Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cultural nationalism based on the principles of national self-determination and popular sovereignty. Irish nationalists during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries such as the United Irishmen in the 1790s, Young Irelanders in the 1840s, the Fenian Brotherhood during the 1880s, Fianna Fáil in the 1920s, and Sinn Féin styled themselves in various ways after French left-wing radicalism and republicanism. Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland, especially the Irish language, literature, music, and sports. It grew more potent during the period in which all of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, which led to most of the island gaining independence from the UK in 1922.
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican insurrection in defiance of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division. Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Protestant Ascendancy Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain. An attempt to revive the movement and renew the insurrection following the Acts of Union was defeated in 1803.
Irish republicanism is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French revolutions: originally formed by Presbyterian radicals angry at being shut out of power by the Anglican establishment, they were joined by many from the majority Catholic population.
Alice Letitia Milligan [pseud. Iris Olkyrn] was an Irish writer and activist in Ireland's Celtic Revival; an advocate for the political and cultural participation of women; and a Protestant-unionist convert to the cause of Irish independence. She was at the height of her renown at the turn of the 20th century when in Belfast, with Anna Johnston, she produced the political and literary monthly The Shan Van Vocht (1896-1899), and when in Dublin the Irish Literary Theatre's performed "The Last Feast of the Fianna” (1900), Milligan's interpretation of Celtic legend as national drama.
Ethna Carbery, born Anna Bella Johnston, was an Irish journalist, writer and poet. She is best known for the ballad Roddy McCorley and the Song of Ciabhán; the latter was set to music by Ivor Gurney. In Belfast in the late 1890s, with Alice Milligan she produced The Shan Van Vocht, a nationalist monthly of literature, history and comment that gained a wide circulation in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora. Her poetry was collected and published after her death under the pen name Ethna Carberry, adopted following her marriage to the poet Seumas MacManus in 1901.
Kathleen Ni Houlihan is a mythical symbol and emblem of Irish nationalism found in literature and art, sometimes representing Ireland as a personified woman. The figure of Kathleen Ni Houlihan has also been invoked in nationalist Irish politics. Kathleen Ni Houlihan is sometimes spelled as Cathleen Ni Houlihan, and the figure is also sometimes referred to as the Sean-Bhean Bhocht, the Poor Old Woman, and similar appellations. Kathleen Ni Houlihan is generally depicted as an old woman who needs the help of young Irish men willing to fight and die to free Ireland from colonial rule, usually resulting in the young men becoming martyrs for this cause, the colonial power being the United Kingdom. After the Anglo-Irish War, Kathleen Ni Houlihan became associated with the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, especially during the Troubles.
Roddy McCorley was an Irish nationalist from the civil parish of Duneane, County Antrim, Ireland. Following the publication of the Ethna Carbery poem bearing his name in 1902, where he is associated with events around the Battle of Antrim, he is alleged to have been a member of the United Irishmen and claimed as a participant in their rebellion of 1798.
Croppy was a nickname given to United Irishmen rebels during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 against British rule in Ireland.
The Curragh Camp is an army base and military college in The Curragh, County Kildare, Ireland. It is the main training centre for the Irish Defence Forces and is home to 2,000 military personnel.
William Sampson was a lawyer and jurist who in his native Ireland, and in later American exile, identified with the cause of democratic reform. In the 1790s, in Belfast and Dublin he associated with United Irishmen, defending them in Crown prosecutions, contributing to their press and, according to government informants, participating on the eve of rebellion in their inner councils. In New York, from 1806 he won renown as a trial lawyer representing the abolitionist Manumission Society and disputing race as a legal disability; challenging the conspiracy charges against organised labor; and, in the name of religious liberty, establishing Catholic auricular confession as privileged. Maintaining that the tradition of common law denied citizens equal access to the law, and was a systematic source of injustice, Sampson pioneered the American codification movement.
"The Sean-Bhean bhocht", often spelled phonetically as "Shan Van Vocht", is a traditional Irish song from the period of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and dating in particular to the lead up to a French expedition to Bantry Bay, that ultimately failed to get ashore in 1796.
Events from the year 1798 in Ireland.
Oliver Bond was an Irish merchant and a member of the Leinster directorate of the Society of United Irishmen. He died in prison following the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
1798 – The First Year of Liberty is an album of traditional Irish songs relating to the 1798 rebellion by the United Irishmen. All songs are sung by Frank Harte and some are accompanied on bouzouki, guitar and occasional bodhrán by Donal Lunny.
Alice Furlong was an Irish writer, poet and political activist who also worked on Irish publications with Douglas Hyde.
William Rooney, also known as Fear na Muintire, was an Irish nationalist, journalist, poet and Gaelic revivalist. Along with Arthur Griffith and Denis Devereux he founded the Celtic Literary Society, and with Griffith founded the first Cumann na nGaedheal.
Patrick Sarsfield O'Hegarty was an Irish writer, editor and historian and a former member of the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Peter Ivers was a recruiter and strategist for the United Irishmen, a mass-membership organisation committed to, an ultimately insurrectionary, struggle against the British Crown and Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland for a representative national government. He was arrested o the eve of the Rebellion of 1798 and transported to Australia.
Margaret Pender was a Belfast-based Irish writer whose fiction and poetry appeared regularly in the nationalist press.
