‘Apprenticeship to Revolution: Workers and Tradesmen in the 1798 Rebellion’

Thursday 9th November at 6pm (QUB – 27 University Square 01/003 and online via Zoom)

By the end of the eighteenth century, the Irish elite were acutely aware of the dangers of a growing population of urban workers, whether they be in Belfast, Dublin or Cork. This was to be the age of the ‘radical artisan’: skilled, mainly urban, craftsmen, who were highly literate and politically engaged. Unsurprisingly, it was these workers who would provide some of the most dedicated recruits to the cause of the United Irishmen during the 1790s. Yet these artisans never lost their own fierce sense of political independence, often holding socio-economic viewpoints that were very different from those of the middle-class republican leadership. This talk examines the political views, activities, and organizations of these Irish tradesmen in the years running up to the 1798 Rebellion, as well as examining some of the consequence of that rebellion for the country’s urban workers.

Tim Murtagh is a graduate of TCD, completing his PhD in 2015. . He is currently a Research Fellow with the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, an all-island project to digitally reconstruct the records of the Public Record Office of Ireland that were destroyed in 1922.

REGISTER AT: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/proni/1040610