REBELLION

You might like to remind yourselves of the basic background for Ireland from the web-article here. In this seminar the aim is primarily to investigate what happened in Ireland from 1797 to 1798, with particular emphasis on isolating the reasons for the 1798 rebellion, and its ultimate failure. Themes to consider include the clampdown from 1797, the state of the United Irishmen, and the invasion of the French. Could the rebellion have been avoided? How heavy-handed was the government? What were the consequences? You will need to dip into the basic secondary reading to flesh out these points, but the documents give us some sense of the events and atmosphere of these years.

DOCUMENTS

A Repression in Ireland

A Proclamation, By the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland, 6 November 1796

Pelham’s letter to General Lake, 3 March 1797

General Lake’s Proclamation, 13 March 1797

*A Proclamation, By the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland, 17 May 1797

B United Britons

*The United Britons to the United Irishmen, 5 January 1798

C "1798"

Notice for a surrender of arms in Wicklow, 11 May 1798

*To the United Irishmen, 17 March 1798

Hand-bills distributed to soldiers, 31 March 1798

Notes on the arrival of French troops

A Song of the United Irishmen

Anonymous notice, Killyshee Church after the French landing, September 1798

*The Catechism of the United Irishmen

*The Trial of Theobald Wolfe Tone, State Trials 27.

ESSAY QUESTIONS

What were the causes of the Irish rebellion?

Why did the Irish rebellion fail?

Useful Reading

Curtin, N. J. The United Irishmen (O.U.P., 1994)
Dickson, D., Keogh, D., and Whelan, K., eds., The United Irishmen. Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion (Dublin, 1993)
*Elliott, M. Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France (Yale Univ. Press, 1982)
*Foster, R.F. Modern Ireland 1600-1782 (1988).
*Gough, H. and David Dickson, eds., Ireland and the French revolution (Dublin, 1990)
Smyth, Jim, The men of no property: Irish radicals and popular politics in the late eighteenth century (New York, 1992)
Smyth, Jim, ed., Revolution, counter-revolution, and union: Ireland in the 1790s (Cambridge, 2000)

Pakenham, T. The Year of Liberty (1969).
Cullen, L.M., ‘The 1798 rebellion in its eighteenth century context’ in P.J. Corish, Radicals, rebels, and establishments (Belfast, 1985), 91-113
Whelan, Kevin, ‘Politicisation in County Wexford and the origins of the 1798 rebellion’ in H. Gough and D. Dickson, eds., Ireland and the French revolution (Dublin, 1990), 83-108.