Hello, The reference to '98 is to a republican uprising in Ireland in 1798, led by Wolfe Tone. The rising was supported by revolutionary France, which sent an expeditionary force to Ireland, which was defeated. The failure of this rising led to the Act of Union two years later , in which Ireland became part of the U.K. The song, the rising of the moon, belongs to a later period of Irish nationalism, when the Fenians planned another uprising in the 1860's, which also failed.