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 had been … Read more
In August 1898, when the centenary celebrations of the Rebellion of 1798 approached their climax, George McSweeney wrote: ‘of all the leaders of the United Irishmen perhaps there was no career more remarkable than Joseph Holt, and yet there is no actor in the great drama of ‘98 to whom it is harder to assign … Read more
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, he recorded … Read more
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 first to propose … Read more
In the 200 years that have elapsed since the 1798 Rebellion the reasons for its failure have been frequently addressed by historians. That the rebels were unable to take Dublin at the outset of the rebellion has been seen as crucial by some historians, for this deprived the rebellion of a focus and prevented the … Read more