d in 1914 over 63,000, and had donated great sums to charity,
education, and religion. The A.O.H. had, in 1914, assets of
$2,230,000. It pays annually, for charity, sick and death benefits,
and maintenance, over $1,000,000, and during its existence in America
has donated nearly $20,000,000 to works of beneficence. One of the
most celebrated of the gifts of the Order was the endowment of the
Chair of Celtic in the Catholic University of America, and one of its
greatest gifts to charity was its contribution of $40,000 to the
sufferers from the San Francisco earthquake.

The Clan-na-Gael is a society organized to secure the independence of
Ireland by armed revolution. Its organization is secret and it is the
successor of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, called in America
the Fenian Brotherhood, which promoted many daring raids and risings
in Ireland in 1867. The I.R.B. was perfected by James Stephens in
Ireland, and by John O'Mahony in America, from 1857 to 1867. An
invasion of Canada was made in great force under the general
direction of Colonel William R. Roberts, president of the Fenian
Brotherhood, but was unsuccessful owing to the attitude of the United
States Government, which declared that the Fenians were violating the
principles of neutrality. After the disorganization of the Fenian
Brotherhood, the idea of revolution languished until revived by the
founding of the Clan-na-Gael by Jerome J. Collins in 1869, and the
membership during the twenty years from 1880 to 1900 included almost
fifty thousand of the flower of the men of Irish blood in America.
The principle of revolution was first given organized public
expression in America through the formation in 1848 of the Irish
Republican Union, which was succeeded by the Emmet Monument
Association, these societies influencing the creation of the
Sixty-Ninth and Seventy-Fifth Regiments of the New York State
Militia, and the Ninth Massachusetts, which became so famous for
valor during the Civil War. Although not putting forth all its
strength, so as to allow full scope to the parliamentary efforts to
ameliorate the state of the Irish people, the Clan-na-Gael is as
vigorous a section as ever of the forces organized for the service of
patriotism.

The Land League, founded in Ireland in 1879, was transplanted to
America in 1880, when the first branch was established in New York
City through the efforts of Patrick Ford, John Boyle O'Reilly, John
Devoy, and others. Mic