Irish Rebellion of 1798: The United Irishmen Rise Against Britain

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was an armed rising against British rule led by the Society of United Irishmen, who hoped to create an independent Irish republic with the help of revolutionary France. Fighting broke out in May 1798, spread through Leinster and parts of Ulster, and was renewed in August when a French force landed at Killala in County Mayo. The rebellion was crushed with great loss of life and led directly to the union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

Background: reform, revolution and sectarian tension

In the late eighteenth century Ireland had its own parliament in Dublin, but it was controlled by a small Protestant elite of the established Church of Ireland and closely tied to the government in London. Catholics, the large majority of the population, and Presbyterian Dissenters, concentrated in Ulster, were excluded from full political rights.

The French Revolution inspired radical reformers. In October 1791 Theobald Wolfe Tone, a Dublin Protestant lawyer, joined Belfast Presbyterian radicals such as Samuel Neilson and Thomas Russell in founding the Society of United Irishmen. They called for parliamentary reform and equal rights for Catholics, and aimed to replace religious divisions with the common name of Irishman.

War between Britain and France from 1793 changed the situation. The government suppressed the society in 1794, and it reorganised as a secret, oath-bound network preparing for armed revolution. Tone went to France to seek military help, and the United Irishmen forged links with the Defenders, a Catholic agrarian secret society.

The road to rebellion

In December 1796 a French fleet carrying around 14,000 troops under General Lazare Hoche, with Tone on board, reached Bantry Bay in County Cork. Storms prevented a landing, and the fleet returned to France. The near-miss alarmed the government.

In 1797 the army under General Gerard Lake began a harsh campaign to disarm Ulster, using house burnings, flogging and the torture known as pitchcapping, in which a cap of hot pitch was forced onto a suspect’s head. Similar methods spread to Leinster in early 1798. Militant loyalist Orange lodges, founded in 1795, added to sectarian tension.

On 12 March 1798 most of the Leinster leadership of the United Irishmen was arrested at a meeting in Dublin. Lord Edward FitzGerald, a son of the Duke of Leinster who was to lead the military rising, remained at large until 19 May, when he was mortally wounded during his arrest. He died in prison on 4 June.

The rising in Leinster

The rebellion began on the night of 23 to 24 May 1798, signalled by the stopping of mail coaches leaving Dublin. Risings in Kildare, Meath, Carlow and Wicklow were poorly coordinated and quickly suppressed, and the planned seizure of Dublin never took place.

The most serious fighting came in County Wexford, which had been expected to stay quiet. On 27 May rebels led by a Catholic curate, Father John Murphy, defeated a militia force at Oulart Hill. They took Enniscorthy on 28 May and the town of Wexford on 30 May, where a rebel administration was set up.

The Wexford rebels failed to break out of the county. On 5 June they were beaten back with heavy losses at New Ross, and on the same day rebels killed more than 100 loyalist prisoners, most of them Protestants, at a barn in Scullabogue. On 9 June an attack on Arklow failed. Government troops converged on the main rebel camp at Vinegar Hill outside Enniscorthy, and on 21 June General Lake’s forces drove the rebels from the hill. Wexford town was retaken soon afterwards, after rebels had killed loyalist prisoners on Wexford Bridge on 20 June.

The rising in Ulster

In Ulster, the original stronghold of the United Irishmen, the rising came late and was smaller than expected, partly because of the disarmament campaign. On 7 June Henry Joy McCracken led an attack on Antrim town, which was repulsed. In County Down, rebels under Henry Munro were defeated at Ballynahinch on 12 and 13 June. Both leaders were captured and hanged.

The French at Killala

In June 1798 Charles Cornwallis became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and offered an amnesty to rebels who surrendered, while executions of leaders continued. The rising seemed over when, on 22 August, about 1,000 French troops under General Jean Humbert landed at Killala in County Mayo.

Joined by several thousand local recruits, Humbert routed a larger government force at Castlebar on 27 August, an episode mocked as the “Races of Castlebar” because of the speed of the defenders’ flight. A short-lived Republic of Connacht was proclaimed. But on 8 September Humbert surrendered to Cornwallis at Ballinamuck in County Longford. The French were treated as prisoners of war, while many of their Irish allies were killed.

In October a second French squadron carrying Wolfe Tone was intercepted by the Royal Navy off the coast of Donegal. Tone was captured, tried by court martial in Dublin and sentenced to death. He died on 19 November 1798 from a self-inflicted wound.

Key people

• Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798), co-founder of the United Irishmen, is regarded as a founding figure of Irish republicanism.
• Lord Edward FitzGerald (1763–1798), an aristocrat and former British army officer, was the rising’s intended military leader.
• Father John Murphy led the Wexford rebels and was executed at Tullow in July 1798.
• Henry Joy McCracken (1767–1798), a Belfast Presbyterian cotton manufacturer, led the Antrim rising.
• General Jean Humbert commanded the French landing in Mayo.

Consequences

The death toll is uncertain. Estimates commonly range from about 10,000 to 30,000, mostly rebels and civilians killed in battle, executions and reprisals by both sides; some historians suggest higher figures. Atrocities such as Scullabogue were used to portray the rising as a sectarian Catholic revolt, deepening divisions between Catholics and Protestants.

The British prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, concluded that the Irish parliament could not keep the country secure. Through heavy political pressure and the generous use of patronage, the Irish parliament was persuaded to vote itself out of existence. The Act of Union took effect on 1 January 1801, creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Legacy

The 1798 rebellion became a central memory in Irish nationalism. Robert Emmet’s failed rising of 1803 was its immediate sequel, and later movements, including the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, looked back to Tone and the United Irishmen. Ballads such as “The Croppy Boy” and “Boolavogue”, the latter written for the centenary in 1898, kept the story alive.

Interpretations have shifted over time. Nineteenth-century Catholic nationalists often presented 1798 as a faith-based struggle, while loyalist accounts stressed sectarian killings. Modern historians, especially around the bicentenary in 1998, have emphasised the rising’s democratic and non-sectarian ideals alongside the violence.

Timeline

• 1791, October: The Society of United Irishmen is founded in Belfast.
• 1796, December: A French fleet with Wolfe Tone fails to land at Bantry Bay.
• 1798, 12 March: Most of the Leinster leadership is arrested in Dublin.
• 1798, 23–24 May: The rebellion begins in Leinster.
• 1798, 30 May: Rebels take Wexford town.
• 1798, 7 June: Rising at Antrim; Ballynahinch follows on 12–13 June.
• 1798, 21 June: Rebels are defeated at Vinegar Hill.
• 1798, 22 August: French troops land at Killala.
• 1798, 8 September: Humbert surrenders at Ballinamuck.
• 1798, 19 November: Wolfe Tone dies in prison in Dublin.

Why it matters

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was one of the bloodiest episodes in modern Irish history. It ended Ireland’s separate parliament, shaped the relationship between Britain and Ireland for more than a century and gave Irish republicanism its founding heroes and ideals.