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Ireland Under the Union 1800–1900

Revolutionary nationalism 1803–67 compared

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 1

Overview

Emmet in 1803, Young Ireland in 1848 and the Fenians in 1867, their aims and methods and why each failed.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Compare the scale of the three risings.

Numbers

How did government action force the timing of these risings?

Numbers

Why did none of the three attract mass support?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did Robert Emmet attempt in 1803?

    Model answer

    Emmet planned to seize Dublin Castle and the key points of the capital with a small trained body, proclaim a provisional government of an Irish republic and call the country to rise, in the hope that France would then intervene.

  2. 2

    What did the Young Irelanders attempt in 1848?

    Model answer

    The Confederates, driven into the open by the suspension of habeas corpus, attempted a rising in the Tipperary borderlands in July 1848 that ended in a single skirmish at a farmhouse at Ballingarry.

  3. 3

    What did the Fenians attempt in 1867?

    Model answer

    The Fenians brought out several thousand men in a number of counties on the night of 5 March 1867 to attack police barracks and seize arms, in the expectation of American officers, money and weapons.

  4. 4

    Compare the scale of the three risings.

    Model answer

    Emmet gathered perhaps a hundred men in one street, the Confederates a few hundred in one district, and the Fenians several thousand across half a dozen counties, so each attempt was larger and better organised than the last.

  5. 5

    What role did outside help play in all three?

    Model answer

    Each rising counted on foreign assistance that never came in time or in force, from France in 1803 and 1848 and from Irish America in 1867, and each collapsed once that assistance failed.

  6. 6

    How did informers affect the revolutionary movements?

    Model answer

    Informers destroyed each attempt in turn, and the Fenians in particular were betrayed at every level, from the raid on their newspaper in 1865 to the arrest of their chief organiser on the eve of the rising.

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