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1798 CEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

The United Irishmen Rise in 1798

A non-sectarian republican movement inspired by the French Revolution launches a doomed nationwide uprising

On the timeline · around 1798 CE · Union and FamineUnion and FamineThe United Irishmen Rise in 179817501775180018251850

Quick facts

United Irishmen founded
October 1791
Rebellion began
23 May 1798
Estimated deaths
In the tens of thousands
Key leader
Theobald Wolfe Tone (d. 1798, in prison)

What happened

The Society of United Irishmen, founded in October 1791 by Theobald Wolfe Tone and others, set out to unite Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman and end the connection with Britain. Driven underground and radicalized, the movement embraced armed rebellion, and the rising began on the night of 23 May 1798 with the halting of mail coaches leaving Dublin, the signal for coordinated action. Rather than a single coordinated uprising, fighting broke out unevenly in County Wexford and other parts of Leinster, in Antrim and Down in the north, and, after a French expeditionary force landed in support, in County Mayo in the west. The rebellion was crushed within weeks, with a death toll estimated in the tens of thousands. A final French attempt to land Wolfe Tone with reinforcements was intercepted at sea near Tory Island in October; Tone was captured and, sentenced to death, took his own life in prison in Dublin.

Why it matters

The scale and sectarian character of the violence in 1798, despite the United Irishmen's professed non-sectarianism, convinced the British government that a separate Irish parliament was too dangerous to tolerate, and it used the rebellion's aftermath to push through the Act of Union three years later, abolishing that parliament altogether.

How we know

The 1798 rebellion is documented in British military and administrative records of the period, in United Irishmen correspondence and testimony, and in the surviving trial records of captured leaders including Wolfe Tone himself.

Sources

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The United Irishmen Rise in 1798 · History of Ireland · SourcedStory