The 1798 Rebellion

The political context within Ireland itself remains an important element in the origins of the 1798 rebellion. An address from the United Irishmen to the English society, in 1792, describes the state with regard to the Catholics, declaring three million ‘are taxed without being represented, and bound by laws to which they have not given consent’. Political power in the hands of the Anglican landowners and aristocrats, excluded the majority of the population. The population of Ulster consisted mostly of Presbyterians and outside Dublin, the majority of Irish were Catholic. In order to assert their rule, the British class created a complex religious divide across both class(economic?) and geographic lines in Ireland. Furthermore, they produced …show more content…
As a result of each improvement being forced from a resentful ascendancy, further irritation was felt in many members of the discriminated classes. The majority of Catholic leaders were in exile by the end of the seventeenth century so most of the public expended its discord in poetry and through localized agrarian warfare. Alongside these grievances, the French works exposed a widespread Irish readership to the ideas challenging power structures in different areas of society including both the church and the state. There was a growth in Protestant patriotism, since they started to identify increasingly closer with Ireland. According to Historian j… there was a ‘growing tension between the colony and the colonial government’ as they wanted greater independence from English control. Revolutionary nationalism developed throughout the Protestant community during the 1780s and 1790s, after their successful push for the revocation of poynings law in 1782. However, the United Irishmen claimed that Irish legislative independence was not ensured through the 1782 constitution and they denounced England’s ability to dictate their …show more content…
The exposures to French ideas, interpreted by the United Irishmen and the emotional atmosphere created by the terror after Jackson’s offer of French assistance helped to offer a way out of repression felt by many across Ireland. The events throughout 1793-5 temporarily created an existing discontent with both the republican and pro-French leadership, exacerbated by harsh government measures. The Irish state collapsed in the 1790s under the pressure of revolutionaries and the British government, alongside the fact the ‘class of whom its rule had always depended on, became active in preventing it from functioning’. Overall the French revolution served as the catalyst in activating the political tensions which enticed sections of Irish society to rise up and join the