When discussing the history of violence in Ireland during the eighteenth century it is easy to simply focus on the great insurrection of 1798, perhaps only touching on some earlier skirmishes briefly. But in doing so one could not fully appreciate the complexity of the issue. Indeed, if someone were to merely study a brief narrative of major events in the 1700s it would hardly make much sense for it seems that as toleration towards Catholicism in parliament increased the revolutionary fervour reached its zenith. To come to a fuller understanding of the events which cumulated in the 1790s you have to completely immerse yourself within whole era. There were significant disturbances throughout the whole latter half of the 18th century with every decade hosting some uprising, almost always agrarian in character. That these events led in some way to the Wexford uprising is obvious, the complexity arises in attempting to explain the causes of this disturbances. David Miller and Louis Cullen debated the political and social causes, each one tending to polarize the two factors in placing one above the other. I, on the other hand, think it is far more difficult to separate these elements. Rather, it seems that over the 4 decades leading up to 1798 it was the additive effect of social, economic, and political issues which had the largest impact, escalating to a threshold after which large-scale insurrection became plausible.
