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Overview
| 1798
Rebellion | 1845-1848 The Great Hunger
| 1916 Easter Rebellion | 1921
The Partition of Ireland
1972 Bloody Sunday
| 1980 The Hunger Strikes | 1994
IRA Cease-fire
1798
Rebellion
The
United Irishmen
In
the eighteenthcentury,both the Roman Catholic and Presbyterians
became interested in the democratic republican ideas that
inspired the American and French revolutions. Both groups
had suffered under the anti-Catholic, Penal Laws which had
created a Protestant [Anglican] ascendancy. In 1775, the English
Lord Lieutenant commented: "The Presbyterians in the
north, who in their hearts are Americans, were gaining strength
every day." In 1779, the Presbyterians were described
in the Stopford-Sackville papers as "violently attached
to republican principles."
In 1791,
the Society of United Irishmen was formed with the objective
of breaking the connection with England and establishing an
Irish Republic. The organization  was declared illegal in 1794. From this time
on the movement for Irish independence became democratic and
republican in character, and the United Irishmen, who included
Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and Protestants, were foremost
in shaping it. Wolfe Tone, the greatest of the republican
leaders, and a Protestant, is regarded as the "Father
of Irish Republicanism" and to this day is honored every
June in a remembrance ceremony at his grave by the Republican
movement.
Robert
Emmet (1778-1803)
During
1798 women throughout the country played a prominent part
in the United Irishmen and many fought and died during the
rising. These included Mary Anne McCracken of Belfast, Betsy
Gray of Granshaw, County Down, Peg Kavanagh from Wicklow,
Susan O'Toole from Annamore, May and Bridget Loftus of Wicklow,
Mrs. Oliver Bond, Mrs. Henry Sheares and Pamela Fitzgerald
from Dublin.
Divide
and Conquer
The English
opposed the United Irishmen in several ways. They crushed
with great severity the republican insurrection of 1798 in
which Ulster Presbyterians, led by men like Henry joy McCracken
and Henry Munroe, took up arms for an Irish republic and were
joined by Irishmen of all denominations in various parts of
the county. They were assisted by a number of French expeditionary
forces. British propaganda represented the insurrection as
civil war, an attack by Roman Catholics on Protestants and
a "popish plot." Nothing was further from the truth.
 Most effective of all,
the British promoted the establishment of the Orange Order
in 1795, a sectarian and exclusively Protestant secret society
which soon instituted widespread terror and persecution. This
was the imperial policy of "divide and conquer"
at work. "If I am permitted," wrote General Knox,
commander of the British army in Ulster, "to encourage
the Orangemen, I think I shall be able to put down the United
Irishmen." In reply, the English Chief Secretary, Thomas
Pelham, approved the plan to "increase the animosity
between the Orangemen and the United Irishmen." Later,
Pelham's successor, Sir Robert Peel, endorsed this view: "I
hope they may always be disunited."
Picture:
The Death of Wolfe Tone
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