Irish night

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The Irish Night was a name given by Londoners to describe the period of hysteria in that city after James II fled from there in the Revolution of 1688.

After James left the city (the first time), on December 11, 1688, there was widespread rioting against the residences of ambassadors from Catholic nations, and against the homes and businesses of Catholic Londoners. The hysteria grew when rumors spread that James's Irish army, recently disbanded without their final pay, was converging on London with a plan to sack the Protestant city. The rumors were of the sort that English Protestants had heard for years about Ireland, bloodcurdling and vicious. A fear spread quickly throughout the city on December 12.

The militia assembled and the residents of the city barricaded the major streets. Indeed, some bands of Irish soldiers had appeared in the countryside, but they only begged for food and a way to return home, and no acts of violence were reported. The next day (December 13) the rumors were discovered to be false, and the city returned to a state of relative calm. Although the destruction to Catholics' property was great, none were killed. Meanwhile, similar fears of the Irish were spreading through towns and cities elsewhere in England and Wales. These fears peaked on December 14 and 15 but continued in some places as late as December 19. James returned to London (against his will) on December 16 to rousing acclaim but soon fled again, this time all the way to France.

Comparisons are sometimes drawn between the Irish fright of 1688 in England and the "Great Fear" of 1789 in France.

References

  • Ashley, Maurice, The Glorious Revolution of 1688, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966, p. 172 ISBN 0-340-00896-2
  • Macaulay, Thomas Babington, The History of England, Penguin Books, 1986, see pp. 283-285 ISBN 0-14-043133-0
  • Jones, George Hilton, "The Irish Fright of 1688: Real Violence and Imagined Massacre," Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 55, no. 132 (Nov. 1982), pp. 148-153.
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