Society of United Irishmen

Society of United Irishmen Cumann na nÉireannach Aontaithe[1]
Founded	1791; 233 years ago (1791)
Dissolved	1804; 220 years ago (1804)
Newspaper	Belfast: Northern Star. Cork: Harp of Erin. Dublin: The Rights of Irishmen, or National Evening Star; Union Star; Press. Roscrea: Southern Star.
Ideology	Irish nationalism Republicanism Radicalism
International affiliation	Allied to the French First Republic, United Scotsmen, United Englishmen/United Britons
Party flag
Politics of Ireland Political parties Elections

Part of a series on
Irish republicanism
Concepts Abstentionism Anti-imperialism Armalite and ballot box strategy Dissident republican Éire Nua Irish nationalism Irish republican legitimism New Departure Radicalism Republicanism United Ireland
History Irish Rebellion of 1798 Acts of Union 1800 Irish rebellion of 1803 Young Ireland rebellion Fenian Rising Fenian raids Fenian dynamite campaign Easter Rising 1918 general election Irish revolutionary period Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War 1932 general election S-Plan Border Campaign The Troubles Arms Crisis 1981 Irish hunger strike Good Friday Agreement Dissident Irish republican campaign
People Gerry Adams Cathal Brugha Neil Blaney Tom Clarke James Connolly Seamus Costello Éamon de Valera Robert Emmet Cathal Goulding Thomas J. Kelly Seán Mac Stíofáin Seán MacBride Terence MacSwiney Constance Markievicz Bernadette Devlin Martin McGuinness Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Dáithí Ó Conaill Peadar O'Donnell John O'Mahony Patrick Pearse Seán Russell Bobby Sands James Stephens Wolfe Tone Moss Twomey
Active parties Aontú Éirígí Fianna Fáil Irish Republican Socialist Party Republican Network for Unity Republican Sinn Féin Saoradh Sinn Féin
Defunct parties All Ireland Anti-Partition League Anti H-Block Aontacht Éireann Clann na Poblachta Clann Éireann Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist–Leninist) Córas na Poblachta Cumann na Poblachta Cumann Poblachta na hÉireann Fianna Uladh Independent Fianna Fáil Irish Anti-Partition League Irish Independence Party Irish Socialist Republican Party Irish Workers' Group (1976) National Corporate Party Northern Council for Unity Republican Congress Republican Labour Party Republican Socialist Collective Saor Éire SLISO Socialist Republican Party
Militant groups Active Arm na Poblachta Continuity IRA Cumann na mBan‎ Fianna Éireann Irish Republican Liberation Army Irish Republican Movement New IRA Inactive Irish National Liberation Army Óglaigh na hÉireann (Real IRA splinter group) Defunct Connolly Column Irish Brigade Irish Citizen Army Irish National Invincibles Irish People's Liberation Organisation Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) Irish Republican Army (1922–1969) Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Revolutionary Forces Irish Volunteers Official IRA Provisional IRA Real IRA Republican Action Against Drugs Republican Defence Army Saor Éire (1967–1975) Saor Uladh Society of United Irishmen South Armagh Republican Action Force Young Ireland
Active Organisations 32 County Sovereignty Movement Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland Cabhair Connolly Association Connolly Youth Movement IRPWA Irish National Congress IRSCNA NORAID National Graves Association, Belfast National Graves Association Revolutionary Housing League Wolfe Tone Societies Ógra Fianna Fáil Ógra Shinn Féin
Defunct Organisations Clan na Gael Clann na hÉireann Comhairle na Poblachta Dungannon Clubs Emmet Monument Association Fenian Brotherhood Friends of Irish Freedom Irish Republican Voice Irish Socialist Federation League of Communist Republicans Northern Resistance Movement People's Democracy Phoenix National and Literary Society Troops Out Movement
Media An Phoblacht Evening Press Guerrilla Days in Ireland IRIS Magazine Irish Freedom Republican News Saoirse Irish Freedom Sinn Féin The Gaelic American The Hibernia Magazine The Irish Felon The Irish People The Irish Press The Nation The Phoenix The Starry Plough The Sunday Press United Irishman (1848 newspaper) United Irishman (1948 newspaper)
Politics portal Ireland portal
v t e

The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican rebellion. Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Irish Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain.

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 the landed Anglican Ascendancy and hold government accountable to a reformed Parliament.

As it radiated out from Belfast and from Dublin, the society drew on the structure and ritual of freemasonry to recruit among tradesmen, artisans and tenant farmers, many of whom had been organised in their own clubs and secret fraternities. Following its proscription in 1794, its goals were restated in uncompromising terms. Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform became the call for universal manhood suffrage and a republic. Sharing on a common democratic programme, and trading on the prospect of French assistance, agents were active in organising "United" societies in Scotland and in England with whom it was hoped action might be co-ordinated.

Beginning in May 1798, martial-law seizures and arrests forced the conspiracy in Ireland into the open. The result was a series of local risings suppressed in advance of the landing, in August, of a small French expeditionary force.

In the wake of the rebellion, the British government pressed a union with Great Britain upon the Irish Parliament and transferred its unreformed, exclusively Protestant, representation to Westminster. In 1803, a renewed republican conspiracy, organised on strictly military lines, failed to elicit a response in what had been the United heartlands in the north, and misfired with an aborted rising in Dublin.

Since the rebellion's centenary in 1898, Ireland's major political traditions, unionist, nationalist and republican, have claimed and disputed the legacy of the United Irishmen, and of the union they sought to effect between Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.