Causes of Rebellion in Waziristan

How does a nation of loyal subjects, once steadfast defenders of empire, become fractured by fire and rebellion? This central question drives The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed, an impassioned 1798 pamphlet written anonymously by an Irish emigrant determined to show England that the bloodshed in Ireland was not born of innate sedition but deliberate misrule. The author argues that what English observers called rebellion was the inevitable fruit of years of oppression, corruption, and false governance—a violent reaction to policies that choked liberty and insulted national dignity. Ireland, he insists, did not rebel against order or monarchy, but against a system that had mocked both.

This book is both an indictment and a plea—a blistering critique of the Irish administration under British control and a desperate appeal to English conscience. It seeks to prove that repression, religious division, and the abuse of constitutional principles created a conditions of despair that finally erupted into violence. Rather than viewing Ireland’s rebellion as the work of seditious traitors, the author reframes it as the scream of a people pushed beyond endurance.

The Chain of Oppression

The first link in this chain, according to the author, lay in the false independence granted to Ireland in 1782. When the Irish won legislative autonomy from Britain, hopes were high that prosperity and representation would follow. But what emerged instead was an entrenched system of corruption, where boroughs were bought, offices sold, and any attempt at reform punished as sedition. The people, having tasted the idea of self-rule, saw it snatched from them by the manipulation of aristocratic interests and the Castle’s control. This betrayal sowed the seeds of deep national cynicism.

From there, every attempt at reform—whether through Volunteer conventions, Whig advocacy, or Catholic petitions—was crushed or ridiculed. The administration’s message was clear: in Ireland, protest was treason. The author notes that laws like the Convention Bill and Insurrection Act stripped people of their right to meet, speak, or defend themselves. When citizens were silenced, conspiracy flourished. “Secret councils,” he writes, “were born only after open petition was strangled.”

The Machinery of Fear

Perhaps the most chilling chapters recount the creation of a police-state in all but name. Under the guise of preserving peace, Ireland’s government unleashed military law: searches, hangings, public floggings, and forced service on warships. Ordinary magistrates wielded the power to transport citizens without trial. The Insurrection Act, and the subsequent indemnity clauses protecting officers from punishment, made cruelty lawful. In short, the constitution had been suspended entirely for the Irish poor, turning familiar hearths into places of terror.

The horrors multiplied when sectarian hostilities were stirred in Armagh, where the author recounts how the Orange Order, posing as patriots, drove Catholic families from their homes under the infamous slogan “To Connaught or to Hell.” Despite the savagery, no magistrate was dismissed, and the Chancellor excused them as the best men available. This apathy convinced many Irish Catholics that persecution was now state policy, and thousands joined underground groups such as the United Irishmen and the Defenders not from treachery, but from the instinct to survive.

The Collapse of Hope

The author passionately laments Lord Fitzwilliam’s recall—a turning point that extinguished hope of reform. Fitzwilliam’s short tenure as Lord Lieutenant was marked by moderation and Catholic inclusion, but his dismissal proved that even enlightened governance had no place under the corrupt system. “With Fitzwilliam,” the author writes, “Hope fled from the country.” Thereafter, despair bred rebellion. The tragedy, in his view, was avoidable: had justice and inclusion replaced coercion, Ireland might have remained a tranquil and loyal member of the British Empire.

Why It Matters

Reading this text today feels like peering into the anatomy of revolt—showing how states create their own enemies when they deny justice. Much like later critics of colonial misrule or the American Patriots decades before, this writer warns England that tyranny abroad endangers liberty at home. His closing appeal to English readers—“We conjure you to think of us as brethren”—is both emotional and strategic. He aims to awaken empathy across the channel before despotism, having desolated Ireland, infects Britain itself.

As you move through the book’s arguments, you’ll see the author dissect every stage of Ireland’s political tragedy: the empty independence of 1782, the rise of reform movements, the state’s campaign of suppression, the explosion of sectarian violence, and the final descent into military despotism. His message is enduring—where justice is denied and dissent criminalized, insurrection becomes not choice but compulsion. This is not only a history of rebellion; it is a moral manual on how nations lose their souls when power forgets compassion.

When Ireland secured legislative independence in 1782, optimism ran high. The legislative freedom gained under Henry Grattan seemed to promise new prosperity and dignity. But the author exposes this so-called independence as a façade: the Dublin Parliament, while freed from direct Westminster control, was still ruled by British influence and domestic corruption. Instead of self-government, Ireland traded foreign domination for the tyranny of its own aristocratic oligarchy.

The Illusion of Liberty

According to the author, Ireland’s independence was a hollow victory because power remained concentrated in a few borough owners and ministerial placemen. The populace, who had fought proudly for autonomy, soon realized that laws were still made by men loyal to “Castle power”—representatives rewarded by bribes, titles, and pensions. Real liberty, he insists, is meaningless when the instruments of representation are for sale.

Public Distrust and Division

This false independence sowed fatal mistrust. The people doubted the sincerity of those who had opposed reform but now claimed to defend constitutional principles. The debates around the Repeal of the 6th George III. Act exposed this fracture. Patriots like Henry Flood and Hussey Burgh argued that a mere repeal wasn’t enough; only a formal renunciation of English legislative power would secure Ireland’s rights. When the government dismissed those doubts, accusing the populace of ingratitude, resentment deepened. What the administration called sedition was, as the author explains, an expression of legitimate vigilance.

By contrast, Grattan’s stance—that repeal alone was sufficient—lost credibility when he accepted £50,000 from the Treasury. The people suspected that patriotism could be purchased as easily as borough votes. Whether fair or not, this perception eroded faith in political leadership. The governing elite, rather than heal mistrust, ridiculed the public’s concerns. The author likens their arrogance to that of French monarchists before their fall—a government deaf to warning cries until engulfed by revolution.

From Hope to Riots

The denial of meaningful independence created a climate ripe for radicalization. Disillusioned volunteers, once paraded as patriots, began to question their sacrifices. The government’s labeling of reformers as dangerous agitators drove respectable citizens underground and invited militarization of protest. This pattern—contempt leading to coercion, coercion leading to rebellion—is traced throughout the book. In showing how 1782’s nominal freedom paved the way for catastrophe, the author offers a timeless lesson: when power substitutes appearances for substance, disenchantment turns quickly into defiance.

One of the most dynamic forces in late eighteenth-century Ireland was the Volunteer movement—armed citizens who had defended Ireland from invasion and then turned their patriotic energy toward reform. Yet, the author shows how a government terrified of representation crushed this movement by branding it unconstitutional. The decline of the Volunteers marks, in his eyes, the moment when the people’s lawful voice was silenced in favor of bureaucratic domination.

The Dungannon Convention: A Model of Civic Power

The Dungannon meeting of volunteers had earlier set a high precedent—it succeeded peacefully in asserting Irish legislative independence and addressing the King directly. But when a second convention of volunteers gathered in Dublin to discuss parliamentary reform, the government changed its tone. What was once celebrated as patriotic unity was now denounced as military sedition. Their petition for reform, presented by Henry Flood, was rejected with insult. To the author, the hypocrisy was glaring: soldiers speaking for government interests were “loyal,” but soldiers speaking for citizens were “rebels.”

The Fear of Representation

The author dissects the absurdity of calling representative assemblies unconstitutional. Representation, he points out, is the very essence of the British constitution—seen in every town council and Parliament itself. What the Irish administration truly feared was not unconstitutional structure, but popular legitimacy. A representative reform convention could erase the borough system—the government’s key instrument of control. To preserve it, they unleashed propaganda and ridicule, painting reformers as fools or traitors.

The rejection of the Volunteer Convention’s petition became the rallying moment of disillusionment. The people, weary of mockery, gradually abandoned open protest. In this vacuum, new organizations—the United Irishmen among them—emerged to continue the reform project from the shadows. In misidentifying the demand for better government as disloyalty, the administration ensured that political energy flowed underground, transforming citizens into conspirators.

Few passages of the book are more shocking than the author’s description of the Armagh persecutions, where Protestant Orange mobs terrorized Catholic families while officials stood idle. He accuses the Irish administration of either secretly encouraging or deliberately ignoring this fanaticism. Their goal, he suggests, was strategic: divide Catholics, Protestants, and dissenters so thoroughly that none could unite in demanding reform.

The Birth of the Orange System

The rise of Orange lodges offered the ruling faction a potent instrument. Under the guise of defending the Protestant constitution, they carried out forced expulsions and atrocities. Catholic houses were marked with threats—“To Connaught or to Hell”—and entire communities were driven west. The administration’s inaction spoke volumes: magistrates prosecuted Catholics who retaliated but not their attackers. The author notes bitterly that the Lord Chancellor refused to dismiss even one magistrate, claiming “better men could not be found.”

Defenders and Retaliation

Faced with state-tolerated violence, many Catholics organized for self-defence as the “Defenders.” This group, born of fear not ideology, became a pretext for more brutal suppression. The irony was grim: those who pleaded for law’s protection were branded criminals, while their persecutors posed as constitutionalists. The author condemns this double standard as the moral origin of rebellion. When law becomes one-sided, he warns, people will seek justice in their own hands.

By fomenting religious conflict, the administration not only inflamed sectarian hatred but destroyed trust in government’s impartiality. The book draws close parallels to ancient Rome, where rulers pitted factions against each other to maintain autocracy. In modern terms, it is a textbook illustration of “divide and rule,” a method the author calls “the last refuge of despotism.”

Denied legitimate channels for reform, many patriotic Irishmen sought new means of organization. The Society of United Irishmen, originally founded in Dublin by liberal Protestants and Catholics alike, emerged as a response to the closure of constitutional petition. The author portrays their origin not as seditious conspiracy but as the natural evolution of civic frustration. Their motto—‘liberty to all, regardless of creed’—was revolutionary precisely because it dismantled the old machinery of sectarian division.

From Civic Movement to Secret Network

Initially, the United Irishmen operated publicly, calling for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. But prosecutions, censorship, and arrests forced them underground. When open speech is criminalized, secrecy becomes survival. The author describes how oaths of loyalty were introduced only after government repression made public assembly impossible. What English officials decried as conspiracy was, he insists, the government’s own creation.

Fear as Policy

By transforming citizens into suspects, the Castle administration institutionalized fear. Newspapers paid by government funds vilified reformers as atheists and Jacobins, mimicking the hysteria of revolutionary France. The author’s condemnation is uncompromising: it was government libel, not republican pamphlets, that first “poisoned the mind of the multitude.” Through humiliation and provocation, moderate Irishmen were hardened into rebels, and once loyalty was made unsafe, disaffection became honor.

For the author, the lesson is unmistakable: the state’s refusal to listen to its reasonable critics ensures that the unreasonable will be heard instead. The United Irishmen, hunted as traitors, were simply the mirror that tyranny holds to itself.

The heart of the author’s moral and political argument is this: coercion never cures rebellion; it breeds it. Each coercive act—the Gunpowder Bill, Convention Act, and Insurrection Act—tightened the noose around constitutional liberty and forced Irish frustration into more volatile forms. Instead of governing through justice, the administration governed through fear, transforming grievances into existential despair.

The Legalization of Oppression

The Convention Act made representative meetings illegal; the Gunpowder Act disarmed citizens; the Insurrection Act allowed arbitrary imprisonment and transport without trial. To make cruelty permanent, Bills of Indemnity protected officials from punishment for any “excesses” committed under these laws. Such policies, the author argues, normalized tyranny—creating what he calls “a government independent of the nation’s will, yet claiming its name.”

The Spiral of Violence

When the public lost faith in courts and Parliament, they turned to retaliatory violence. This, in turn, was cited as proof of their barbarism—justifying still harsher measures. The author meticulously tracks this vicious cycle: injustice provokes outrage; outrage legitimizes repression; repression calls back blood. By the late 1790s, Ireland had become, in his striking phrase, “a theatre where lawless outrage plays its deadly freaks.” This portrayal anticipates later analyses of how systemic abuse radicalizes the masses (as Frantz Fanon would later describe in colonial contexts).

From Liberty to Military Despotism

The arrival of General Lake’s army in Ulster marked the final transformation of civil policy into war. Suspicion replaced due process; confessions were extracted by torture, dwellings were burned for missing arms, and loyalty required submission. Parliament, instead of checking power, echoed its excesses. By 1798, Ireland was no longer governed by law but by sword. The rebellion that exploded did not destroy the constitution—it merely revealed that it had already perished.

No single event symbolized the betrayal of Irish expectations more vividly than the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795. The author treats it as the moment despair settled over the country. Fitzwilliam, a reform-minded governor sympathetic to Catholic emancipation, embodied hope for conciliation. His sudden dismissal by the British Cabinet confirmed that Ireland’s rulers preferred division to reform. “With Fitzwilliam,” the author declares, “Hope fled from the country.”

A New Spirit of Despair

Fitzwilliam’s recall was interpreted not as a political adjustment but as a message: England will never permit justice in Ireland. The Catholics who had petitioned loyally for inclusion felt humiliated. Moderates withdrew from public life, leaving radicals to shape events. The recall thus marks, in the author’s chronology, the moral break between loyalty and rebellion. After years of faithful endurance, Ireland realized that conciliation was impossible under the current system.

A Missed Chance at Brotherhood

In other historical contexts—such as Canada’s reforms under Durham or the gradual inclusion of Catholics in later nineteenth-century Britain—measured concessions built enduring peace. The author laments that the same chance was denied Ireland. Instead of reconciling differences, the recall of a reformer reinforced every charge of arrogance made by his predecessors. Rebellion, he implies, was not planned in Paris but provoked in London.

Within months of Fitzwilliam’s departure, underground networks blossomed, and hopes for peaceful redress died. To the author, this event is Ireland’s political original sin—proof that Britain preferred domination to partnership.

The pamphlet closes with an impassioned appeal to English readers. The author insists that England cannot wash her hands of the Irish crisis. What happens in Ireland, he warns, foreshadows dangers that may soon reach Britain itself. If despotism becomes the accepted mode of governance across the Irish Sea, it will corrode liberty at home. This plea reframes Ireland not as Britain’s problem but its mirror.

An Appeal to Conscience and Common Interest

Throughout the book, the narrator appeals simultaneously to morality and pragmatism. He calls Englishmen “a free people famed even in barbarous times for compassion inseparable from valour.” Their duty, he argues, is to demand the dismissal of corrupt governors and restoration of constitutional rights in Ireland. But even self-interest requires action, for tyranny left unchecked nearby will “stalk toward their own shores.” In this sense, the pamphlet anticipates the ethical imperialism later expressed by writers like John Stuart Mill: power brings responsibility, and neglect breeds contagion.

A Universal Message

By grounding his argument in shared humanity, the author transcends sectarian politics. He insists that nations, like individuals, are bound by moral law: cruelty invites resistance, and injustice kindles rebellion. His invocation of Tacitus—“It is human nature to resist violence”—frames rebellion not as an Irish peculiarity but a universal condition. Thus, he turns a localized crisis into a lesson on the nature of freedom itself. Ireland’s agony, he concludes, is the world’s warning.

In urging English readers to act before despotism becomes endemic, the author gives the work its lasting resonance. The lesson remains timeless: empathy and justice are not acts of sentiment but of national preservation.