British secret agents were ordered to infiltrate Irish-American groups at the end of the 19th century, according to previously unpublished documents which show the British government was as concerned then as 100 years later about transatlantic support for republicanism in Ireland.
Increasing anxiety about American influence on and financial backing for republicanism emerges from secret dispatches contained in a file marked Irish Political Societies, 1876-1914, released this week at the British Public Record Office.
The file, suppressed until now on grounds of "national security", was the oldest closed Home Office file. It was released by Mr Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, after he was asked by Mr Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, to identify documents withheld beyond the normal 30-year rule.
Agents report that republican groups helped the Boers in South Africa and were in contact with Russian diplomats and Indian nationalists. The assumption, reported one agent in 1905, was "that the native in India is as anxious to throw off the British yoke as the malcontent Irishman professes to be . . . an Irish revolt would be aided by a simultaneous Indian rising".
In November 1895, Maj Gosselin of the Special Branch had warned the Home Office that "the leaders of secret societies both here and in America have shown increased activity", adding that "the whole of Ireland is completely organised".
The following month he reported that "the movements of Irish American Extremists" were becoming so serious that the Marquess of Salisbury, prime minister and foreign secretary, should instruct British consuls in the US to pass intelligence reports to secret agents in New York.
Britain's chief agent in the US, who signed himself "Z", monitored meetings of the Clan na Gael, a fast-growing Irish republican movement. It developed close links with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, whose activities led to the setting up of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch in 1883. It later provided funds for the 1916 Easter Rising.
Some papers are missing from the file on the grounds that they still need protection for national security reasons. The names of Special Branch informants are blacked out.