Dear TIGS Members,   In my new book, Ballykilcline Rising / From Famine Ireland to Immigrant America, there is something of a mystery involving an Irish immigrant in Troy.   His name was John Roche and he was a Fenian in the 1860s. Because I had evidence of another Kilglass Parish Roscommoner in Troy who was named Roche from a Missing Friends ad and because I had already linked a Kilglass immigrant in Rutland to the Fenians, I tried to learn whether John Roche was part of the Kilglass family mentioned in the ad. But I did not find the evidence by press time.   John Roche stood up at a Fenian convention in Philadelphia and accused Henri LeCaron, an aide to Fenian General John O’Neill, of being a British spy. And he was. But the organization did not believe Roche. It was LeCaron’s information to the British that contributed to the Fenians’ downfall when they tried to invade Canada along the New York and Vermont border in 1870.   Here’s an excerpt from my book:   Another potential link that may demonstrate Kilglass people’s concern for Ireland’s freedom came from a Fenian named John Roche[i] (LeCaron 1974, p. 66) of Troy, who rose at a Fenian meeting in Philadelphia in 1868 and publicly accused General John O’Neill’s top aide, Henri Le Caron, of spying on the organization for the British. In fact, Roche was right:  Le Caron, whose real name was Thomas Miller Beach, was perhaps the top British agent=2 0spying on the Fenians, but Le Caron had so embedded himself with O’Neill and the Fenians that the convention rejected Roche’s charges and even reprimanded him for making them. (D’Arcy 1947, p. 307) For another twenty years or so, Le Caron continued to spy on the Fenians and successor nationalist organizations like Clan-na-Gael and the Land League, at whose convention in 1883 in Philadelphia a “Brother Roach of Troy” served as a temporary secretary. (Le Caron 1974, p. 214.]   ________________________   [i] In his Fenian history, William D’Arcy identified Roche as Patrick Roche and cited LeCaron’s book as his source; the presumption is that D’Arcy, who was not directly involved and wrote years later, was mistaken in supplying Roche’s first name.  ________________________     Does anyone know who this John Roche was? Has any TIGs member studied Fenian activity in Troy?   Thanks, Mary Lee Dunn