Ribbonism

Ribbonism, whose supporters were usually called Ribbonmen, was a 19th-century popular movement of poor Catholics in Ireland.

[1] The society was formed in response to the miserable conditions in which the vast majority of tenant farmers and rural workers lived in the early 19th century in Ireland.

[2] The ideology of the Ribbonmen supported the Catholic Association and the political separation of Ireland from Great Britain, and the rights of the tenant as against those of the landlord.

Historians disagree over the extent to which Ribbonism was an organised network of conspirators, as opposed to unrelated local groups whose similar actions were not coordinated.

[6] A.C. Murray suggests that any unsolved agrarian crimes after the Whiteboys and before the Land League were conveniently blamed on Ribbonism, with the 1871 report of the select committee into disturbances in County Westmeath being a case in point.