Module Identifier HYM9130  
Module Title IRELAND AND THE 1798 REBELLION  
Academic Year 2003/2004  
Co-ordinator Dr Martyn J Powell  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Co-Requisite HYM0130 , HYM1030 , HYM9030  
Course delivery Seminars / Tutorials   15 Hours Introductory meeting & 6 x 2 hour seminars and tutorials  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Assessment 1 X 4000 WORD ESSAY UNASSESSED & 1 X 6000 WORD ASSESSED  100%
Supplementary Assessment NEW ESSAYS ARE REQUIRED ON DIFFERENT TOPICS   

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to.
Identify the primary historical sources used by historians in reconstructing the history of the 1798 rebellion.

Demonstrate an understanding of the relevant historiography, its evolution and the key problems currently addressed by historians in this field.

Discuss with others the interpretative problems and prospects associated with this topic.

Illustrate, analyse and evaluate the surviving evidence and the associated historiography in an extended written discussion.

Brief description

This seminar series has been designed to allow students to study in some depth the history, the impact and the historiographical controversy surrounding the Irish rebellion of 1798. Following the French Revolution, and failed campaigns for parliamentary reform and Catholic relief, Ireland witnessed a wave of popular politicisation, which, in combination with an upsurge in sectarianism, resulted in a rebellion by the United Irishmen and their Catholic Defender allies. Formerly the focal point of the rebellion, in county Wexford, has been portrayed as a spontaneous, disorganised and savage outbreak of sectarianism led by priests. Recent work by historians, however, has done much to revise this picture. This course will examine the nature of the Wexford rebellion, along with the uprisings in other areas of Ireland. Attention will also be paid to the response by the British government, which initially took the form of brutal military action, and later in a legislative union

Aims

This module equips students to investigate an aspect of eighteenth-century Irish history in depth, through the analysis of sources of different types in combination with an up-to-date appraisal of historical interpretations of the period.

Content

Introductory meeting and:
1. Ireland and the French revolution
2. The United Irishmen and Defenders
3. Counter-Insurgency and the British ‘Terror’
4. The Rebellion in Wexford
5. Aftermath and Union
6. Historiography off the 1798 Rebellion

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
T. Bartlett, D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan (eds.) (2003) 1798: A Bicentennial Perspective
N. J. Curtin (1994) The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin 1791-1798
D. Dickson and Hugh Gough (eds.) (1990) Ireland and the French Revolution
M. Elliot (1982) Partners in Revolution: the United Irishmen and France
M. Elliot (H. T. Dickinson ed.) 'Ireland and the French Revolution', in Britain and the French Revolution 1789-1815
D. Keogh and N. Furlong (eds.) (1996) The Mighty Wave. The 1798 Rebellion in Wexford
D. Keogh and N. Furlong (eds.) (1998) The Women of 1798
Hereward Senior Orangism in Ireland and Britain 1795-1836
J. Smyth, (O'Brien ed.) (1989) 'Dublin's political underground in the 1790s' in Parliament, Politics and People
A. T. Q. Stewart (1995) The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down
J. Smyth (1992) Men of No Property. Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century
T. Pakenham (1972) The Year of Liberty: 1798
D. Gahan (1995) The People's Rising: Wexford 1798
M. Elliot Wolfe Tone
D. Dickson, Daire Keogh and K. Whelan (eds.) (1993) The United Irishmen. Republicanism, Radicalism and Rebellion

Articles
L. Cullen (P. J. Corish ed.) (1985) 'The 1798 Rebellion in its Eighteenth-Century Context', in Radicals, Rebels and Establishments
M. Wall (1965) 'The United Irish Movement', Historical Studies 5
I. R. McBride (1997) 'When Ulster Joined Ireland': Anti-Popery, Presbyterian Radicalism and Irish Republicanism in the 1790s', Past and Present 157

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 7