The Young Ireland Revolt, 1848
Mark Rathbone looks at the Battle of the Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Garden and at what happened to those involved.
What do the following people have in common? A Prime Minister of the state of Victoria in Australia who received a knighthood for his services; a member of the legislature of another Australian state, Queensland; a Union general in the American Civil War who went on to become Governor of the state of Montana; a man who was jailed in New York for supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War; a Canadian cabinet minister who was assassinated for opposing Irish extremism; and an Old Harrovian whose statue stands today in O’Connell Street in Dublin.
The answer is that all these distinguished gentlemen were prominent members of Young Ireland, the nationalist organisation which organised the rising of 1848, most of whom were found guilty of treason or treason-felony. This is the story of that rebellion and the remarkable later lives of some of the men who took part.
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