In 1798, the Irish rose up against the corrupt English government run out of Dublin. Joined by both Protestants and Catholics, the rebellion quickly spread across the country. Although the Irish peasantry were armed mostly with pikes, they were able to overwhelm a number of small, isolated British outposts. However, even with the half-hearted assistance of the French, the Irish could not compete with the organized ranks of the British Army when under competent leadership. In a brutal turning of the tide, the Redcoats plowed through the rebels. In just three months, between 15,000 and 30,000 people died, most of them Irish. This book tells the story of this harsh, but fascinating, period of Irish history and covers the organization and uniforms of the forces involved.

The English invasions of Ireland were never accepted. Each generation of Irish rebels resisted and, in doing so, faced certain death. They became martyrs and left behind speeches and watchwords to spark the flames of nationalism and idealism. Using eyewitness accounts, speeches and illustrative material, Helen Litton describes these most important Irish rebellions, from the United Irishmen of 1798 to the IRA of the War of Independence. The Irish rebellions through the years of Irish history beginning with the 1798 rebellion told through illustration and word. These engaging illustrations will bring to life some of the most pivotal events in Irish history. This illustrated history book will examine the rebellions of Ireland with a focus on the principal figures involved. Rebellions begun by Irish people who were not afraid to take on a powerful Establishment and claim their right to self-determination. This book covers six major rebellions in Irish History: The Rebellion of 1798 The Rebellion of 1803 The Rebellion of 1848 The Fenian Campaigns Easter Rising, 1916 The War of Independence

In October 1641 a rebellion broke out in Ireland. Dispossessed Irish Catholics rose up against British Protestant settlers whom they held responsible for their plight. This uprising, the first significant sectarian rebellion in Irish history, gave rise to a decade of war that would culminate in the brutal re-conquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell. It also set in motion one of the most enduring and acrimonious debates in Irish history. Was the 1641 rebellion a justified response to dispossession and repression? Or was it an unprovoked attempt at sectarian genocide? John Gibney comprehensively examines three centuries of this debate. The struggle to establish and interpret the facts of the past was also a struggle over the present: if Protestants had been slaughtered by vicious Catholics, this provided an ideal justification for maintaining Protestant privilege. If, on the other hand, Protestant propaganda had inflated a few deaths into a vast and brutal “massacre,” this justification was groundless. Gibney shows how politicians, historians, and polemicists have represented (and misrepresented) 1641 over the centuries, making a sectarian understanding of Irish history the dominant paradigm in the consciousness of the Irish Protestant and Catholic communities alike.

Now available for the first time in trade paperback: the newly revised, definitive account of the most important event in Irish history--the rebellion of 1798. From the Trade Paperback edition.