Saturday 16 December 2017

The Irish fright 1688

I've been looking at the events of 1688 - and this is an interesting panic that gripped the UK.

Irish Fright

From Wikipedia, Read more
The Irish Fright was a mass panic that took place in England in December 1688, during the Glorious Revolution. It accompanied the final days of King James II's regime after his initially thwarted attempt to flee into exile in France. Troops of the Jacobite Irish Army were stationed in England to prop up James II's authority but were widely detested by the predominately Protestant population of England.
Rumours began to circulate in mid-December that the Irish soldiers were preparing to carry out a campaign of massacre and pillage against the English population in revenge for James's overthrow. False reports of the Irish burning English towns and massacring inhabitants spread the panic rapidly from London to at least nineteen English counties, whose inhabitants formed armed militias to guard against supposed Irish marauders. The panic subsided after a few days. It was never determined who was responsible for sparking it, though contemporaries suspected that it may have been the work of Orangist sympathisers seeking to further discredit James II

No comments: