Large, cumbersome, very heavy ledgers rest on bookshelves in the National Archives of Ireland that bear the mark ‘Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers’ (CSORP), which record the likely hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper received by Dublin Castle in the nineteenth century touching on nearly every aspect of life. As much as these records are a gift to the historian (provided one can discern the labyrinthine nature of their organisation), the sheer volume of paper posed a major obstacle for officials. To give just one example, between 1868 and 1874, two brothers — Samuel and Robert Anderson — read and annotated 10,000 reports from the ‘R Series’ (‘Red’ papers) on Fenian activity. Of course, the important part of their work was not receiving information but its transformation into action: ‘to analyze the information, direct further investigation when necessary, make recommendations to policy makers, and pass on policy decisions to the appropriate departments’ (252). In this new study, Padraic Kennedy notes that although it proved difficult to ‘cut through the “noise”’ of so much paper, the files ‘reveal the remarkable breadth and depth of official knowledge’ about both Fenianism and the wider political climate of the period (260).

Kennedy’s book is an intricate history of officialdom’s reluctant confrontation with the transnational, shadowy, fractious danger posed by Fenianism. As such, it is less about Fenianism per se than how the perceived threat of revolutionary secret societies prompted the state to embrace practices in policing and intelligence that, Kennedy argues, had an enduring effect on both islands. In its simplest form, Kennedy argues that focusing on Fenianism allows him to unearth a ‘hidden history’ (8) to the development of British intelligence, which employed espionage and secret agents in Britain, Ireland, America, and Europe. This history complicates the image of pearl-clutching Victorians committed to ‘the treasured liberties of British subjects’ (6), and in so doing highlights the overlapping methods, personnel and controversies that would go on to shape the permanent structures of policing in the United Kingdom.

The book is laid out across nine chapters that take the reader from the structure of policing and the bureaucratic organisation of Dublin Castle in the early 1850s, through to the Fenian risings of 1867 (and their aftermath) and their impact on the apparatus of law and order. The bulk of the volume covers the roughly three and a half years surrounding the Fenian uprising. Early in chapter three, Kennedy observes the reinforcing logic that while government officials did not plan to resort to ‘political policing’ the more they did so the more ‘permanent these arrangements became’ (84). This point stresses the haphazard ad hoc approach to governing and complicates other historians’ models that suggest an easy enthusiasm for coercive measures from Westminster and Whitehall. The response to the fears of a Fenian plot in 1865 led the government to arrest leaders — though not James Stephens — and seize the offices of the Irish People. Although the government faced backlash for the illiberal attack on the press, more important was that increased activity produced an abundance of paper which demanded the creation of a proper system for its processing. Rather than stuffing files into spare cupboards (86), Dublin Castle created a ‘Law Department’ tasked with prosecuting suspected Fenians. Kennedy notes that while historians have previously stressed the novelty of Castle officials photographing Fenian prisoners, it was the centralisation of knowledge under Anderson’s law department that allowed officials ‘to more effectively and efficiently keep track of every Fenian … and share that intelligence across departments’ (113).

As the Fenian threat spread geographically, many of the policing tactics also evolved. Chapter five concentrates on the public reaction to the use of espionage during the Fenian uprising and subsequent trials. Here, Kennedy argues that public reaction to the use of detectives and espionage was rather muted, but that trials revealed the gulf between what policing practices officialdom accepted in Ireland versus England. The reticence of the Home Office evaporated as police in England proved either unable, or too clumsy, to thwart Fenian activity. The result was the creation of the Secret Service Department (SSD), which though temporary, enthusiastically employed spies and espionage. Ultimately, the Irish government deemed the hazard to the state serious enough to warrant the organisation of a more permanent intelligence bureau — ‘F Department’ — though, as the menace of Fenianism waned, it too was wound up by December 1874. Crucially for Kennedy’s argument, with the infrastructure laid, as well as ample experience for personnel like the Anderson brothers to call upon, Britain and Ireland had existing models of political policing to meet the challenges of the 1880s and beyond.

This book is not without its drawbacks. At 322 pages, it would have benefitted from an active editor’s scalpel to cut away some of the excess prose — despite well employed subheadings, this reader found some of the blow-by-blow accounts arduous. Nevertheless, Kennedy has more than done his homework — the nearly eighty pages of notes evidence the rich fruit of his archival labour. As a result, this book offers a wealth of knowledge for scholars of the nineteenth century across a diverse range of subjects.