A Deeper Silence: The Hidden Origins of the United Irishmen

A.T.Q. Stewart
Faber & Faber
1993

This book traces the influence of English and Scottish radicalism on the United Irishmen.

Stewart describes two important parallel developments in Eighteenth Century Ireland which ultimately came together in the United Irish movement.

The first was the emergence of an Irish national consciousness amongst Protestants who had formed the political class ever since the Williamite settlement of the late Seventeenth Century. Imbued with the Whig principles of the English revolutions of the 1640s and 1680s, they increasingly chafed at the Irish Parliament's subordination to England.

The second was the gradual re-emergence of a Catholic middle class able to challenge the penal laws.

These twin developments are clearly summarised in chapter three, The Story of the Injured Lady.