Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was the most violent insurrection in Irish history and one of the most direct demonstrations of the French Revolution's capacity to destabilize the British Empire. The Society of United Irishmen, founded in Belfast in 1791 by Theobald Wolfe Tone, began as a movement for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation within a constitutional framework. Repression by the British government radicalized the movement toward revolutionary republicanism. Tone travelled to Paris to negotiate French military support. A first expedition of 15,000 troops under General Hoche came agonizingly close to landing at Bantry Bay in December 1796 but was scattered by storms. The rebellion broke out in May 1798, concentrated in County Wexford in the south and Ulster in the north. In Wexford, a largely Catholic peasant uprising led by priests — most notably Father John Murphy — briefly controlled much of the county. Both uprisings were suppressed with ferocious brutality; massacres occurred on both sides. A French expedition of approximately 1,000 troops finally landed at Killala Bay in August 1798 under General Humbert, won a remarkable victory at Castlebar, but was surrounded and forced to surrender at Ballinamuck in September. A second French expedition carrying Wolfe Tone was intercepted off Donegal in October 1798. Tone was captured, court-martialed, and died in prison in November — either by suicide or from self-inflicted wounds — before his scheduled execution. The rebellion's aftermath was politically decisive: Pitt used the crisis to push through the Act of Union 1800, absorbing Ireland directly into the United Kingdom. The structural subordination this created would generate Irish nationalist politics for the next 120 years.
- Year: 1798 CE
- Category: Military
