insurrection of 1798

insurrection of 1798, the culmination of the revolutionary activities of the United Irishmen. There were four main outbreaks.1.  Rissings in Co. Dublin, Kildare, and Meath on the night of 23–4 May. Apparently triggered by the interception of mail coaches leaving Dublin, and possibly envisaged as leading to a descent on the capital, the insurrection was undermined by lack of co‐ordination and the failure to capture strategic local centres. Government forces killed 350 at Tara (26 May) and 200 at the Curragh (29 May), where troops attacked surrendering rebels. The rising spread to Carlow on 25 May; an attack on Carlow town was bloodily defeated next day. 2.  Risings in eastern Ulster, following a rank and file revolt against provincial United Irish leaders who had failed to respond to events in Leinster. In Co. Antrim 4,000 men under Henry Joy McCracken captured Randalstown and Ballymena, but were defeated at Antrim town (7 June) and dispersed when Gen. George Nugent offered an amnesty to all except ringleaders. In Co. Down Henry Munro (1758–98), a Lisburn linen draper, raised 7,000 men but was defeated at Ballynahinch (13 June). 3.  In Co. Wexford, insurgents massacred militia and yeomanry at Oulart on 27 May, going on to capture Enniscorthy and on 30 May Wexford town, which remained for the next three weeks the headquarters of an improvised revolutionary government. However, the failure of attacks on New Ross (5 June) and Arklow (9 June) left the insurgents confined to this south‐eastern corner to await the counter‐attack, culminating in the battle of Vinegar Hill (21 June) and the recapture of Wexford town (22 June).

The Wexford insurrection, in a region where religious conflict was exacerbated by a comparatively large Protestant population, involved acts of nakedly sectarian violence, most notably the burning to death of 200 Protestant prisoners in a barn at Scullabogue and the mass execution of 93 more in Wexford town. Partly as a result, the county's insurgents have been portrayed as a largely unpoliticized peasantry, driven to rebellion by the indiscriminate violence of local loyalists and turning for leadership to sympathetic Protestant gentlemen like Bagenal Harvey and priests like John Murphy. More recent accounts point to evidence of some prior United Irish organization, and argue that the insurrection was more disciplined, and clearer in its political goals, than has been generally recognized. 4.  The Connacht rising, sparked off by Humbert's arrival.

The insurrection included several lesser episodes: the activities, continuing into 1803, of Michael Dwyer and Joseph Holt in Co. Wicklow; a small outbreak, inspired by Humbert's landing, in Cos. Longford and Westmeath on 2–6 September; and Tandy's brief appearance in Co. Donegal.Following the insurrection, some 1,500 persons were executed, transported, or flogged, and there were also unofficial reprisals by loyalists, particularly in the south‐east. Overall the rebellion, involving an estimated 30,000 deaths, represents the most violent episode in Irish history since the 17th century. Polemical accounts by writers such as Musgrave and Watty Cox perpetuated a legacy of bitterness on both sides. Disillusionment and renewed insecurity following the apparent degeneration of the movement into a priest‐led anti‐Protestant crusade were central to the collapse both of Protestant patriotism and of the Protestant popular radicalism represented by the United Irishmen.