The Society of United Irishmen

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia); James Anthony Shanahan (Trinity College Dublin)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Domains

Organisations and institutions (arts& culture)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1790-10-1798

Places

Northern Ireland (Location)
Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Involved)
United Kingdom (Involved)

The Society of United Irishmen was a non-sectarian patriotic organisation founded with the aim of uniting “Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter in the common name of Irishmen.” Initially founded in Belfast in 1791 as an open and constitutional body, it was initially dedicated to the twin causes of Catholic Emancipation and parliamentary reform. Proscribed by government in 1794, it subsequently became a secret organisation dedicated to revolution and the establishment of an independent Irish republic on the French model. United Irish activities in the mid-1790s – when the government estimated its membership to be over 300,000 – reached a climax with the Irish rebellion of 1798, which resulted in as many as 30,000 deaths and the …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1828 words

Citation: Clark, Robert, James Anthony Shanahan. "The Society of United Irishmen". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 May 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=4241, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

The Society of United Irishmen

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback