Young Ireland

Young Ireland, a romantic nationalist group active 1842–8. Initially led by Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, and John Blake Dillon, and focused on the Nation newspaper, the group comprised mainly middle‐class graduates, from both Catholic and Protestant backgrounds, of Trinity College, Dublin. It sought to create a non‐sectarian public opinion in Ireland infused with a sense of cultural nationality, and believed it necessary to promote a national literature and to revive the Irish language, although few practical steps were taken towards the latter objective. The group was fully involved in the repeal campaign, but rejected Daniel O'Connell's pragmatic overtures towards federalists in 1844, and clashed with him over the Queen's Colleges bill in May 1845. Davis, a convinced advocate of mixed education and a fierce critic of sectarianism within the repeal movement, failed to grasp Catholic sensitivities on this subject, while O'Connell's son John saw the group as potential rivals for the leadership of the movement.

The Nation group were first labelled Young Ireland in late 1844 by observers who noted similarities with romantic nationalist groups on the Continent, but the term was used pejoratively from 1845 to distinguish them from the Old Irelanders around the O'Connells. In 1846 O'Connell responded to Young Ireland criticisms of his negotiations for a new Whig alliance by requiring members of the Repeal Association to renounce the use of force. Although Young Ireland had no plans for rebellion, they refused to accept these peace resolutions, and, with William Smith O'Brien, they withdrew from the association on 28 July. The split was formalized with the establishment of the Irish Confederation.

Young Ireland had little popular support outside Dublin or amongst the Catholic clergy, and was divided over its political strategy. O'Brien and Duffy hoped to attract the support of the patriotic gentry to a broad campaign against the government's famine policy, while the militants, led by John Mitchel and inspired by James Fintan Lalor, looked to a spontaneous peasant‐led social revolution. News of the revolution in France in February 1848 helped restore some degree of unity, but the rebellion of 1848 was an abject failure and the movement's leaders fled abroad or were transported. Their legacy lay not in the insurrectionary fiasco of 1848, but with their success in inculcating a romantic sense of nationality into subsequent generations of Irish nationalists.

Bibliography

Davis, R. , The Young Ireland Movement (1987)

Peter Gray