The name Fenians was first applie by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish nationalist organization which he started in America in 1858. The Fenians, both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood, were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. O'Mahony, who was a Celtic scholar, named the American wing of the movement after the Fianna, the legendary band of Irish warriors led by Fionn mac Cumhaill.