On 9 June 1798, during the rebellion in Ireland, a force of about 1000 rebels ambushed and defeated 300 government soldiers under the command of Colonel Granville Stapylton near the town of Saintfield, County Down. To mark the 220th anniversary of the battle the ABC’s Nightlife program devoted its This Week in History segment to the 1798 Rebellion with a discussion between host Sarah Macdonald and myself about the rising and its ‘sequel’ in Australia with the Castle Hill rebellion of 1804. A podcast of the discussion is available at the ABC’s website

In the overall context of the 1798 rising the Battle of Saintfield was a minor affair. However, it was significant for three reasons. Firstly, it was the only battle in which rebel troops defeated government forces in the north of Ireland. Already, the rising in the neighbouring county of Antrim had been put down when the rebels under Henry Joy McCracken were defeated at Antrim town on 7 June. Secondly, the victory emboldened thousands of rebels in County Down to assemble under their newly elected leader Henry Munro at Ballynahinch, where on 12/13 June they were decisively defeated by Major-General George Nugent’s government forces, thus putting an end to the rising in the north. Thirdly, at Saintfield (as well as Antrim and Ballynahinch) the rebels were mainly Presbyterians, sometimes led and inspired by Presbyterian ministers.

The significance of this third fact is that the 1798 rising is often characterised as the quintessential nationalist rising in which the oppressed Catholic native Irish rebelled against the British Protestant Ascendancy in order to achieve their freedom and independence. The reality is a long way removed from this common misperception and the story of the rising is far more complex, comprising a series of uncoordinated outbreaks in different parts of the country with a variety of motivations. The 1798 rebellion is best understood in its wider European context, where people across the continent were rising in support of ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity, rather than the narrow Irish nationalist focus of popular belief.

In Australia the rising had its ‘sequel’ in 1804 when a band of convicts at the Castle Hill government farm, many of them having been transported to New South Wales because of their part in the 1798 rebellion, attempted to seize the colony in order to commandeer a ship to take them to Ireland. In a skirmish near Rouse Hill government troops defeated the rebels. The place is now officially known as Vinegar Hill, named for the site outside of Enniscorthy where on 21 June 1798 government forces put an end to the rising in Wexford.