Thread - This evening in Dublin in 1798 1000s of United Irish assembled under arms in the face of severe repression to try & create the Irish republic. Torture & bribery meant their plans were betrayed but they rose & months of mass armed struggle to win freedom began /1

The rising of the Wexford Republic lasted weeks;
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin /2
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/seamus_heaney/poems/12705

The Dublin rising had to be hastened after the capture of the military organiser of the rising, Edward Fitzgerald, on the 19th. In a house on Thomas street Fitzgerald armed only with a knife had tried to fight off the men armed with pistols, wounding two in the process /3

Fitzgerald was an ex British army officer and Lord who had been radicalised by living with the Iroquois, the French Revolution and a stay with Thomas Paine. He renounced his title and conspired with republican revolutionaries in Ireland and internationally. /4

The Dublin pub The Lord Edward is named after him, even if for some reason the title he renounced has snuck back in. I'm going to expand this thread a lot in the coming days but in the meantime here is a long piece I wrote for the 200th anniversary /5 https://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/1798-rebellion-origins-irish-republicanism