violence an independent and secular government in Ireland was not realized. And the lengthy history of Irish nationalism suggests that most Irish nationalists have tended to be more positive than were many Fenians themselves about the political possibilities available through constitutional methods. The evidence presented in this book regarding 1880s Fenian bombings in Britain perhaps reinforces scepticism about the efficacy of violence. The Fenians were innovative in utilizing new technology (including the use of timer devices, as well as the deployment of dynamite); but tactical ingenuity was not matched by strategic achievement. Dr Kenna’s book usefully details debates within the Fenian community about the most effective and justifiable methods to use in their struggle. His account makes clear that publicity and panic were generated more successfully by Fenian bombers than was the achievement of their ostensibly main objective, an independent Irish republic. In his words, there emerged a clear ‘realization that the dynamite campaign had not, as predicted, brought the British government to terms on the Irish question’ (p. 216).

Some of the rhetoric emerging from the people under scrutiny here tells its own vivid tale about the limitations of the bombers’ thinking. So the politics of veteran activist Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, for example, evince a rather crass simplicity: ‘England isn’t the kind of country to ever give up anything until she is absolutely forced to do it … I believe in destroying everything over which the flag of England floats until Ireland is free’ (quoted, p. 39).

This book is riddled with informers and agents, as were the Fenians themselves. There is careful treatment from the author of the difficulties that this kind of counter-terrorism presented for the United Kingdom state. Intelligence-led policing could lead to successes against bombers; but it could also transgress the state’s established processes and protections and, as Kenna points out, ‘the idea of secret policing was controversial in Victorian Britain’ (p. 77). Yet, despite the problems detailed here regarding the state’s capacity to coordinate its counter-Fenian efforts, there is also considerable evidence in this book about how deeply compromised the Fenians were by treachery and espionage (as they also were by factionalism). In terms of the running of agents and informers, the sections of the book about U.K. spymaster Edward George Jenkinson are among the best. The demoralizing effects of informers upon a revolutionary movement are made clear; but so too is Jenkinson’s recognition that Fenianism could be contained through policing, but not defeated by it. Politics would also need to be involved if violence was to end.

There are frequent stylistic and spelling slips in the book, which is unfortunate. More seriously, there is less of an overarching argument than would be ideal from someone so immersed in the primary material. Dr Kenna engages more thoroughly with archival and newspaper sources than he does with the arguments of existing scholars on the subject that he studies. His book deals with a transnational movement: of the 1880s bombings he observes that, ‘The impetus for a Fenian dynamite campaign was distinctly American rather than Irish’ (p. 326), that behind this lay Irish-American resentment at what was perceived to have been forced exile, and that ‘Irish-American nationalism was both a reaction to British policy in Ireland and the realities of life as an immigrant’ (p. 15). But there is no discussion of the ways in which his arguments on this subject alter the view that one might gain from, say, Niall Whelehan’s 2012 monograph The Dynamiters: Irish nationalism and political violence in the wider world, 1867–1900 (the latter book not even being listed in the bibliography). So fuller engagement with a wider literature would have enriched further an already valuable account. It would have allowed us to assess more clearly the ways in which this detailed study alters our broader reading of an important topic.

Despite this, the detailed narrative is impressive. And we do gain a vivid understanding of the ways in which 1880s Britain experienced what would become an enduring part of the country’s life: committed bombers, increased security, popular and media panic, an exaggeration of the actual level of threat involved, the challenges of coordinating intelligence-led policing and of doing this securely within the law. It remains an important story, and it is addressed with admirable diligence here.