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What is Society of United Irishmen mean?
The Society of United Irishmen, also simply known as the United Irishmen, were a sworn society in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a "national government." Despairing of constitutional reform, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican insurrection in defiance of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division. Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Protestant Ascendancy Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain. An attempt to revive the movement and renew the insurrection following the Acts of Union was defeated in 1803.
Espousing principles they believed had been vindicated by American independence and by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Presbyterian merchants who formed the first United society in Belfast in 1791 vowed to make common cause with their Catholic-majority fellow countrymen. Their "cordial union" would upend Ireland's Protestant (Anglican) Ascendancy and hold her government accountable to a reformed Parliament.
As the society replicated in Belfast, Dublin, and across rural Ireland, its membership "test" was administered to workingmen (and in cases women) who maintained their own democratic clubs, and to tenant farmers organised against the Protestant gentry in secret fraternities. The goals of the movement were restated in uncompromising terms: Catholic emancipation and reform were folded into calls for universal manhood suffrage and an Irish republic. Preparations were laid for an insurrection to be assisted by the French and by new "United" societies in Scotland and England. These were disrupted by government infiltration and by martial-law sweeps for arms, so that when it came in the summer of 1798 the rebellion was as a series of uncoordinated local risings.
The British Crown authorities seized on the rebellion to argue the greater security of a union with Great Britain. In 1800 the Irish legislature was abolished in favour of a United Kingdom parliament at Westminster. The attempt to restore the movement by organising on strictly military lines failed to elicit a response in what had been the United heartlands in the north, and misfired in 1803 with Robert Emmet's rising in Dublin.
Since the rebellion's centenary in 1898, Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists have contested its legacy.
referencePosted on 22 Oct 2024, this text provides information on Miscellaneous in Academic & Science related to Academic & Science. Please note that while accuracy is prioritized, the data presented might not be entirely correct or up-to-date. This information is offered for general knowledge and informational purposes only, and should not be considered as a substitute for professional advice.
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