The Irish Rebellion of 1798

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 is known in history as the United Irishmen Rebellion. It began in 1798 and it lasted a few months. The Irish people rebelled against the foreign British rule of Ireland.

Those who rebelled in the Irish Rebellion on 1798 were Irishmen, united in their desire for independence. They came from a republican revolutionary group and borrowed the ideas and principles of the French and American revolutions. This group was called the Society of United Irishmen and was largely made of protestant liberals. They promoted emancipation values and economic reforms because the Irish authorities had little intention of changing the situation in the country. Later on, the main goal of the united Irishmen would be to distance Ireland from all its connections with England. To help them do so, they began harvesting a close relationship with France, one of England’s enemies.

The Irish Rebellion faced immense difficulties when the Parliament of Ireland applied the martial law. The Irishmen revolutionaries were exposed to torture and murder and their houses were burned down. This is the moment when England realized that using sectarian differences will weaken the establishment of the revolutionaries, but the organizers of the Irish rebellion had a plan. They started riots in Dublin and soon they spread all over the country. Although it meant to be peaceful, the Irish rebellion was violent and bloody at times. Some historians consider this a civil war and not just a simple rebellious protest. There were executions on both sides, as both of them fought harder for what they believed in.

The Irish Rebellion is a very important episode in Irish politics and it’s also imprinted in the collective memory of all Irishmen. Although it was one of the most violent and brutal episodes in Irish history, the Irish Rebellion was one of the first times that men of different religious background came together and fought together.