Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Union: Ireland in the 1790s

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Jim Smyth
Cambridge University Press, 2000 - History - 245 pages
The study of Ireland in the explosive decade of the 1790s has probably been the fastest-growing area in Irish history writing in the 1990s. The focus has been on the radical and revolutionary United Irish movement, popular politics, and the lower-class secret society, the Defenders. This volume of essays explores United Irish propaganda and organisation, and looks at the forces of revolution before and during the 1798 rebellion. It also begins to redress imbalances in the historiography of the period by turning to the face of counter-revolution - examining the crisis in law and order, the role of the agistrates, the strength and weaknesses of the state, and the scope and character of the repression following the rebellion. Other essays consider the short-term and longer-term consequences of these momentous events, including their impact upon the churches, the Act of Union, and the politics of early nineteenth-century America.
 

Contents

The politics of crisis and rebellion 17921798
21
The magistracy and counterrevolution in Ulster 17951798
39
The shift in United Irish leadership from Belfast to Dublin
55
Wexford in 1798
83
the treatment of defeated
99
Marquess Cornwallis and the fate of Irish rebel prisoners
128
The Act of Union and public opinion
146
portraits of the 1790s in Ireland
161
Pleading the Cause of the Destitute Orphans of Dublin 1806
165
1782 mezzotint 37 4 x 37 cm private collection
173
1790 stipple 25 3 x 23 cm National Gallery of Ireland
180
Irish Christianity and revolution
195
the OConors OCarolan
211
Index
238
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