Series 1 - Frank Roney autobiography

8 sub-series

Roney's original manuscript is in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Citation for a published source: Roney, Frank. (1931). Frank Roney, Irish Rebel and California Labor Leader: An Autobiography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Materials pertaining to the 1931 autobiography of Irish-American Fenian leader and trade unionist Frank Roney (1841-1925), and to a related journal article, Kerby A. Miller and Breandán Mac Suibhne (2016), 'Frank Roney and the Fenians: A Reappraisal of Irish Republicanism in 1860s Belfast and Ulster', Éire-Ireland 51, nos. 3-4, pp. 23-54.
Per Professor Kerby A. Miller: Per Professor Kerby A. Miller: 'I selected Roney's account of his forced emigration, from Dublin prison to New York, which resulted from arrest for Fenian activities. I also selected his accounts of searching for employment at his trade, iron moulding, and of his labors, in iron foundries in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, and Omaha. Finally, I included various accounts of his move to San Francisco and of his activities there (and nationally) in labor unions (and in anti-Chinese worker agitation) from 1875 to the end of 1886, which represented the most historically significant portion of Roney's life in the US. The first two of these selected segments contain some direct references to Irish immigrants and/or to Irish American nationalism. The last segment, on California labor unions rarely mentions Irish immigrants directly. . However, almost all the data in this last segment are very relevant to Irish immigrant workers, as historians like Eric Foner have shown. In California and nationally, both the unions and the anti-Chinese agitations were heavily Irish in leadership and membership; and many of their policies (opposition to land monopoly) and activities ("boycotts" of hostile employers) were directly modeled on Irish Land League ideas and precedents... ...Unlike many memoirists, Roney is excellent on the class differences and conflicts within Irish America. It's clear that Irish America now exhibits its own "ruling class" (especially in western states and cities) and, more broadly, a rising bourgeoisie, and, whatever their pretenses of Irish-American nationalism or of Catholic piety, they're as exploitive as native-American capitalists towards Irish (and other) workers. Roney's criticisms of the two major US political parties, equally corrupt and opposed to workers' interests, are also very good. Roney was not a Marxist. Nevertheless, his political opinions were radical and, as such, not representative.'
The series contains the aforementioned autobiography and article, plus research and correspondence compiled by Miller and Mac Suibhne regarding Roney, Feniamism, 1860s republicanism, and the August 1864 sectarian riots in Belfast.

For a transcript of Roney's 1875-1876 San Francisco diary, see P155/38/2.