The United Irishmen of the 1790s were unlikely initiators of a struggle against reality. Enlightened, rational Protestant bourgeois for the most part, they proposed feasible, Whiggish political change: efficient and just administration achieved through parliamentary reform, abolition of tithe, reduction in taxation and government expenditure, promotion of trade and education. When they set out 'to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter' it was - as Tom Dunne argues forcefully in his valuable new study of the ideas of their most famous publicist, Wolfe Tone - because only such a 'cordial union' could form an effective counterpoise to 'the weight of English influence in the government of this country'. Their object was modest enough: 'to maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation of our liberties'.

LRB 19 April 1984 | PDF Download