On 24 May 1798 a rebellion led by the United Irishmen rose up against the British Crown. Its aims to unite the Presbyterian minority with the majority Catholic population and create an Irish Republic, free from British control.

Risings took place across Ireland but by August the British forces had reduced the rebels to pockets of resistance.

It may seem strange to readers today who think of the later Irish rebellions and the violence in the partitioned Northern Ireland as being about Catholics v Protestants. This was not the case in 1798 when the aim was to unite Catholics and Protestants against British rule and the Anglican establishment. They were inspired by the American War of Independence and the French Revolution to have an Irish Republic built upon the ideals of liberty and equality.

A French expedition to support the rebels was seriously delayed and it wasn’t until  late August that the French landed an expeditionary force in the west, in County Mayo. 

“The rebellion of 1798 is the most violent and tragic event in Irish history between the Jacobite wars and the Great Famine. In the space of a few weeks, 30,000 – peasants armed with pikes and pitchforks, defenceless women and children – were cut down, shot, or blown like chaff as they charged up to the mouth of the canon.” –  The Year of Liberty (1969), Thomas Pakenham.

The uprising was brutally suppressed.

In August 1800, the Irish Parliament (induced by extensive favours and emoluments) agreed to abolish itself. Under the Acts of Union, Irish representation was transferred to Westminster, now styled as the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Click on this link to find out more : Timeline of 1798