1798: Year of Liberty: The Year of Liberty Book

In May 1798, 100,000 people rose in revolt against the British Government in Ireland. In the space of four months, 30,000 were killed...many of them peasants armed only with pikes and pitchforks, as well as defenceless women and children. The rebellion of 1798 was the most violent and tragic event in Irish history between the Jacobite wars and the Great Famine of the 1840s. Using contemporary accounts and a wide variety of illustrated sources, Thomas Pakenham provides a riveting account of the unfolding drama of that fateful year. He sets the events in the context of war between Britain and France and the wave of revolutions that swept through Europe at the time: a successful revolution in Ireland, it was thought, and Britain would be the next to go. He shows that the rebellion was the result of Pitt's failure to have any policy for Ireland; the misplaced optimism of Wolfe Tone and the 'United Irishmen'; and the tragic illusions of the Irish peasantry, who were quite unprepared for war. The result of the rebellion was no less disastrous: Britain imposed a Union on terms that proved unacceptable to the majority of the Irish people, and there was a legacy of violence and hatred that has persisted to the present day.Read More