Between the years 1778 and 1784, groups that had previously been excluded from the Irish political sphere women, Catholics, lower-class Protestants, farmers, shopkeepers, and other members of the laboring and agrarian classes began to imagine themselves as civil subjects with a stake in matters of the state. This politicization of non-elites was largely driven by the Volunteers, a local militia force that emerged in Ireland as British troops were called away to the American War of Independence. With remarkable speed, the Volunteers challenged central features of British imperial rule over...
Between the years 1778 and 1784, groups that had previously been excluded from the Irish political sphere women, Catholics, lower-class Protestants, f...
