A New Age or Just the Same Old Cycle of Extirpation? Massacre and the 1798 Irish Rebellion

Although the 1798 rebellion seldom figures prominently in histories of the Revolutionary Wars, it was probably the bloodiest political upheaval to occur in Ireland between the 1640s and the 1910s. The rebellion was largely inspired by the French Revolution, yet many had long anticipated such an event. They saw it as another round in a struggle that would only end with the extirpation of either Catholics or Protestants. Such beliefs lent ferocity to the fighting and encouraged massacre. Yet, at the same time, individuals on all sides sought to prevent or at least restrain bloodshed. Enlightenment and republican values and the ties of family and community were by no means submerged, and many marked for death were saved, although often deeply traumatized by their experiences. For, while the rebellion looked back to the sectarian massacres of the seventeenth century, it at the same time looked forward to the much less violent Irish nationalist struggles of the nineteenth century.