I rish R epublican M ovement

Abstract

Abstract The Irish Republican Movement has its origins in eighteenth‐century republican political philosophy, which also inspired the American (1776) and French revolutions (1789). In the 1790s, the United Irishmen tried to unite “Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter” and create an Irish Republic independent of England. Unlike their American and French counterparts, the United Irishmen's rebellion of 1798 failed. However, they remained an inspiration for rebellions against the British in 1803, 1848, 1867, and 1916, and insurgent actions by Fenians (including armed campaigns against the British in Canada and a bombing campaign in England) in the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s. Contemporary Irish Republicanism has organizational antecedents that date from the 1840s: Irish Republicans active as “Young Irelanders” in 1848 became Fenians; Fenians participated in the 1916 Rising and the Irish War of Independence (1919–1923); veterans of 1916–1923 were active in Irish Republican organizations into the twenty‐first century.