A Prototype for ‘Modern’ Democracy and Universal Suffrage?…the Transitory Ripublica Corsa

International Relations, Military history, Regional History

Corsica is best known of course as the birthplace of France’s most famous general/ emperor/dictator/ego, the one and only Napoleon Bonaparte. However the rocky island of Corsica is deserving of greater recognition for the novelty of its 1750s experiment with democracy and universal suffrage. Prior to 1755 Corsica was a colonial outpost of the Republic of Genoa. Corsicans under the nationalist, resistance leader Pasquale Paoli rebelled against Genoa’s rule in that year[] and drove the Genoese off the island (except for a few coastal towns where they were still in occupancy).

▲ 1757 map of Corsica

Having declared the neophyte entity a sovereign state and a republic, Paoli drafted a revolutionary constitution which predated the more celebrated written constitution of the United States of America by three decades. It provided for universal suffrage for islanders over the age of 25…the inclusion of women in the Corsican franchise was a world first[§], building on the island’s earlier precedent of traditional female participation in the podesta (analogous to mayoral elections)[●̲̅̅] [‘The Real First Written Constitution’, Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily Newsletters, 03-Aug-2018, www.daily.jstor.org].

▲ Moor’s head emblem of Ripublica Corsa

Inspiring the Corsican constitution were the deeply pervasive ideas of the Enlightenment, thinkers such as Rousseau and Voltaire and the ideals of independence, democracy, progress and liberty. Corsica became a constitutional democracy with a Cunsulta (diet or legislative assembly). Enlightened or not, the new republic went unrecognised internationally with the singular exception of the Bey of Tunis [‘Corsican Republic, the small and ephemeral independent state that held the first modern Constitution Jorge Álvarez, LBV, 30 June 2020, www.labrujulaverda.com].

▲ Monument to Pasquale Paoli

Alas, both Corsican sovereign independence and universal suffrage did not sustain for long. The Genoese, unable to supplant Pasquale Paoli’s hold on Corsica by themselves, “horse-traded” Corsica to France, precipitating a French invasion of the island in 1768. The Corsicans fought a guerrilla war against the invaders but were always at astronomically long odds of succeeding. After the decisive Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769[] the overpowered Corsican republic’s fate was sealed and Paoli was forced into exile in Britain.

▲ Anglo-Corsican Kingdom blazonry

Postscript: “The Anglo-Corsican Kingdom”

At the time of France’s conquest of Corsica the British debated intervening to restore Corsican rule but rejected it at the time. The state of war between Britain and France from 1793 following the French Revolution prompted Britain to reverse the earlier decision. ‘Invited’ by the Anglophile Paoli (now back in Corsica) to intervene, the upshot was the creation of a unique if ephemeral union between Britain and Corsica. Although there was some flowery talk about common political values and “sister nationhood”, British motives were primarily military and strategic – with its preeminent naval power, control of Corsica gave it a vital Mediterranean base vis-á-vis revolutionary France (especially important after the British fleet’s 1793 expulsion from Toulon by Napoleon). The outcome of the brief experiment of the union (1794-96) with Corsica as a client of imperial Britain was disillusionment on both sides. Aggravating the situation was the relationship between the London-appointed viceroy Sir Gilbert Elliot and the representatives of the Corsican people, especially Paoli – one of mutual distrust. After 1796 Corsica realigned its future to association with France, a province of which it remains to this day [Carrillo, Elisa A. “The Corsican Kingdom of George III.” The Journal of Modern History 34, no. 3 (1962): 254–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1874355.; ‘Britain and Corsica 1728-1796: political intervention and the myth of Liberty’, Luke Paul Long, PhD thesis, University of St Andrews (2018), http://DHL.handle.net/10023/13232].

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▲ Corte & Corsica (Photo: Flickr)

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[] following an earlier uprising by the Corsicans in 1729

[§] Sweden in the early 17th century granted women a limited franchise but only for those holding land and property

[●̲̅̅] Paoli introduced other reforms, a University was established at Corte, the Corsican language was fostered, Corsica minted its own coinage

[] the year of Bonaparte’s birth

The ‘Wicklow Chief’ and the Irish Rebellion of 1798 Remembered in a Sydney Coastal Cemetery

Biographical, Military history, Regional History, Society & Culture

The first time I wandered through Waverley Cemetery in the chic, beachside eastern suburbs of Sydney I was somewhat bemused to find in the midst of the congested maze of gravesites of famous Australians—poets, politicians and judges, sports men and women, aviation pioneers among others—a large, impressive marble, bronze and mosaic memorial to the martyrs of the 1798 Irish Rebellion.

Honouring the sacrifices of 1798
The connexion only became clear to me later when I did some research on the ‘mystery’. The nexus linking the heroic but lost cause of nascent Éireannach 18th century insurrection against the indignities of English rule to a Sydney cemetery turned out to be one Michael Dwyer, whose remains along with those of his wife are buried within the grand monument. The memorial was constructed for the 100-year anniversary (1898) of the uprising, the plot and monument paid for by the local Irish community in New South Wales.

Michael Dwyer, hero of Wicklow resistance

Dwyer in the ‘Pantheon’ of Irish independence heroes
Native Wicklow man ‘Captain’ Dwyer fought in the ‘98 Rebellion, later leading an effective guerrilla campaign against the British army in the Wicklow Mountains. Dwyer held out till 1803, earning himself the sobriquet “the Wicklow Chief” before his eventual capture and transportion to the NSW colony (not America as he had been promised). In any event Dwyer got off pretty lightly compared to many of the rebels – given his freedom and a land grant of 100 acres on Cabramatta Creek. Dwyer’s life in Australia was a roller coaster of a ride and colourful to put it mildly…twice imprisoned and tried for plotting an Irish insurrection against the British authorities in NSW, a highly dubious charge that that he was acquitted of (though he still had to do time in Norfolk Island and Van Diemens Land penal colonies). When the NSW Corps overthrew Governor Bligh in the Rum Rebellion, Dwyer was reinstated as a free man, fortune favoured him again a couple of years later when he was made chief constable of police at Liverpool, NSW, and then it deserted him once more when Dwyer ended up in debtors’ prison (Ruan O’Donnell, ‘Dwyer, Michael (1772–1825)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/
biography/dwyer-michael-12896/text23301, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 9 September 2021; O’Sullivan, Michael, 1798 Memorial, Waverley Cemetery, Dictionary of Sydney, 2012, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/1798_memorial_waverley_cemetery, viewed 10 Sep 2021).

First steps on a long road to liberty
The inspiration for a surge in Irish nationalism and a sovereign republic free of English domination came from the French and to a lesser extent American revolutions. Ireland had a parliament of its own in Dublin but democratic participation was strictly limited by religious and property entitlements, squeezing out Catholics and Presbyterians and leaving the “Protestant Ascendency” in control of the country. The Society of United Irishmen (SUI), a secular organisation not restricted to Catholics¹,was formed to push for real autonomy for the Irish. Some reforms were forthcoming such as the franchise for non-Protestants but this was not near enough for the more radical elements of SUI.

Wolfe Tone

The SUI leader (Theobald) Wolfe Tone forged links with French republicans aimed at overthrowing English rule, leading to a 1796 invasion of Ireland by a nearly 14,000-strong French army. Unfortunately nature intervened and the invasion fleet ran into storms off the Irish west coast, loss of vessels and lives forced the abandonment of the invasion. The response of the government in Ireland—symbolically known as Dublin Castle—was to crack down heavily on the SUI radicals. The SUI was driven underground in a wave of repression culminating in the imprisonment of many of the organisation’s leaders. Though the Irish republicanism of SUI was a popular sentiment in the country, it didn’t have universal support even on the Catholic side, the Catholic Church strongly opposed what it saw as the ‘atheistic’ United Irishmen (‘The 1798 Rebellion – A Brief Overview’, John Dorney, The Irish Story, 28-Oct-2017, www.theirishstory.com).

Battle of Vinegar Hill

An uncoordinated insurrection
The Irish rising in 1798 was ill-timed and badly organised – most of the SUI leadership was still incarcerated. The insurgents’ planning was strategically inept, the rebellion was intended to be nationwide, but was largely confined to isolated pockets – Wexford, Leinster, Mayo, Antrim and Down. Dublin which should have been central to the revolt played virtually no part in it (Dorney). Historian Thomas Bartlett disputes the commonly held view of the rebellion being a localised affair…he argues that far from being confined to the east coast, the uprising produced “tremors throughout the country” with disturbance occurring in a very large number of counties (Bartlett, Thomas. “Why the History of the 1798 Rebellion Has Yet to Be Written.” Eighteenth-Century Ireland / Iris an Dá Chultúr15 (2000): 181-90. Accessed September 8, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30071449). The rebels had some brief, early successes (especially the Battle of Oulart), but superior English troops and weaponry overwhelmed the poorly equiped Irish force inside a month. A subsequent incursion from a small French expeditionary force offered a momentary flicker of hope for the rebel cause but this was quickly snuffed out as the English-led forces took complete charge of the country. Retribution against the rebel leaders was swift and uncompromisingly brutal, most were summarily executed (or in Wolfe Tone’s case took his own life while awaiting execution). Atrocities were committed on both sides. A large number of the insurgents (like Michael Dwyer later on) were transported to the penal colony in New Holland. The failed ‘98 rising left a mixed legacy, intensifying the level of sectarian bitterness in Ireland but also inspiring countless Irish republicans and revolutionaries to continue the struggle for a free Ireland (‘The 1798 Irish Rebellion’, Thomas Bartlett, BBC, 17-Feb-2011, www.bbc.co.uk).

1800 Act of Union

In the wake of the crushing of the rebellion by the Marquis Cornwallis², fundamental political changes were enacted. The Irish Parliament was dissolved and direct British rule imposed by virtue of the 1800 Act of Union with Ireland, a situation that would stay in force until the Irish Free State came into being in 1922.

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¹ in fact many of the leaders like Wolfe Tone, Harvey and Keogh were Protestant
² the same (Lord) Cornwallis in the forefront of the ignominy associated with the 1781 English surrender at Yorktown which ended the land conflict in the American War of Independence