Introduction -- 1. "Union and truth" : the United Irishmen and the 1798 rebellion -- 2. "The most desperate and diabolical characters" : Irish rebels sent to New South Wales -- 3. "Proper resolute men" : New South Wales in 1800 -- 4. "Demons banished from happiness" : New South Wales 1801-3 -- 5. "The groans of dying patriots" : the Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 -- 6. "What a horrible slave state this is" : New South Wales 1805-6 -- 7. "Did O'Dwyer sing?" : The Wicklow State prisoners 1806-7 -- 8. "Liberty and equality reigns" : Bligh's arrest and its aftermath 1808-10 -- 9. "All parties are now United" : legends and legacies -- Appendix A. Selected biographies -- Appendix B. Convicts, ships and trial places
Summary
"400 United Irishmen and fellow-rebels brought the spirit of Irish rebellion "down under" in the aftermath of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 - and changed Australia forever. At Castle Hill in 1804, this "army of shadows" carried on where they left off but during Bligh's overthrow in 1808, they stood back from a fight that was not theirs. The "political Irish" played a central role in the developing colony. Their professions, trades and skills made them useful as clerks, storekeepers and teachers, and fitted them to be overseers and constables, and helped bring self-sufficiency to the still-fragile colonial economy. They remained revolutionaries; only they negotiated change rather than raised warlike rebellion. Through their open defiance and quiet manipulation of authority, the harp "new strung" resonates to this day in the Australian ethos that United Irishmen helped to create." -- book cover
