The Ancient Order of Hibernians and Its Link to the Coal Regions;

The Molly Maguires and the AOH

Background: Ancient Times:

The Ancient Order of Hibernians traces its lineage back to 1331 B. C. during the reign of Munemon, the ruler of all Ireland at that time. Munemon founded the Order of the Golden Chain (or Collar), a military order. In other areas of the country, mili tary orders soon started to spring up. The most renowned, besides the Knights of the Golden Collar were the Fianna Erin of Leinster, the Clanna Deagha of Munster, the Clanna Morna of Connaught, and the Knights of the Red Branch of Ulster. Before the com ing of St. Patrick, these ancient orders were the only stable secular institution in Ireland. The laws of the provincial kings and the mandates of the High King at Tara were enforced under their swords. In the same manner, the orders were a barrier to d ictatorship. Though they could unite in times of need to combat a common foe, these ancient military often battled one another for territory or power.

When St. Patrick arrived in Ireland (A. D. 432), the military orders were from the very first friendly to Christianity. Soon, the form of conferring knighthood was accompanied by religious ceremonies. Some of the military orders began to use the cros s in the armorial markings of their equipment. Having accepted Christianity as part of their principles, the orders became not only its defenders, but its missionaries and theologians. The military genius of the nation was turned toward building schools , monasteries, and convents. From the 6th to the 9th century, the schools of Ireland were the most celebrated in the world. When they became patrons of education, the ancient orders regained the prestige they had gradually lost through their military riv alries over the centuries.

Background: 16th and 17th centuries:

Over the centuries, the military orders started to fade. Successive invasions of Ireland had pitted the Irish against enemies who attempted to take over their land and alter their Gaelic way of life. Inflexible opponents like the Vikings were fought until their power was broken. More malleable opponents like the Normans were gradually absorbed into Gaelic society until they became more Irish than the Irish themselves. Despite these invasions, the Irish maintained their clan system, language, traditi ons, and religion.

In 1515, Henry VIII began his reign as King of England. From the beginning, he undertook to destroy the basis of Irish resistance. Laws against Irish civilization, against the use of native language and literature, against every phase of National lif e were enacted. By a Parliament in May of 1536, composed only of English colonists, Henry was acknowledged as Head of Church and State. The Catholic religion was declared null and void -- "corrupt for ever."

The estates of Anglo Lords in Ireland became bases from which assaults on the Irish way of life were launched. In these conflicts, great tracts of land were confiscated and given to Crown supporters who professed the State religion. They became the l andlords who would govern the future of the native population. The Irish fought against the theft of their land and were dealt with severely. Their persistance drove the English to new extremes in repression. Penal laws were enacted which disenfranchise d Irish Catholics from the political, social, and economic life of their country.

Brotherhoods were formed to protect the Irish values under attack. In many different locations, secret societies were formed with names like Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, and Defenders. Each secret society was identified with differing actions against Englis h landlords, but each included as a purpose the protection of the Roman Catholic Church and its clergy. The Defenders, formed in 1565, used the motto Friendship, Unity, and True Christian Charity, the same motto used by the Ancient Order Of Hibernians to day.

Rory O’Moore is considered to have revived the ancient orders and at the same time formed the basis for today’s Ancient Order of Hibernians. O’Moore forged a confederation of the native Irish leaders in Kilkenny in 1642 for the purpose of defeating th e English invaders, restoring all usurped land to its rightful owners, and allowing the free practice of the Roman Catholic faith. Membership in the Confederate Catholics of Ireland was sealed with the Oath of Association. This oath, designed to bind I rish Catholics of sectional rivalries and differing motives into a united force, survives in the pledge that the Ancient Order of Hibernians administers to its members today.

The Confederate Catholic forces were united under the brilliant leadership of Owen Roe O’Neill. Until his death in 1649, O’Neill won major victories in the field for the Irish, always against greater numbers and better equipped armies. Owen Roe used the Red Hand Of Ulster device on his standards on which was superimposed the Pontifical Cross and Keys, for the Pope had named him The Sword of the Church. He named his army officially The Catholic Army.

After O’Neill’s death, no other leader arose who was capable of forging the Irish into a united force. 1649, besides being notable for the death of Owen Roe O’Neill, also marked the year that Oliver Cromwell arrived in Ireland.

Their spirits crushed, their forces again scattered after the death of Owen Roe O’Neill, the Irish faced their cruelest foe in Cromwell. The native Irish were dispersed, their possessions taken, and their priests had bounties placed on their heads. A gain, the secret societies did what they could to help their countrymen. They also sheltered the clergy, allowing them to celebrate the Mass in isolated areas while they stood guard.

Mid 19th Century: Famine and Emigration

By the 1800’s the Catholic Irish led impoverished existences, many of them tenants on the estates of Anglo Lords, some on land that had been their own family’s centuries before, yet still faithful to the Church St. Patrick had brought them. But a land of new opportunity was opening. In America, the large stores of natural resources required a huge workforce to gather them and build the means to transport them to markets. The Irish Catholics, though reluctant to leave the land of their fathers, bega n to buy transport to America, a land promising to yield new hope to them and their families. The unskilled (after generations living under a regime that denied them upward mobility) Irish soon found work as laborers in the large cities, digging the cana ls, building the railroads, and mining the coal of America.

In 1836, the first charter for the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America (AOH) was granted. The first Division was formed in New York City with its large Irish immigrant population; the second in Hecksherville, Schuylkill County, Pa., where a large I rish settlement had arisen around the rich coal deposits.

Mid 19th Century: Life in America

The new immigrants soon found that the prejudice and oppression they had fled from was present in America. The Know-Nothings, named for their statement to police investigating complaints, burned their homes and churches. The Ancient Order of Hibernia ns acted as guardians of the Irish and their Church in America.

The Great Hunger of the 1840’s brought the Irish to America in great numbers. The large port of entry cities, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York teemed with Irish immigrants, many of whom settled into crowded city sections soon termed Irish slums. Th ese mostly rural Irish with their innate trust were easy marks for con men, among them, sadly, some of their fellow Irish. The AOH Divisions in the cities provided aid to these poor immigrants, offering cash to those arriving destitute, helping to locate relatives and housing, and finding them jobs.

There were plenty of jobs for the Irish in those years. The earlier immigrants found work digging the canals and mining coal. Now the railroads were replacing the canals as the coal deposits in Pennsylvania were being developed at a rapid pace. Jobs in the mines were plentiful. Towns full of Irish immigrants began to spring up in the hard coal regions of Pennsylvania.

At first, these jobs in the hard coal regions must have seemed a blessing to the destitute immigrants. The coal companies provided company-owned housing with rents deducted from pay checks and company-owned stores where a bill could be accumulated, al so to be deducted from pay checks. But the Irish soon discovered the trap. After the house rents and the excessive prices at the company store were deducted from their paychecks, there was very little left. They were trapped in a system that promised t hem only generations of survival just above the poverty level. Their young children had to leave school to work around the mines for the family to survive. And woe to the young family whose father was killed or crippled in the mines. Without an income to pay for the housing, the family was turned out into the muddy streets to beg or rely on friends’ charity, much the same situation they had fled from during the Great Hunger. Any Irish miner speaking out against the conditions faced possible blacklisti ng among the growing cartel of mine owners, leaving him unable to find work in the region, almost guaranteeing starvation for his family. Justice in the coal regions was administered by private police forces owned by the mine operators. It is worth noti ng that even in this bleak existence, the poorest coal patch town supported a Roman Catholic Church.

Reaction to Conditions:

Ancient Order of Hibernians Divisions had sprung up among the coal patch towns of the hard coal regions of Pennsylvania. In those days, long before the social programs of Franklin Roosevelt, the AOH administered its own social welfare programs. From dues and fundraisers monies, the Hibernians offered death benefits for widows and children, sick pay for those unable to work, and funds during periods of unemployment. But so little was available and there were so many in need.

Perhaps taking a cue from the mine owners who were consolidating their operations and presenting a solid front against their workers, the miners began to organize. What one man, or even all the workers at one mining operation, could not accomplish, pe rhaps an organization of workers across all the mining operations in a region could. Concerted action would affect not only the mining operations, but also the railroads that owned coal lands or relied on the coal trade for most of their freight. Men or ganized into one body acting in concert across the region could apply pressure for better conditions and wages.

In 1868, John Siney of Saint Clair, a native of Ireland formed the Worker’s Benevolent Association (WBA). Strikes were an effective weapon for the WBA but violence was also perpetrated against the mine bosses. And even though union leaders were black listed, sometimes assaulted and killed, by 1870 the mine owners grudgingly agreed to recognize the WBA as a legitimate bargaining agent for the miners. A minimum day wage was instituted along with a sliding scale of wages based on the prevailing price of coal.

The goals of the WBA meshed with those of the AOH -- taking care of their fellow men and helping to improve their lives. As the numbers of the Irish grew in areas of the coal regions and as they became organized, they started to look to the future. I rish born men began to get elected to public office and secured public jobs for their friends. Miners finally started to get ahead, some saving enough cash to buy businesses, thus ending their reliance on the coal companies. Irish political power was gr owing.

The handwriting was on the wall for the mine owners. Any improvement in the lives of the Irish came at the expense of their profits. Added to this was the deep-seated prejudice against the Irish and the Roman Catholic Church prevalent among the leade rs of industry in America in that era. The coal and railroad owners found an ally in Benjamin Bannan, editor of Pottsville’s Miner’s Journal. Bannan wrote editorials against Irish Catholics, their union, and their political aspirations. It was B annan who introduced the name Molly Maguires to America. Molly Maguire was a legendary figure in Ireland, an old woman who led a group of poor farmers in secret violent attacks against absentee landlords’ rent collectors. Through Bannan’s editorials, th e name Molly Maguires came to symbolize lawlessness and violence to the average law abiding citizen. Every crime occurring in the coal regions was blamed on the Molly Maguires until the name took on a dread connotation, much like Mafia in today’s society . By linking the violence in the coal regions to a phantom group named Molly Maguires and then branding the WBA as Molly Maguires, Bannan and the coal operators hoped to break the power of the union.

But other events conspired against the WBA. An economic slump in the early 1870’s sank the price of coal in 1873. The coal and railroad owners took advantage of this situation and announced a 20% cut in pay and the end of minimum wages, ending their agreement with the WBA. In a disastrous strategy, the WBA called a strike in December of 1874. Violence spread across the coal regions as the miners and their families faced starvation. Seven months later, in July of 1875, the miners had to abandon the Long Strike and come back on the owners’ terms. One of the conditions was disbanding the WBA. The mine and railroad owners were successful in breaking one source of the Irish Catholic power in the coal regions.

With the WBA broken, the Ancient Order of Hibernians with its organizational structure became the de facto union in the coal regions. The attention of the coal and railroad operators could now be turned to breaking this source of Irish Catholic power. An additional benefit of destroying the strength of the AOH in the coal regions lay in the powerful historic connection of the AOH to the Roman Catholic Church. If the AOH could be associated with the violence in the coal regions and its reputation des troyed, some of this stain could be attached to the Church, which the owners abhorred. Soon, through Bannan’s newspaper and other papers friendly to big business interests, the name Molly Maguires, once associated with the WBA, became linked to the AOH. All violence in the coal regions was because of the Molly Maguires, hence the AOH.

Of course, we know the final outcome. In the late 1870’s twenty so-called Molly Maguires, AOH members all, were executed in Carbon, Columbia, Northumberland, and Schuylkill Counties. Seven were hung in my hometown of Mauch Chunk alone. The power of the Irish was broken, the reputation of the AOH in these areas destroyed, the stain also attached to the Roman Catholic Church.

The Church had responded by excommunicating all those belonging to the Molly Maguires, a severe threat to the deeply religious Irish. The National AOH disbanded the AOH Divisions in the four counties, noting that "a great number of good men would suffer for the misdeeds of a few ungovernable ones."

In such a desperate society as existed in the coal regions, some men will be driven to violence because of a lack of hope. Indeed, some men convicted and executed during the Molly Maguire era confessed to these crimes. But most of the executions were directed against union and political activists, men who sought to elevate the position of the Irish Catholics in society, men who were a threat to the absolute power and profits of the big business interests of the day.

For many years, the Irish in the coal regions refused to discuss the Molly Maguire times. Indeed, for most law abiding citizens, someone accused of a crime by authorities is considered guilty. Admitting a connection to a group of executed criminals i s a barrier to upward movement in society.

In recent years, new research has been done on the Molly Maguire era, leading to a re-examination of the motives of all involved. The AOH has returned to three of the four banned counties in Pennsylvania, dedicated, as always, to preserving the faith and traditions of our Irish ancestors. Perhaps now, 120 years later, we Irish Catholics in the coal regions are ready to come to terms with our past.

Walter Boyle, Division Historian

The Alec Campbell, Mauch Chunk Division of Jim Thorpe, Pa.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, Inc.

Sources:

The Story of the Irish Race by Seamus McManus

The History of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America by John O’Dea

The Hard Coal Docket by John P. Lavelle