The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down [Paperback]

A. T. Q. Stewart (Author), Anthony Terence Quincey Stewart (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0856405582 | ISBN-13: 978-0856405587 | Publication Date: August 1996

The story of the seven days, from 6 June 1798, when a coalition of idealistic Presbyterians and Catholics challenged the might of the Anglican establishment in Antrim and Down. It draws on contemporary diaries, letters and reports to present a history of the United Irishmen rising in the North.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

An eloquent account of the savage British suppression of the 1798 rising of the Society of United Irishmen in Northern Ireland. Inspired by the American and French revolutions, the 1798 rising against British rule was brought about by a rare coalition of Irish Catholics and Protestants. As Stewart points out, the United Irishmen was originally a benign patriotic organization devoted to reform and repeal of barbarous British anti-Catholic laws. With the commencement of war with France in 1793, the author explains, British authorities suspected the United Irish movement of harboring pro-French elements, and suppressed it. The rebellion actually went through three disjointed phases in the spring and summer of 1798: the May outbreak of a spontaneous army, mostly of peasants, in the southeast; the August uprising in Mayo; and the short-lived uprising (June 613) in the northern counties, which is the principal subject of the author's narrative. Stewart recounts the doomed rebel effort, a tale of mostly small skirmishes and small maneuvers, from the ``turn-out'' of rebel forces, armed with pikes, along the coast until the climactic ``Battle of Antrim,'' actually a massacre of rebels of Ballynahinch and the main rebel position at Ednavady Hill. The poorly armed and disorganized rebels, led by charismatic leaders like Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy McCracken, were finally suppressed by British forces under Major- General George Nugent. While the rebellion's surviving leaders were brutally executed, the memory of the rebellion, and its brief union of Catholics and Protestants, lived on to inspire the Irish patriots of the future. Vividly drawing on primary sources such as letters and diaries, the author makes the tragic rebellion come alive, absorbing the reader in a compelling story of heroism and tragedy. (History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0856405582
• ISBN-13: 978-0856405587
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #171,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One mistey morning, the Irish lost their freadom, May 30, 2000

By 

krit y hatton (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down (Paperback)

Step by step the planned revolution unfolds. The Irish, preparing pikes, organizing, and plotting betrayal against themselves.

Treachery and battle. Summer soldiers is a sometines exausting account of the failed rebellion against the Ascendancy.

This really is a minute to minute account of what happened.

That is this books best quality. It's so detailed it's hard to really accept. But the footnotes are there, and they reveal not only a failed rebellion (that is still relevant to the IRA and the RUC) but the details of how mass planning under duress comes together....and falls apart.

Essential for any student of Irish HIstory. Essential for anyone who needs to understand the rebelious masses. Essential to anyone interested in contemporary Irish politics.

This was the event that created todays nightmare in Ireland.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true account of that momentous year in the Irish history., September 26, 2010

By 

Vivek K. Sarawgi (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down (Paperback)

A very well reasearched book. It deals with that momentous year that changed Ireland for years to come. The locations are well described and even today one can go to these places and see for themselves the actual location as the events unfolded. A must read for any one interested in Irish history. The united Irishmen were united against Britain for Freedom.