Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In 1798 a long-anticipated rebellion burst forth in Ireland, releasing the repressed fury that had accumulated over decades of oppression. Ireland's impoverished Catholics – politically disenfranchised, tormented by harsh penal laws, barred from formal education, and economically helpless in the face of the ever-increasing demands of rack-renting landlords – were ready for revolution. They had the requisite determination, courage, and numerical superiority to sweep aside their oppressors, if only their potential power could be organized and focused. The unknown factor was leadership. Could the raw power of the Irish rebels be harnessed to create a coordinated striking force? The penal laws imposed on Ireland over the previous century had been designed to prevent the development of political leadership in the Catholic community. They had forbidden Catholics to hold any office or position of civic authority, or even to vote or serve on juries. They made it illegal for Catholics to be lawyers or schoolmasters, or to buy or inherit land, or even to receive land as a gift from a Protestant. Some of the most extreme provisions of the penal laws were repealed in 1778, but their general spirit remained intact. “This horrible system,” Wolfe Tone declared, “had reduced the great body of the Catholic peasantry of Ireland to a situation, morally and physically speaking, below that of the ... log in or subscribe to read full text