Irish Rebellion of 1798

United Irishmen Rebellion (1798)
Battle of Vinegar Hill, 21 June 1798
Date 24 May – 24 September 1798 (4 months) Location Ireland Result Rebellion defeated · Act of Union (1800)
Belligerents
United Irishmen Defenders France	Great Britain Kingdom of Ireland
Commanders and leaders
Wolfe Tone Henry Joy McCracken Lord Edward FitzGerald John Murphy General Jean Humbert	General George Warde MGO The 1st Marquess Cornwallis Lt. Gen. Gerard Lake Viscount Castlereagh
Strength
50,000 United Irishmen 1,100 French regulars, marines & sailors 10–15 ships	40,000 militia 30,000 British regulars ~25,000 yeomanry ~1,000 Hessians
Casualties and losses
10,000–50,000 estimated combatant and civilian deaths	c.500–2,000 military deaths c.1,000 loyalist civilian deaths

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Irish: Éirí Amach 1798), also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion (Irish: Éirí Amach na nÉireannach Aontaithe), was an uprising against British rule in Ireland lasting from May to September 1798. The United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French revolutions, were the main organising force behind the rebellion.

Since 1691 and the end of the Williamite War, Ireland had chiefly been controlled by the minority Anglican Protestant Ascendancy constituting members of the established Church of Ireland loyal to the British Crown. It governed through a form of institutionalised sectarianism codified in the Penal Laws which discriminated against both the majority Irish Catholic population and non-Anglican Protestants (for example Presbyterians). In the late 18th century, liberal elements among the ruling class were inspired by the example of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and sought to form common cause with the Catholic populace to achieve reform and greater autonomy from Britain. As in England, the majority of Protestants, as well as all Catholics, were barred from voting because they did not pass a property threshold. Another grievance was that Ireland, although nominally a sovereign kingdom governed by the monarch and Parliament of the island, in reality had less independence than most of Britain's North American colonies, due to a series of laws enacted by the English, such as Poynings' law of 1494 and the Declaratory Act of 1719, the former of which gave the English veto power over Irish legislation, and the latter of which gave the British the right to legislate for the kingdom.

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