A History of Ireland in Song

Young Irelanders

A republican movement dedicated to severing the link between Ireland and Britain and establishing an Irish Republic. It grew out of the weekly journal "The Nation", founded by Charles Gavin Duffy and Thomas Davis in 1842. Other noted Young Irelanders included John Mitchel of Jail Journal fame. The movement was inspired by similar republican movements in much of Europe, especially Mazzini's Young Italy. Its life was brief, cut short by the Great Famine. It was in the second year of the famine, in July 1848, the year of revolution in Europe, that they attempted a farcical insurrection in County Tipperary. This fracas became known to knockers as "the Battle of Widow McCormick's Cottage", and discredited the physical force tradition in Irish nationalism for several generations. Today, going on for 160 years after the foundation of Young Ireland, their goal remains unfulfilled.

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