ABSTRACT
The burgeoning scholarship on the Society of United Irishmen has transformed academic perceptions of Ireland's first coherent, mass based republican movement. The Military Committee was not primarily concerned with propaganda as their political associates were wholly capable of stimulating the emergence of a huge support base. The impetus to form the Military Committee seems to have derived from the unexpected appearance of Wolfe Tone and a French invasion fleet in Bantry Bay in late December 1796. Philip Long junior enjoyed personal success in the Iberian wine business following a stint as a captain in the Neapolitan army. By April 1797, the Military Committee claimed 4,420 organised adherents in the capital as opposed to persons who had simply sworn the initial oath of secrecy. In essence, the strategy devised by the Military Committee in the early months of 1798 required a coup d'etat style assault on Government communications in the capital in the midst of an invasion crisis.
