wolfe tone and the united irishmen

1. •THE UNITED IRISHMEN
AND THE 1798
REBELLION
2nd Year History

2. •Background and causes
• Irish Parliament controlled by
Protestant Ascendancy (C
of I only 15% and most of the
land)
• Penal laws left Catholics
poor and uneducated.
• Tithes still had to be paid.
• The influence of the
American and French
revolutions

4. •The Society of United Irishmen
• Wolfe Tone (Dublin, Anglican Trinity barrister admired
French Rev)
• 1791 Tone and Belfast Presbyterians formed the UI
• Aim: Catholic and Protestant together would end British
interference in Ireland
• 1793 War with France. British Gov afraid of Ireland. The
UI was banned. Now a rebellion and a republic was the
only way.
• Tone escaped to America and then to France to get help.
• 1796 General Hoche and Bantry Bay storms: British
tipped off about rebellion.

5. •The Society of United Irishmen

7. •The Rising
• General Lake’s
repression in Ulster and
Leinster.
• House burning flogging,
pitch capping and half
hanging.
• Some of those tortured
informed on leaders,
others were discovered by
spies

8. •Walking Gallows • Lieutenant 'Walking Gallows'
Hempenstall was in charge of
suppressing the 'United Irishmen prior to
the rebellion of 1798. A 'Goliath in
stature', if he met a peasant he didn't
like he poleaxed him with a blow of his
fist, put a rope around his neck and
hung him off his back, 'tongue
protruding, until death at last put an end
to the torture'.
• At a later inquiry the infamous
judge,Lord Norbury, complimented him
as having done no act, 'which was not
natural to a zealous, loyal and efficient
English officer.'
In 1800 he was afflicted with morbus
pedicularis and his body literally
devoured by vermin. After twenty one
days suffering, he died in excruciating
agony.

9. •Lord Edward Fitzgerald
• Spies and informers
led to the arrest of the
leaders, including Lord
Edward Fitzgerald
• The Rising in Dublin
and the surrounding
counties was easily put
down

10. •Wexford: The Main Rebellion
• Actions of Yeomen (part-time) and Militia
(full-time) provoked rising.
• Father Murphy won at Oulart Hill,
Enniscorthy and freed Bagenal Harvey in
Wexford
• Important defeat at New Ross
• Atrocity at Scullabogue
• Final defeat at Vinegar Hill.

14. •Ulster:
• Henry Joy
McCracken defeated
in Antrim
• Henry Munro
defeated in Down.

15. •The End: Results
• Tone arrived in Lough Swilly. Sentenced to
hang and committed suicide
• 30,000 dead
• Bitterness against British
• Bitterness between Catholics and
Protestant.
• Further Rebellions (Robert Emmett)
• The Act of Union 1800