A Deeper Silence: The Hidden Origins of the United Irishmen

Traces the roots of United Irish ideology to sources very different from those popularly associated with Irish nationalism: the Protestant republicanism of Oliver Cromwell and Algernon Sidney, as transmitted into the 18th century by the "real Whigs" and Commonwealthmen who were the intellectual heirs of the English Civil War. The author also reveals that most of the leading Volunteer figures were Freemasons and that freemasonry played an important role in radical politics and the evolution of the United Irish movement.