Background
The late eighteenth century was a period of significant political revolt across Europe and North America. In the 1770s, there was a revolution in what were then the American colonies. This is often called the American War of Independence. This war lasted from 1775 to 1783. What were then the Thirteen Colonies eventually won independence from the British.
The Declaration of Independence, adopted by the colonies in 1776, changed the course of history and had a big influence on ideas about how people should live and the freedoms they should have. This famous document resulted from much writing and thinking that had already taken place, both in Europe and the American colonies, by 'Enlightenment' philosophers.
One of its most famous quotations is as follows:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Lord Edward Fitzgerald
Lord Edward Fitzgerald joined the United Irishmen in 1796. He was motivated by enthusiasm for the ideals of the French Revolution. While in Paris in 1792, he lodged with the writer and thinker Thomas Paine and attended debates at the National Convention. He supported a toast to 'the speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions', repudiating his own title. In May of 1798, the government offered a £1000 reward for Fitzgerald's arrest. He was caught while in hiding in the house of a feather dealer in Thomas Street, having been informed upon by a Catholic barrister called Magan. He died of a bullet wound at Newgate Jail on 4 June 1798.
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.Lord Edward Fitzgerald
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
Lord Edward Fitzgerald
Lord Edward Fitzgerald joined the United Irishmen in 1796. He was motivated by enthusiasm for the ideals of the French Revolution. While in Paris in 1792, he lodged with the writer and thinker Thomas Paine and attended debates at the National Convention. He supported a toast to 'the speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions', repudiating his own title. In May of 1798, the government offered a £1000 reward for Fitzgerald's arrest. He was caught while in hiding in the house of a feather dealer in Thomas Street, having been informed upon by a Catholic barrister called Magan. He died of a bullet wound at Newgate Jail on 4 June 1798.
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.The French Revolution began in 1789 and brought huge, far-reaching change. It was caused by the increasing unhappiness of the majority of French people with the inequalities in their society. These included unfair taxes and the fact that King Louis XVI and his nobility owned most of the land. The ordinary people of France objected to the great disparities in wealth. Due to all of these factors and others, both the middle classes and peasants of France revolted.
After the French Revolution, with its motto of 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity', new ideas of democracy, citizenship and individual rights spread like wildfire across Europe. These ideas had been written about by thinkers in the eighteenth century as part of a new trend in thought known as the Enlightenment. These thinkers included John Locke, David Hume and Voltaire. They wrote about the need to use human reason to search for truth and to oppose superstition. They wanted the way society was organised to reflect the way in which European people were changing, and wished for an end to the rule of monarchs and nobility.
Sitting snugly between America and Continental Europe, Ireland was perfectly placed to be influenced by the two major revolutions.