Molly Maguires - working-class secret society

19th century Irish-American miners get violent!

Greetings Gold and Silver Templar Knights! Nineteenth century America was terrorised by the strangest terrorist group - the Molly Maguires. Let’s find out more.

The Molly Maguires were a militant secret society that organised among Irish-American miners in Pennsylvania striking terror into the mine owners and ruling class. Some saw the Molly Maguires as freedom fighters while others condemned them as hooligans and thugs. So, who were these working class radicals operating in the shadows under such a bizarre name?

What we know for certain is that they were Irish immigrants to the United States implicated in two waves of killings in the Pennsylvania coalfields in the early 1870s and then about sixteen assassinations from 1875 until arrests led to the hanging of several Molly Maguires in 1877 and 1878. The rounding up of this secret society's leadership was not led by the police but the private detective agency - the Pinkertons. And much of the evidence they gathered to secure the murder convictions and executions was tinged with anti-Irish racism and a determination by mine company bosses to defeat organised labour.

I find this subject fascinating because ancestors of mine - siblings of my great-great-grandfather - emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania and West Virginia getting work in the mines. My fourth cousin was a trade union organiser in the early 20th century, sharing a platform at a rally, shortly before his death, with the legendary union activist, Mother Jones. He succumbed to Spanish flu along with two of his small children weeks later. None of them, to my knowledge, were involved with the Molly Maguires.

Origins in Ireland

The Molly Maguires started as a rural rebel movement in Ireland ostensibly organising land workers against landlords. They were not all Roman Catholic - there were some Protestant Molly Maguires. But it was a predominantly Catholic phenomenon. While posing as liberators, many saw them as little more than gangsters. Reading about some of their exploits in Ireland and Liverpool - an English city with a large Irish population - their street fighting reminded me of the Peaky Blinders.

The violence in Irish politics was rooted in its turbulent history - a country invaded and colonised by England. In the 1840s, famine led to the deaths of up to a million Irish people while many more emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, England, and Scotland. The Molly Maguires arose in this climate of hatred and desperation and exported their campaign of terror across the Atlantic to the United States - where many Irish worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania.

Not all miners were Molly Maguires

Conditions in the privately owned mines of Pennsylvania were grim and strikes were long and bitter. The workforce had a large Irish component but also other nationalities plus African-Americans. Accidents and fatalities were frequent with families plunged into poverty by the loss or injury of the family breadwinner. But despite this, it would be a mistake to assume that trade union activists and Molly Maguires were one and the same thing. The point was made by commentators in the 1870s - at the height of this secret society's activity - that unionised miners were not Molly Maguires. They were a small minority in the coalfield communities.

All the American Molly Maguires were Irish by birth or background - and mainly Roman Catholic. To try and curb their activity, Catholic priests told their flocks that anybody joining this secret society would not get a Christian burial. But despite the fulminations of priests from the pulpits, some clearly found this secret society attractive.

Molly Maguires - the secret society attacks

In 1872, The Sunbury Gazette reported that three miners - George W. Davies, John P. Webster, and Alfred Burge - had been badly wounded after being fired on by Molly Maguires, because the secret society had demanded that all workers withdraw their labour from the Gorrell and Audenried mines near Centralia, Pennsylvania. Webster was "riddled with bird shot and sheet nails" while Davis was expected to die from his shoulder wound.

In 1873, a young Irishman called James McParlan turned up for work at the Pinkerton detective agency in Chicago and was told that he was to go undercover as a miner in Schuylhill county, Pennsylvania. A local mine boss was paying the Pinkertons for their services. McParlan's task was to gather incriminating information on the Molly Maguires. The Irish detective joked to his boss that he knew his own countrymen well and all talk of this secret society was overblown. Irish miners worked hard then spent their money on drink, had fights, and occasionally somebody got killed. But he was sure that the Molly Maguires were fictional.

After a few weeks undercover, McParlan changed his mind completely. His reports confirmed establishment fears that these desperadoes were very real and extremely dangerous. Though some historians believe McParlan was a liar who told his bosses what they wanted to hear. He claimed that the Molly Maguires operated behind the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a well-established organisation with branches in all the cities where Irish immigrants could be found. My grandmother's uncle was a school inspector in New Jersey - an Irish immigrant who was a member of the AOH.

The Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle met the son of the founder of the Pinkerton detective agency on a transatlantic ship crossing and after chatting to him about the Molly Maguires wrote the Sherlock Holmes story, Valley of Fear in 1904. The plot drew a great deal on McParlan's reports on the Molly Maguires.

Hanging the Molly Maguires

McParlan's evidence, gathered undercover while posing as a Molly Maguire himself, led to the arrest of alleged members of the secret society. At least twenty men were hanged through 1877 and 1878 with the last Molly Maguire committed to the gallows being the leader: John "Jack" Kehoe. He had been convicted for the murder of Frank Langdon - a crime which he denied even as he was walked to the scaffold by two priests.

Kehoe was played by the actor Sean Connery in a 1970 movie about the secret society called The Molly Maguires. Kehoe was portrayed as a heroic figure while Richard Harris played McParlan as a villain.