Historians have traditionally considered the non-sectarian republicanism of the United Irish movement in east Ulster to have died a sudden death in the wake of the crushing defeat of the rebel armies of Antrim and Down in June 1798. The traditional view also holds that the Presbyterians of the two counties, who had been at the heart of the movement from its inception seven years earlier, made a rapid transition from rebel to loyalist often embracing the Orange Order in the process. Completing this model is the re-emergence of Defenderism, which, with equal speed, reverted to its Catholic sectarian roots.¹...

Support for the traditional view can apparently be discerned as early as August of 1798 when the surviving northern republicans failed to act on news of the French landing in Mayo, even after word of Lt Gen. Gerard Lake’s defeat at Castlebar. This inactivity prompted John Pollock to write: ‘I continue to be persuaded that this province is safe and completely cured of all disposition to insurrection.’¹ Yet by December, the Under Secretary, Edward Cooke, reported ‘symptoms of returning turbulence’ in a number of counties including Antrim and Down.² Similarly, the Lord Lieutenant, Cornwallis, expressed his deepening concern over affairs...

The long winter nights of 1799–1800 witnessed the widespread return of flogging, arms raids and assassinations to rural east Ulster, proving the continued disaffection of a substantial element of the regions population.1 In mid-December, Thomas Whinnery, the postmaster at Belfast, reported that in parts of Antrim ‘loyal persons’ were being assassinated ‘almost daily’, and he compared the conduct of the people to that which had preceded the rebellion in June 1798.² Whinnery was referring most certainly to the recent murders of James Love and Joseph Kelso. Armed men had dragged Love, a well-to-do farmer, from his home near Ballymena...

Despite the lull in active resistance brought about by the cessation of hostilities between Britain and France in 1802 much of Ulster continued to be disturbed partially by what the authorities typically referred to as riots. These affrays took the form of faction fights at fairs and markets between parties of Orangemen and groups that were commonly described as Freemasons. Contemporaries differed in their assessment of the causes of these fights and further disagreed over the question of the social, political and religious composition of the Masons. For instance, William Richardson, a clerical magistrate at Moy in County Tyrone, believed...

With some 60,000 souls, Cork city was the vibrant heart of the highly commercialized south Munster region. The second city of Ireland had successfully established itself as a key port for provisions in the north Atlantic trade network. The driving force behind this process of commercialization was a combination of improving landlords and an interwoven stratum of merchants, shippers and agricultural middlemen. Consecutively, the rapid expansion of market capitalism created strong internal trade links between Cork city and the surrounding agricultural districts of Counties Cork, Waterford and Kerry, which increasingly focused their production to meet the needs of the Atlantic...

On 22 August 1798, the United Irishmen’s long-term efforts to obtain French assistance finally came to fruition with the appearance of three frigates in Killala Bay on the north coast of County Mayo. Unfortunately for them, their allies had come too late, for the rebellion of 1798 had been suppressed several weeks earlier.¹ Moreover, the French landing force numbered barely 1,000 men.² Nonetheless, this belated and undersized army was joined by thousands of Irish volunteers and scored several local victories before being overwhelmed at Ballynamuck in County Longford on 8 September.³ Events ran full circle, and the last significant action...

On 21 June, the decisive engagement of the Wexford campaign was fought at Vinegar Hill, where the rebel army was routed, although surviving elements stayed in the field until mid-July.¹ After this point, the most significant remaining rebel forces in Leinster were those in the mountains of County Wicklow headed by Joseph Holt and a less well-documented entity, which became known as the ‘Babes in the Wood’. From within these groups emerged smaller bands that continued to offer resistance for the ensuing six years. Several key issues are raised by the persistence of these bands. Of central importance is the...

The inability of the government to curb loyalist depredations created the impression amongst Catholics that the white terror had the sanction of the central authorities. This perception, in turn, crippled the Cornwallis administration’s efforts at reconciliation. In fact, it can be argued that the sectarian focus of the continuing terror, combined with the excesses that preceded the rising and the horror of the rebellion itself, served to void the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the majority of the rural population of the affected counties. The extensive popular support which Cody and Corcoran received in Wexford, Carlow and...