Among the thousands of political refugees who flooded into the
United States during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth
centuries, none had a greater impact On the early republic than the
United Irishmen. They were, according to one Federalist, "the most
God-provoking Democrats on this side of Hell". "Every United
Irishman", insisted another, "ought to be hunted from the country,
as much as a wolf or a tyger". David A. Wilson's lively book is the
first to focus specifically on the experiences, attitudes, and
ideas of the United Irishmen in the United States.
Wilson argues that America served a powerful symbolic and
psychological function for the United Irishmen as a place of
wish-fulfillment, where the broken dreams of the failed Irish
revolution could be realized. The United Irishmen established
themselves on the radical wing of the Republican Party, and
contributed to Jefferson's "second American Revolution" of 1800;
John Adams counted them among the "foreigners and degraded
characters" whom he blamed for his defeat.
After Jefferson's victory, the United Irishmen set out to
destroy the Federalists and democratize the Republicans. Some of
them believed that their work was preparing the way for the
millennium in America. Convinced that the example of America could
ultimately inspire the movement for a democratic republic back
home, they never lost sight of the struggle for Irish independence.
It was the United Irishmen, writes Wilson, who originated the
persistent and powerful tradition of Irish-American
nationalism.
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