This study aims to provide a comprehensive examination of political developments and rebellion in County Kildare during the turbulent period from 1790 to 1803. Kildare is of interest not only because it produced a large-scale rebellion in 1798 but because of its dominant liberal establishment. The most powerful figure in the county, William Robert Fitzgerald, second duke of Leinster, was the most senior peer in Ireland. His presence encouraged a liberal minded gentry. As political divisions became more polarised during the 1790s the liberal position became increasingly difficult to maintain. Maynooth College, founded in 1795, was viewed suspiciously by loyalists in 1798 and 1803 despite government patronage. In the years before the 1798 rebellion loyalist, liberal and radical divisions surfaced at a local level. They continued to a lesser extent in the post rebellion years. The disaffection created by and institutionalised in the Defenders and United Irishmen and its interplay with local politics provides the context to politicisation and the rebellions of 1798 and 1803.