The decade of the United Irishmen : contemporary accounts, 1791-1801 / edited by John Killen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Killen, John, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United Irishmen--Sources.

United Irishmen.

History.

Politics and government.

Ireland--Politics and government--1760-1820--Sources.

Ireland.

Ireland--History--Rebellion of 1798--Sources.

Physical Description:

220 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Belfast : Blackstaff Press, 1997.

Summary:

There will be renewed interest this year in the United Irishmen because of celebrations surrounding the Bicentennial Anniversary of the Rising in 1798. Influenced by the French Revolution and Thomas Paine's famous The Rights of Man, the Society of the United Irishmen was founded in October, 1791, by a small group of men in a Belfast tavern. In their "declaration of independence" they asked for a "cordial union among all the peoples of Ireland (and) a complete and radical reform of the representation of the people in Parliament". Their revolution against Britain failed, shattered primarily by the unsuccessful French invasion ("the year of the French") and the series of devastating battles in 1798 in Northern Ireland which resulted in the deaths of many of the revolution's key Presbyterian and Catholic leaders.

In a decade which began optimistically with the Society's birth and ended tragically with the Act of Union, Irish society was permanently politicized and polarized. Killen brings together excerpts from contemporary newspaper articles, letters, military reports, journals, and diaries to let the documents themselves tell this dramatic story about the rise and fall of Ireland's great revolution. John Killen has also edited the widely praised, The Famine Decade: Contemporary Accounts, 1841-1851 (available from Dufour).

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0856406112

OCLC:

38195117