Barracks and Prison

Abstract

This chapter shows that there were two different kinds of republicanism operating in Ireland, one in the 1780s and the other in the 1790s. From the perspective of Ireland's rulers, if the forms of republicanism that emerged in the 1790s generated fear on an unprecedented scale, there was a direct link with the armed popular movements of the 1780s that perceived Ireland to be a newly liberated state, if one still loyal to Britain. That Ireland's rulers saw the Volunteer and Patriot movements as amounting to a military challenge to the state explained the acceptance of the plan to make New Geneva into a barracks. The growth of a new kind of republicanism in France explained the formation of the prison. It also led to the brutality that ultimately occurred within its walls.