The origins of the modern Irish republican movement

UCC lecturer,  Gabriel Doherty, examines the origins of the modern Irish republican movement.

The origins of the modern Irish republican movement are generally traced back to the creation of the Society of United Irishmen during the ideological ferment generated in the late 18th century by the Enlightenment and French revolution.

The later Fenian movement certainly regarded itself as the inheritor of that tradition. It is worth noting in passing, however, that (as demonstrated by the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich) discussions of republicanism in Ireland (which took as their models the polities of classical Greece and Rome), and its potential as the basis for political separation from Britain, predated the United Irishmen by a century or more.