03-31-2023, 07:26 AM
The Year of Liberty by Thomas Pakenham
The subtitle for this book is "The History of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1798"
This is kind of the companion book to Citizen Lord. Whereas Citizen Lord told the story of Edward Fitzgerald during the United Irishman uprising of 1798, he is only given a few paragraphs in The Year of Liberty. The Year of Liberty discusses the entire conflict from Wexford to Mayo mostly from the British side as there is more documentation from that side. The book was absolute flurry of names and places I didn't know and couldn't keep straight so the book was a bit of a slog as I tried to put together what was going on. The main players in the book are Pitt the Prime Minister, Camden the Vice Royal of Ireland and Cornwallis who took over for Camden. And yes, that is our Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown.
The main picture of uprising was that it was a mess on both sides. The advantage the government had was they had guns and some military training. But both sides were disorganized with rebels getting A+ marks in lack of leadership. The big problem was that several days before the kick off to the rising all the Dublin leadership for the rebels were arrested. For a bunch of stupid reasons the leaderless rebels decided to attack anyway. They won a few battles while the Government got its act together.
In the end, the uprising was just a tragic farce which actually led to the dissolution of the Irish Parliament and the end to Ireland's limited self government.
The book was kind of a slog to get through. I wished many times the story was over but there was always one more tragic bit. Not particularly recommended.
The subtitle for this book is "The History of the Great Irish Rebellion of 1798"
This is kind of the companion book to Citizen Lord. Whereas Citizen Lord told the story of Edward Fitzgerald during the United Irishman uprising of 1798, he is only given a few paragraphs in The Year of Liberty. The Year of Liberty discusses the entire conflict from Wexford to Mayo mostly from the British side as there is more documentation from that side. The book was absolute flurry of names and places I didn't know and couldn't keep straight so the book was a bit of a slog as I tried to put together what was going on. The main players in the book are Pitt the Prime Minister, Camden the Vice Royal of Ireland and Cornwallis who took over for Camden. And yes, that is our Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown.
The main picture of uprising was that it was a mess on both sides. The advantage the government had was they had guns and some military training. But both sides were disorganized with rebels getting A+ marks in lack of leadership. The big problem was that several days before the kick off to the rising all the Dublin leadership for the rebels were arrested. For a bunch of stupid reasons the leaderless rebels decided to attack anyway. They won a few battles while the Government got its act together.
In the end, the uprising was just a tragic farce which actually led to the dissolution of the Irish Parliament and the end to Ireland's limited self government.
The book was kind of a slog to get through. I wished many times the story was over but there was always one more tragic bit. Not particularly recommended.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm