Ireland in the age of the French Revolution

There has been a flood of recent scholarly publications on Ireland in the age of the French Revolution because the dramatic events in France had a very great impact on the divided nature of Irish society and because the bicentenary of the rise and fall of the United Irishmen, the Irish rebellion of 1798 and the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland in 1800 all led to many academic conferences and encouraged a great interest in Irish history in this period. This essay surveys this recent literature and explores how scholars now perceive Irish radicalism and loyalism in the 1790s, the rebellion of 1798 and the debate fort and against the Act of Union of 1800.