1798 Rebellion/Wolfe Tone

In May 1798, 100,000 people rose in revolt against the British Government in Ireland. In the space of four months, 30,000 were killed - many of them peasants armed only with pikes and pitchforks, as well as defenceless women and children. The rebellion of 1798 was the most violent and tragic event in Irish history between the Jacobite wars and the Great Famine of the 1840s.

The Year of Liberty: The Great Rebellion of 1798 by Thomas Pakenham

Using contemporary accounts and a wide variety of illustrated sources, Thomas Pakenham provides a riveting account of the unfolding dramas of that fateful year. He sets the events in the context of war between Britain and France and the wave of revolutions that swept through Europe at that time: a successful revolution in Ireland, it was thought, and Britain would be the next to go. He shows that the rebellion was the result of Pitt's failure to have any policy for Ireland; the misplaced optimism of Wolfe Tone and the 'United Irishmen'; and the tragic illustions of the Irish peasantry, who were quite unprepared for war. The result of the rebellion was no less disastrous: Britain imposed a Union on terms that proved unacceptable to the majority of the Irish people, and there was a legacy of violence and hatred that has persisted to the present day.

This book is the classic account of the Great Rebellion of 1798 , first published in 1969, and remains the only full-scale history of the tragic event. It has been reissued, with the addition of a chronology and a glossary of terms, to mark the 200th anniversary. (hardback; 22.00 IRP / 33.00 USD) [Add To Basket]

There is also an abridged, coffee-table format edition which contains numerous full colour illustrations. (hardback; 14.99 IRP / 22.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

A trade paperback edition is also available. (paperback; 7.99 IRP / 12.00 USD) [Add To Basket]

Rebellion! - Ireland in 1798 by Daniel J. Gahan
(hardback; 14.99 IRP / 22.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

Daniel Gahan gives a vivid account of the events of 1798, examines the origins of the revolution, and explores the legacy which it left behind. The book contains a comprehensive listing of the 1798 bicentennial commemorative events as well as a chronology of the historic events of the rebellion. It is also the authorised book of the National 1798 Visitors Centre in County Wexford.

Mighty Wave: The 1798 Rebellion in Wexford edited by Daire Keogh and Nicholas Furlong
(paperback; 9.95 IRP / 15.00 USD) [Add To Basket]

This collection of essays offers a new interpretation of the Rebellion in Wexford, where ordinary people, goaded to ferocity, 'swept o'er the land like a mighty wave'. Essays: Reinterpretating the 1798 Rebellion in County Wexford by Kevin Whelan; Sectarianism in the Rebellion of 1798: The Eighteenth Century Context by Daire Keogh; The United Irishmen in Wexford by L.M. Cullen; Dublin in 1798: The Key to the Planned Insurrection by Thomas Graham; The Battle of Oulart Hill: Context and Strategy by Brian Cleary; The Military Planning of the 1798 Rebellion in Wexford by Daniel Gahan; Local or Cosmopolitan?: The Strategic Importance of Wexford in 1798 by Nicholas Furlong; Miles Byrne: United Irishman, Irish Exile and Beau Sabreur by Thomas Bartlett; 1798 Claimed for Catholics: Father Kavanagh, Fenians and the Cetenary Celebrations by Anna Kinsella.

The Decade of the United Irishmen: Contemporary Accounts, 1791-1801 edited by John Killen
(paperback; 14.35 IRP / 21.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

Drawing together contemporary newspaper articles, letters and reports, John Killen brings alive the decade of the United Irishmen: the formation of the Society; the years of secret planning; the abortive 1798 rebellion and its brutal suppression; and the far-reaching constitutional consequences. By relying on primary sources, and not the belated wisdom of hindsight, he draws the reader into the hope, drama and ultimate tragedy of a period that still has profound resonances in modern Ireland.

5. The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down by A.T.Q. Stewart
(paperback; 14.35 IRP / 21.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

This book is the story of the momentous seven days from 6 June, 1798, when in Antrim and Down a shaky coalition of idealistic Prebysterians and Catholics tried to wrest power from the Ascendancy, in the cause of the Rights of Man and the independence of Ireland. Drawing on the vividness of contemporary diaries, letters and reports to capture the diverse personalities of McCracken, Hope, Neilson, Russell, Dickson, Tone, General Lake and General Nugent, the author presents a moving hour-by-hour account of courage, confusion and betrayal in this important history of the United Irishmen Rising in Northern Ireland.

6. Eyewitness to 1798 edited by Terence Foley
(paperback; 5.99 IRP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]

This book is a collection of various eyewitness accounts of the rising, assembled for the first time. They give an unmatchable flavour of what it was like to live through or participate in the events of 1798. It is the history of real people, written by themselves.

7. Dublin in 1798: Three Illustrated Walks
(paperback; 2.99 IRP / 4.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

'The people at the centre of the stirring events of 1798, both the United Irishmen and their enemies, were well known to each other. They lived in that area, a mile square, at the very centre of Dublin city.'

This booklet contains 3 illustrated and annotated walks in Dublin. It helps to understand a time when people of diverse backgrounds tried to fashion an Ireland where democracy and social justice would prevail. It will introduce the reader to an area of approximately a mile square with which the persons and events of the 1790s are indelibly associated.

8. Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798 by Stella Tillyard
(hardback; 18.35 IRP / 27.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

This book tells the story of the headstrong and passionate 18th century Irish revolutionary. Son of a duke, heir to estates and influence, Lord Edward died in a Dublin gaol, a rebel and a traitor.

Born in 1763, he joined the British Army as a teenager, fought in the American War of Independence and was elected to the Irish Parliament in 1783. Returning to North America with the army in 1787, he spent time with the Iroquois and was adopted by them as an Indian chief. Back in Europe he became a disciple of the Republican Thomas Paine, visited revolutionary France and joined the Irish underground in the 1790s. With his wife as his help-mate, he plotted Irish independence from Britain. He was captured and died , raving and wounded, as the bloody rebellion of 1798 raged around him.

Largely based on personal letters and contemporary sources, this is a dazzling narrative, a moving biography, and an exemplary and unusual history.

Wolfe Tone

Wolfe Tone was one of the founders of the United Irishmen, a moving spirit behind the 1798 Rising and is generally credited with the title of 'father of Irish republicanism'. As such his political ideas and the circumstances of his life and early death have become powerful political weapons in the hands of later nationalists. Today his name still arouses strong passions and he is hailed as the first prophet of an independent Ireland.

9. Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence by Marianne Elliott
(paperback; 15.50 IRP / 23.20 USD) [Add To Basket]
(hardback; 303.00 IRP / 49.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

This book is the first major, definitive, scholarly, comprehensive biography and uses a wealth of new material to examine Wolfe Tone's personal life and public actions. Winner of the Sunday Independent/Irish Life Award for Biography, the book was hailed as a 'major contribution to Irish historiography - one which will have important public influence in challenging many of the simplistic notions of Wolfe Tone,' by the Irish Times.

10. Wolfe Tone by Henry Boylan
(paperback; 6.99 IRP / 10.50 USD) [Add To Basket]

This classic book first appeared in 1981 and it remains the most accessible and authoritative short biography of this key figure in Irish history. The author acknowledges Tone's failures and shortcomings but concludes none the less that 'his gaiety, his self-mockery and his courage must endear him to all who read his story.'

10. Theobold Wolfe Tone: Life and Times by Thomas Bartlett
(paperback; 6.00 IRP / 9.00 USD) [Add To Basket]

This short study, while recognising fully the importance of Tone's legacy to later Irish history, seeks to show him as a decisive and charismatic individual who played an important role in the campaign for Catholic equality in Ireland in the early 1790s; and who later in that decade was a key player in the conspiracy to overthrown British rule in Ireland. The author's central argument is that Tone's ideas and actions can be assessed within their essential context - the late 18th century Atlantic world.

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