1798 Rebellion

Oral history also records significant events. Historian Guy Beiner, using a variety of materials including records from the National Folklore Collection, has compiled a compelling oral history of the 1798 Rebellion. Memories can be transmitted across two or three generations. In 1927, a 106-year-old man, Michael Hughes of Bofeenaun, Co. Mayo, was interviewed about his father and grandfather, who had seen the French army pass through the Windy Gap on the way to help the Irish rebels who were fighting the English at Castlebar. In 1933, folklore collector Padraig MacGreine interviewed 95-year-old Patrick Gill about stories he had heard from his grandmother, who had been present in 1798.

Again, the accounts can contain historic inaccuracies, but they do provide a synopsis not only of how events were perceived in a locality, but also the extent to which these events influenced people’s lives. This comes from the Schools Manuscripts within the National Folklore Collection, and was recorded by a schoolboy in 1936. Precise locations may be inaccurate, as is the detail about the amount of abandoned arms:

Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798

George Cruikshank, ‘Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798’, an etching later separately exhibited as ‘Irish rebellion- burning the barn full of people’, a representation of events at Sculabogue, Co. Wexford, 5 June 1798

Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798
Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798

George Cruikshank, ‘Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798’, an etching later separately exhibited as ‘Irish rebellion- burning the barn full of people’, a representation of events at Sculabogue, Co. Wexford, 5 June 1798

Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

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“In the year seventeen of 1798, the Irish people were looking for foreign help, long before that the Irish people were persecuted by the English. A lot of men from the county Longford fought at Ballinamuck. An army of French men landed at Killala and marched to Ballinamuck, where they were joined by an Irish army. The Irish were defeated, and when they were flying they had to leave arms everywhere. At Ballinamuck the gonner [gunner] Mcgee was shot dead and his gun was captured.”

(NFCS Box 758b, copybook of Patrick Brady, Gaigue NS, Ballinamuck, Longford)