Young Ireland

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By Thomas Farrell created statue of the leader of "Young Ireland", William Smith O'Brien in Dublin
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Young Ireland ( Irish Éire Óg , "Young Ireland") was a revolutionary nationalist movement in Ireland , which in 1848 wanted to fight for Ireland's independence from Great Britain .

history

The origins of the movement and the causes of the insurrection

Ireland had been under British rule for centuries; with the Act of Union 1800 it was incorporated into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In Ireland there were moves to leave the Union , namely by the Repeal Association led by Daniel O'Connell and the newspaper The Nation founded in 1842 by Charles Gavan Duffy . Young Ireland emerged from these aspirations.

Daniel O'Connell was reluctant to use force; the Catholic Church also rejected the use of force. The supporters of Young Ireland, led by William Smith O'Brien (1803–1864), saw it as their duty to fight for Irish independence in a militant way. Because they were convinced that only this could induce Great Britain to give in. The Great Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1849, during which the British Government hardly provided any help, but on the contrary exported grain from Ireland to Great Britain at the height of the emergency, gave Irish nationalism new nourishment. Hatred of Britain grew as most Irish attributed the famine to the exploitation of Ireland and found the British response to the hardship to be harsh and inhuman.

In 1848 there were also revolutions in several European countries. The day seemed to have come everywhere to overthrow the old rulers, including Ireland.

The uprising of the boy Ireland

Against this background, the Young Irelanders expected a massive influx from the population. So in 1848 they dared to fight for the independence of Ireland by force. The rebellion of the boy Ireland reached its peak on July 29, 1848 near the village of Ballingarry in County Tipperary with a battle with a unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary , the winners later derisively as The Battle of widow McCormack's cabbage patch ( "The Battle of the Kohlacker by widow McCormack ”). Despite the bravery of the crowd led by William Smith O'Brien, John Blake Dillon (1814–1866), Terence McManus (around 1811–1861) and James Stephens (1824–1901), the uprising was quickly put down by the Royal Irish Constabulary. By the autumn of 1848 almost all of Boy Ireland's leaders had been captured and in prison if they had not been able to escape abroad.

The reasons for the failure of the uprising

The failure of the uprising was partly due to the fact that the rebels were poorly equipped and poorly organized. On the other hand, the hoped-for support from the population largely failed to materialize. After three years of hunger, most of the Irish were completely preoccupied with the struggle for survival and barely in the mood for armed insurrection.

In addition, the Young Ireland was only able to mobilize a few Irish farmers (who made up the majority of the population and were mostly tenants of English, partly also Irish landlords , by whom they felt exploited). Because Young Ireland represented a national rather than a social concern. Boy Ireland's demands hardly responded to the misery of the tenants who had to pay heavy taxes. William Smith O'Brien was a Protestant and landowner himself who owned estates in both Ireland and Great Britain. From the point of view of many, this disqualified him as representing the Irish cause.

Afterlife

Despite - or because of? - of their failure, the boys Ireland's men and their willingness to make sacrifices became a model, even a myth, in Ireland during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

“It would be foolish to condemn the men of 1848 as of no account because their venture ended in fiasco. Their physical revolution may have foundered in the Widow McCormack's cabbage patch but their ideological revolution lived on long after they were gone. "

“It would be short-circuited to dismiss the men of 1848 as irrelevant because their daring ended in a fiasco. Your physical revolution may have failed on McCormack's widow Kohlacker. Their ideological revolution, however, lived on long after they were no more. "

- Francis Stewart Leland Lyons : Ireland since the famine , p. 110.

The current flag of Ireland (tricolor) was first used as such by the boy Ireland.

literature

  • Francis Stewart Leland Lyons: Ireland since the famine . 10th ed. Fontana Press, London 1987. ISBN 0-00-686005-2 . In it the chapter The legacy of Young Ireland , pp. 104–112.
  • Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th edition. Hamish Hamilton, London 1968. Therein chapter 16, pp. 329-360, in which the origin and development of the movement of the Young Irelanders is presented in detail.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Francis Stewart Leland Lyons: Ireland since the famine . 10th ed. 1987. p. 107 and p. 109.
  2. ↑ Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th ed. 1968. p. 329.
  3. ↑ Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th ed. 1968. p. 333.
  4. ↑ Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th ed. 1968. pp. 356-358.
  5. ^ Theodore W. Moody: Fenianism, Home Rule, and the Land War (1850-91) . In: Theodore W. Moody, Francis Xavier Martin (Eds.): The course of Irish history . 17th ed. Mercier Press, Cork 1987, ISBN 0-85342-715-1 , pp. 275-294, here 276.
  6. ^ Francis Stewart Leland Lyons: Ireland since the famine . 10th ed. 1987, p. 110 and p. 124.
  7. ↑ Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th ed. 1968. p. 359.
  8. ↑ Cecil Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger. Ireland 1845-1849 . 7th ed. 1968. p. 330.

See also

Web links

Commons : Young Ireland  - Collection of images, videos and audio files