One of the early pioneers in the study of the 1790s amongst the present generation of historians, Marianne Elliott is Professor of History at the University of Liverpool and Director of its Institute of Irish Studies. Tommy Graham talks to her about her career, the United Irishmen and this year’s bicentenary commemorations. … Read more
Tom Dunne Launching the Irish government’s 1798 commemorations earlier this year, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, declared: ‘we are commemorating the most sustained effort in Irish history to reconcile and unite what were the three communities with different religious beliefs and ethnic backgrounds—Protestants, Catholics and Dissenters’. He spoke on behalf of ‘a sovereign Irish government’, that, … Read more
John Turpin Public memorials are often more about the politics of the time of commemoration than of the events or people commemorated. This is true of Oliver Sheppard’s celebrated bronze figures in Wexford and Enniscorthy commemorating the 1798 Rebellion. The centenary celebrations of 1898 marked a new departure in Irish political life, since the 1890s … Read more
A.T.Q. Stewart On 26 May 1798, the very day on which rebellion erupted in Wexford, a despondent Wolfe Tone offered to serve Bonaparte in India. He had just heard the rumour that the Toulon fleet was bound for the East and not for England. Learning some days later that Lord Edward Fitzgerald had been arrested, … Read more
Dáire Keogh On 7 June 1798, Father James Coigly, a shadowy United Irishman from County Armagh, was hanged on Pennington Heath. On hearing this news in Paris, Theobald Wolfe Tone, no friend of priests and of this one in particular, wrote ‘if ever I reach Ireland and…we establish our liberty, I will be the … Read more