rebellion of 1848

rebellion of 1848. Young Ireland first gave serious thought to a rising in the wake of the Paris revolution in February 1848, but failed to win the support of the French revolutionary government, or to co‐operate effectively with the Chartists. It was only after the conviction of John Mitchel for treason‐felony in May that a conspiracy was formed for a rising after the harvest. A war council of the confederate clubs was elected consisting of Dillon, Meagher, Richard O'Gorman, D'Arcy McGee, and Thomas Devin Reilly. The government, fully informed by its spy network, responded quickly by swamping Dublin with troops and announcing the suspension of habeas corpus (21 July). Abandoning Dublin for the southern countryside, Dillon and Meagher persuaded a reluctant Smith O'Brien to put himself at the head of the rising. The confederates sought to raise forces in Cos. Kilkenny and Tipperary, but lacked a coherent plan of action; crowds of poorly armed peasants assembled to hear the leaders, but dispersed rapidly in the face of clerical opposition and the failure to distribute food or confiscate private property. After a bloodless encounter with troops at Killenaule, Co. Tipperary, on 28 July, many of the confederate leaders dispersed to their own regions, in the hope of staging diversionary risings. O'Brien decided to make a stand at Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, and on 29 July with about 100 followers confronted a party of police who had taken refuge in the widow McCormick's farmhouse. The police refused O'Brien's call for them to surrender, and two of the insurgents were killed. The rebels dispersed as military reinforcements arrived, and the rising collapsed without further bloodshed. Several of the leaders escaped to America, but O'Brien and others were arrested and tried at Clonmel. The rebels were convicted of treason, but the government commuted the death sentences to transportation in 1849.

Peter Gray