Broadside regarding late engagements with the rebels

Commentary

This report begins: 'A full and particular Account of some late Engagements with the Rebels, in which they lost several hundred Men, copied from Letters, lately received from Gentlemen in the Sutherland Fencibles, with many other particulars respecting the Proceedings of his Majesty's Forces against the Rebels'. A letter written by an Officer stationed in Wexford, to a friend in Edinburgh, has also been included. Whilst the date of July 1789 has been handwritten near the top of the sheet, the events recounted in this broadside occurred in 1798.

The rebels in this instance were the United Irishmen who fought during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Formed in 1791 by Theobald Wolfe Tone, the United Irishmen's ultimate goal was independence from Britain. Although in the initial stages the aim was to achieve change through legislative reform, a revolutionary zeal inspired by the French Revolution soon took over. During the 1798 Rebellion, the rebels achieved success in County Wexford only to be defeated soon after by British troops at Vinegar Hill (June 1798).

Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.

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