Society of United Irishmen - After 1798

After 1798

The decision to abolish the Irish Parliament resulting in the Act of Union in 1800 that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland played on sectarian hopes and fears and was to gradually erode the United Irishmen by playing Catholic against Protestant. This was despite the original recognition that the "bigotry" (to quote Prime Minister William Pitt) of the Protestant Parliament in Dublin had only contributed to sedition in Ireland.

The failure of Robert Emmet's rebellion in 1803 triggered the effective collapse of the Society of United Irishmen. The last armed rebel group led by James Corcoran was destroyed in 1804 and the first half of the 19th century saw sectarianism replace separatism as the touchstone for political unrest in Ireland. Not until the Young Ireland movement in the 1840s was an attempt made to resurrect the non-sectarian ideals of the United Irishmen. However, the alliance between Catholic and Protestant was never fully regained as Protestants were drawn closer to a "British" identity through fear of having a perceived position of privilege eroded by the slowly growing political power of the Catholic majority. As a consequence, subsequent organised republican resistance to British rule in Ireland was largely confined to the Catholic population and seen as a threat by the majority of the Protestant population.