Society of United Irishmen

2084:, William Bruce argued that this was disingenuous: the "impartial representation of the Irish nation" the United Irishmen embraced in their test or oath implied, he argued, not only equality for Catholics but also that "every woman, in short every rational being shall have equal weight in electing representatives". Drennan did not seek to disabuse Bruce as to "the principle" – he had never seen "a good argument against the right of women to vote". But in a plea that recalled objections to immediate Catholic emancipation, he argued for a "common sense" reading of the test of which he was the author. It might be some generations, he proposed, before "habits of thought, and the artificial ideas of education" are so "worn out" that it would appear "natural" that women should exercise the same rights as men, and so attain their "full and proper influence in the world". 3337:, were Irish, as were most of the island's locally-recruited British garrison. In April 1800, there were reports that upwards of 400 men had taken a United Irish oath, and that eighty were resolved to kill their officers and seize their Protestant governors at Sunday service. The mutiny (for which 8 were hanged) may have been less a United Irish plot, than an act of desperation in the face of brutal living conditions and officer tyranny. Yet the Newfoundland Irish would have been aware of the agitation in the homeland for civil equality and political rights. There were reports of communication with United men in Ireland from before '98 rebellion; of Paine's pamphlets circulating in St John's; and, despite the war with France, of hundreds of young 2310: – met with Tone as he passed through Belfast en route to America and atop Cave Hill swore their celebrated oath "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence'". In months that followed, while Tone (travelling via Philadelphia to Paris) lobbied for French assistance, they directed the creation of a shadow military organisation. Under elective command, each society was to drill a company, three companies were to form a battalion, and ten battalions, representing thirty societies, were to coordinate, under a "colonel", as a regiment. From a shortlist drawn up by the colonels, the executive would then appoint an adjutant-general for the county. 2189: 1428: 1960:, these low-ranked clubists entered United Irish societies in still greater numbers. With the Rev. Kelburn (much admired by Tone as a fervent democrat), they doubted that there "was any such thing" as Ireland's "much boasted constitution", and had urged their "fellow-citizens of every denomination in Ireland, England, and Scotland," to pursue "radical and complete Parliamentary reform" through national conventions. In May, delegates in Belfast representing 72 societies in Down and Antrim rewrote Drennan's test to pledge members to "an equal, full and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland", and to drop the reference to the 3003:, could write: "The quiet of the North is to me unaccountable; but I feel that the Popish tinge of the rebellion, and the treatment of France to Switzerland and America , has really done much, and, in addition to the army, the force of Orange yeomanry is really formidable." In response to the claim that "in Ulster, there are 50,000 men with arms in their hands, ready to receive the French," the Westminster Commons was assured that while "almost all Presbyterians... were attached to the popular, or, what has been called, the republican branch of the constitution, they are not to be confounded with Jacobins or banditti". 2450:, as Committee secretary in 1792, and his replacement by Tone, a known democrat, did suggest a political shift. The British Prime Minister Pitt was already canvassing support for a union of Ireland and Great Britain in which Catholics could be freely – because securely – admitted to Parliament. London might yet be an ally in relieving Catholics of the last of the Penal Law restrictions, but it would be as a permanent minority in the enlarged Kingdom, not as a national majority in Ireland. Even that prospect was uncertain. Although tempered since the 1896:. Catholics were admitted to the franchise (but not yet to Parliament itself) on the same terms as Protestants. This courted Catholic opinion, but it also put Protestant reformers on notice. Any further liberalising of the franchise, whether by expunging the pocket boroughs or by lowering the property threshold, would advance the prospect of a Catholic majority. Outside of Ulster and Dublin City, in 1793 the only popular resolution in favour of "a reform" of the Irish Commons to include "persons of all religious persuasion" was from freeholders gathered in Wexford town. 2319: 1786: 56: 3138:, and growing protest over food shortages encouraged renewed organisation among former conspirators. A military system and pike manufacture began to spread across the mill districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and regular meetings resumed between county and London delegates resumed. Initiates were given card-printed oaths committing them to both "The Independence of Great Britain and Ireland" and "The Equalisation of Civil, Political and Religious Rights". All plans, in England and Ireland, however were predicated on a French invasion. 2263:. Although it was the rule that "no politics must be brought within the doors of the Lodge", masons were involved in the Volunteer movement and their lodges remained "a battleground for political ideas". As United Irishmen increasingly attracted the unwelcome attention of Dublin Castle and its network of informants, masonry did become both a cover and a model. Drennan, himself a mason, from the outset had anticipated that his "conspiracy" would have "much of the secrecy and somewhat of the ceremonial of Free-Masonry". 2410: 10792: 175: 1617: 2303:

organisation. Local societies were to split and replicate so as to remain within a range of 7 to 35 members, and, through delegate conferences, to commission a new five-man provincial directory. Selection to this "committee of public welfare" was by ballot, but in order to preserve secrecy, returning officers were sworn to inform only those elected of the results. Together with directors' capacity to co-opt additional members, this implied an executive free to take its own counsel.

2988: 1746: 2936:. A "striking resemblance" has been proposed to the 1792 September massacre in Paris", and it is noted that there were a small number of Catholics among the loyalists killed, and of Protestants among the rebels present. But for loyalists the sectarian nature of the outrages was unquestioned and was used to great effect in the north to secure defections from the republican cause. Much was made of the report that in their initial victory over the North Cork Militia at 1229: 3362: 1217: 225: 3010:, despairing of French aid, resigned his United Irish command in Antrim on 1 June, McCracken seized the initiative. He proclaimed the First Year of Liberty on 6 June. There were widespread local musters but before they could coordinate, most were burying their arms and returning to their farms and workplaces. The issue had been decided by the following evening. McCracken, commanding a body of four to six thousand, failed, with heavy losses, to seize 3571: 1418: 2817: 2506:

Huguenots, the Illuminati, the Druids' Lodges...) were used as a cover for their activities in Dublin and for the spread of the movement into the provinces. The result was the creation, in stark contrast to the original society, of a mass-based organization. Concentrated in the poorer, western quarters of the city, by May 1798 a new United Irish coalition claimed some 10,000 members (and another 9,000 in Dublin county).

10681: 3297:, although, given the lack of record, it is unlikely that their membership ran into the thousands claimed by Cobbett. It operated a cell-structure, with each section containing no more than eight people meeting weekly to discuss political works and correspondence. Sections sent delegates to state committee, which in turn elected a general executive in Philadelphia. Offices were rotated on a regular basis. 2890: 3278:, Irish émigrés had formed a society committed not only to an Irish republic but also to the proposition (to which each member attested) that "a free form of government, and uncontrouled opinion on all subjects, the common rights of all the human species". For Cobbett, this was proof sufficient of an intention to organise slave revolts and "thus involve the whole country in rebellion and bloodshed". 3428:. The Presbyterian districts in the north in which he believed "the republican spirit" had run strongest were never again to support an Irish parliament, and in respect of '98 evinced a form of "collective amnesia". The United spirit was also quick to wane among Catholics to whom, as Hope noted, the Dissenters in the north appeared to have been "the first to abandon" the "business" they had begun. 2044: 2397:(at which Charles Teeling had been present) were sheltered on Presbyterian farms in Down and Antrim, and the goodwill earned used to open the Defenders to trusted republicans. Emmet records these as being able to convince Defenders of something they had only "vaguely" considered, namely the need to separate Ireland from England and to secure its "real as well as nominal independence". 2787:" may have circulated as reported among the mutineers, no evidence has emerged of a concerted United Irish plot to subvert the fleet. In Ireland there was talk of seizing British warships as part of a general insurrection, but it was only after the Spithead and Nore mutinies that United Irishmen awoke to the effectiveness of formulating sedition within the Royal Navy. 2439:

discussion of a society of sections of 15 members each, each society returning one representative to a central committee. But the idea of coordinating behind closed doors was rejected on the grounds that "the United Irishmen, as a legal, constitutional reform movement, would not engage in any activity which could not bear the scrutiny of the public or the Castle".

2853:, and broke new ground in the midlands and the south-east. In February 1798, a return prepared by Fitzgerald computed the number United Irishmen, nationwide, at 269,896. It is certain that the figure was not a measure of the number prepared to turn out, particularly in the absence of the French. Most would have been able to arm themselves only with simple 2374:, not Jacobin, lens, as Catholics at war with Protestants. Although Hope and McCracken did much to reach out to the Defenders, recognising the sectarian tensions (Simms reported to Tone that "it would take a great deal of exertion" to keep the Defenders from "producing feuds"), the Belfast Executive chose emissaries from its small number of Catholics. 3579: 1773:, would be checked constitutionally by a parliament in which "all the people" would have "an equal representation." Unclear, however, was whether the emancipation of Catholics was to be unqualified and immediate. The previous evening, witnessing a debate over the Catholic Question between the town's leading reformers (members of the Northern 2138:), the second signed Marcus (Drennan). While both appealed to women to take sides, Philoguanikos was clear that women were being asked to act as political beings. He scorns those "brainless bedlams scream in abhorrence of the idea of a female politician". (Among those who took the Society test in response to the appeal were the writers 2581:. As in the north, following Bantry societies in the south flooded with new members. In Leinster the new system took hold: the various republican clubs and cover lodges, and much of Defender network, were marshalled through delegate committees under a provincial executive in Dublin Among others who were to serve on the executive were 2877:, resolved on a general uprising for 23 May. The United army in Dublin was to seize strategic points in the city, while the armies in the surrounding counties would throw up a cordon and advance into its centre. As soon as these developments were signalled by halting mail coaches from the capital, the rest of the country was to rise. 2150:

By 1797 the Castle informer Francis Higgins was reporting that "women are equally sworn with men" suggesting that some of the women assuming risks for the United Irish cause were taking places beside men in an increasingly clandestine organisation. Middle-class women, such as Mary Moore, who administered the Drennan's test to

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would with little delay melt into the overwhelming majority of the Irish nation". For republicans, it remained the "sad irony" of 1798 that by a system of often marginal advantages "the descendants of the republican rebels" were "persuaded" to regard "the 'connection with England' as the guarantee of dignity and rights."

2610: 1860:"the gradual emancipation of our Roman Catholic brethren" staggered in line with Protestant concerns for security and with improving Catholic education. Samuel Neilson "expressed his astonishment at hearing... any part of the address called a Catholic question." The only question was "whether Irishmen should be free." 1872:, and across the south and west of Ireland where Protestants were a distinct minority, veterans of the Volunteer movement were not as easily persuaded. The Armagh Volunteers, who had called a Volunteer Convention in 1779, boycotted a third in 1793. Under Ascendancy patronage they were already moving along with the 3320:), defended a vision of citizenship capable both of encompassing "the Jew, the savage, the Mahometan, the idolator, upon all of whom the sun shines equally", and of conceding "the right of the people to make and alter their constitutions of government". But by 1800–1801, United men were organised as 3126:

and William Dowdall, they recruited on a strictly military basis. Rather than be open to nomination, under the "New Plan of Organisation" the membership would be selected personally by officers acting on the authority of a national directorate. The strategy was again to solicit a French invasion with

3100:

On 12 October, a second French expedition was intercepted off the coast of Donegal, and Tone was taken captive. Regretting nothing done "to raise three million of my countrymen to the ranks of citizen," and lamenting only those "atrocities committed on both sides" during his exile, Tone on the eve of

2880:

On the appointed day the signal was duly given, but the rising in the city was aborted. The Yeomanry had been forewarned; Fitzgerald had been mortally wounded on the 19th, and on the morning of the 23rd, Neilson, who had been critical to the planning, was seized. Tens of thousands did turn out across

2740:

The resolution of the "United Britons" was discussed by the Irish leaders in Dublin in July 1797. Although addressed to the prospect of French assistance, in Ulster the suggestion that "England, Scotland and Ireland are all one people acting for one common cause", encouraged militants to believe that

2482:. Whether because of his association with the Catholic Committee or his family's connections, Tone was allowed to go into American exile, while Rowan, who was serving time for distributing Drennan's seditious appeal to Volunteers, managed to flee the country. The scandal induced Thomas Troy, Catholic 2462:

Drennan was nonetheless sceptical of Catholic intentions. Suspecting that their object remained "selfish" (i.e. focused on emancipation rather than on separation and democratic reform) and recognizing their alarm at the anti-clericalism of the French Republic, Drennan, up until his trial for sedition

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followed in April. Having only acquired such recognition, many were loath to abandon the appearance of strict constitutionality. Announcing that there were paid informers in their midst, as early as January 1794 Neilson had urged the Dublin society to re-form on the Ulster model. In October there was

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Undaunted, those committed to the pro-French Painite line drafted a constitution for a "new system". Approved in May 1795 by a Belfast conference of Down and Antrim societies, it sought to reconcile the democratic principles of the republic to come with the requirements of a coordinated, clandestine,

1761:

When Drennan's friends gathered in Belfast, they declared that in a "great era of reform, when unjust governments are falling in every quarter of Europe; ... when all government is acknowledged to originate from the people," the Irish people find themselves with "NO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT — we are ruled

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Encouraged by the presence in Dublin of veterans of the northern movement, such as Samuel Nielson, Thomas Russell, and James Hope, members of the Dublin society regrouped with previously neglected lower-rank Jacobins and Defenders. A series of ephemeral organisations (The Philanthropic Society, the

2291:(wrecked for the final time, and closed, in May 1797). Legislation impressed from Westminster banned extra-parliamentary conventions and suppressed the Volunteers, by then largely a northern movement. They were replaced by a paid militia, its ranks partially filled with conscripted Catholics, and by 2149:

The letters of Martha McTier and Mary Ann McCracken testify to the role of women as confidantes, sources of advice and bearers of intelligence. R.R. Madden, one of the earliest historians of the United Irishmen, describes various of their activities in the person of an appropriately named Mrs. Risk.

2001:

Observing that property was "merely the collection of labour", in a handbill of March 1794 Dublin United Irishmen had argued that "the scattered labour of the lowest ranks" was "as real and ought to be as really represented" as the "fixed and solid property" that presently monopolised Parliament. In

1765:

They urged their fellow countrymen to follow their example: to "form similar Societies in every quarter of the kingdom for the promotion of Constitutional knowledge, the abolition of bigotry in religion and policies, and the equal distribution of the Rights of Man through all Sects and Denominations

3556:

Reflect with remorse and repentance on the wicked and sanguinary designs for which you forged so many abominable pikes... Surely you are not foolish enough to think that society could exist without landlords, without magistrates, without rulers... Be persuaded that it is quite out of the sphere of

3527:

Noting that "the United Irishmen were, after all, anything but united", a major history of the movement observes that "the legacy of the United Irishmen, however interpreted, has proved as divisive for later generations as the practice of this so-called union did in the 1790s". Writing on the 200th

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maintain their country". But later, in the hope that Westminster might in time realise the original aim of his conspiracy – "a full, free and frequent representation of the people" – he seemed reconciled. "What", he reasoned, "is a country justly considered, but a free

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are said, in some reports, to have withdrawn. John Magennis, their county Grand Master, was allegedly dismayed by Munro's discounting of a night attack upon the carousing soldiery as "unfair". Defenders had been present at Antrim, but in the march upon the town tensions with the Presbyterian United

2824:

The movement never realised the national directory envisaged in the constitution of May 1795. Its leadership remained split between the executives of the two organised provinces, Ulster and Leinster. In June 1797, they met together in Dublin to consider northern demands for an immediate rising. The

2337:

Aware that many of those who had lent their names to the original reform project recoiled from the prospect of insurrection, in March 1796 Tone recorded his understanding of the new resolve: "Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we

2126:

Mary Ann McCracken took Drennan's test but stood aloof from the "female societies." No women with "rational ideas of liberty and equality for themselves", she objected, could consent to a separate organisation. There could be "no other reason having them separate, but keeping the women in the dark"

2025:

As a body, however, United Irishmen did not propose the forms that such redress might take in a democratic national assembly. Operating on the principle that they should "attend those things in which we all agree, to exclude those in which we differ", the Society did not itself tie the prospect of

1859:

On Bastille Day 1792 in Belfast, the United Irishmen had occasion to make their position clear. In a public debate on An Address to the People of Ireland, William Bruce and others proposed hedging the commitment to an equality of "all sects and denominations of Irishmen". They had rather anticipate

1812:

For Tone the argument on behalf of the Catholics was political. The "imaginary Revolution of 1782" had failed to secure a representative and national government for Ireland because Protestants had refused to make common cause with Catholics. In Belfast, the objections to doing so were rehearsed for

1620:

Bastille Day, 1792, Belfast. Volunteer companies parade "The Colours of Five Free Nations, viz.: Flag of Ireland – motto, Unite and be free. Flag of America – motto, The Asylum of Liberty. Flag of France – motto, The Nation, the Law, and the King. Flag of Poland – motto, We will support it. Flag of

2680:

In the face of the repression, sections of the democratic movement in both Scotland and in England began to regard universal suffrage and annual parliaments as a cause for physical force. Political tours by United Irishmen in the winter of 1796–7, and as conditions deteriorated in Ulster a growing

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reported that after Orr was detained, between five and six hundred of his neighbours assembled and brought in his entire harvest. When Samuel Nielson was taken in September, fifteen hundred people were said to have dug his potatoes in seven minutes. Such "hasty diggings" (traditionally accorded by

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The Society that Tone had helped establish with Drennan in Dublin on his return from Belfast in November 1791 held themselves aloof from the Jacobin, Defender and other radical clubs in the capital. The city's United men also shied away from the New System adopted in Ulster. Whereas Belfast had 16

2400:

What was decisive, however, was not their agreed political programme: final emancipation and a complete reform of representation. From Dungannon, where he had command, General John Knox, reported that local republicans had been "obliged to throw in the bait of the Abolition of Tithes, Reduction of

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raids upon Catholic homes in the mid-1780s, by the early 1790s the Defenders (drawing, like the United Irishmen, on the lodge structure of the Masons) were a secret oath-bound fraternity ranging across Ulster and the Irish midlands. Despite their professed loyalism (members had originally to swear

2227:

In recruiting the first societies among the tenant farmers and market-townsmen of north Down and Antrim, Jemmy Hope made conscious appeal to what he called "the republican spirit" of resistance "inherent in the principles of Presbyterian community". While presbyteries were divided politically, as

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published a letter from the secretary of the Society of United Irishwomen. This blamed the English, who made war on the new republics, for the violence of the American and French Revolutions. Denounced as a "violent republican", Martha McTier was the immediate suspect, but denied any knowledge of

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For O'Connell, who believed Dublin Castle had deliberately fomented the rebellion as a pretext for abolishing the Irish parliament, unionist sentiment in the north was simply the product of continued Protestant privilege. Were this abolished with the repeal of the Union, "the Protestant community

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early in 1797, in their view it was as little more than a Scottish branch of the United Irishmen. The Resolutions and Constitution of the United Scotsmen (1797) was "a verbatim copy of the constitutional document of the United Irishmen, apart from the substitution of the words 'North Britain' for

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the same "nonsense on which the people of France fed themselves before the Revolution". A young labourer treated him to a disposition on "equality, fraternity, and oppression", "reform of Parliament", "abuses in elections", and "tolerance", and such "philosophical discourse" as he had heard from

2697:

With the encouragement of Irish and Scottish visitors, the manufacturing districts of northern England saw the first cells of the United Englishmen formed in late 1796. Their clandestine proceedings, oath-taking, and advocacy of physical force "mirrored that of their Irish inspirators", and they

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broke not in the securely Catholic south of the county, where there had been greater political organisation, but in the sectarian-divided north and centre which had seen previous agrarian disturbances. The absence of an at least belated United organisation is disputed, but it is agreed with the

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reported a "bold and daring spirit of combination" (long in evidence in Dublin) appearing in Belfast and surrounding districts. Breaking out first among cotton weavers, it then communicated to the bricklayers, carpenters and other trades. In the face of "demands made in a tumultuous and illegal

1727:

was celebrated with a triumphal Volunteer procession through Belfast and a solemn Declaration to the Great and Gallant people of France: "As Irishmen, We too have a country, and we hold it very dear – so dear... that we wish all Civil and Religious Intolerance annihilated in this

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Through a series of mishaps, the callout in Dublin on 23 July 1803 resulted only in a series of street skirmishes, and in September Emmet followed Despard to the gallows. On the promise of arms, Dwyer's guerrilla fighters in Wicklow and men in Kildare had been willing to act, but in the north,

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A spirit of resistance was nonetheless sustained. The authorities were persuaded in May 1799 that County Down had been "re-regimented and re-officered" and until the spring of 1802, while hopes could still be entertained of a French landing, United veterans continued night-time arms raids and

2370:. Apocalyptic biblical allusions and calls to "plant the true religion" sat uneasily with the rhetoric of inalienable rights and fealty to a "United States of France and Ireland". Oblivious to the anti-clericalism of the French Republic, many Defender rank-and-file viewed the French through a 3048:

Confident of being able to exploit tensions between Presbyterians and Catholics, the government not only amnestied the rebel rank-and-file it recruited them for the Yeomanry. On 1 July 1798 in Belfast, the birthplace of the United Irishmen movement, it is said that every man was wearing the

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on 21 June remnants of the "Republic of Wexford" marched north through the Midlands – the counties thought best organised by the Executive – but few joined them. Those in the region who had turned out on 23 May had already been dispersed. On 20 July, re-joining

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The amendment was defeated, but the debate reflected a growing division. The call for Catholic emancipation might find support in Belfast and surrounding Protestant-majority districts where already in 1784, admitting Catholics, Volunteers had begun to form "united companies". West of the

3532:, suggests that what can be commemorated – other differences aside – is "the first time entrance of the plain people on the stage of Irish history." The United Irishmen had "promoted egalitarianism and the smashing of deference." After their defeat in the 1824:

Tone insisted that, as a matter of justice, men cannot be denied rights because an incapacity, whether ignorance or intemperance, for which the laws under which they are made to live are themselves responsible. History, in any case, was reassuring: when they had the opportunity in the

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of our country". In 1832 Moore declined a voter petition to stand as a Repeal candidate. He could not pretend with O'Connell that the consequence of Repeal would be less than a real separation from Great Britain, something possible only if Catholics were again "joined by dissenters".

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were unprepared. At the same time, the government was shutting down attempts at political conciliation. In the new year, it announced that any further discussion in parliament of grievances serving in the country as "pretexts for treasonable practices" would result in adjournment.

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to maintain their country as the United Kingdom. Had their forefathers been offered a Union under the constitution as it later developed there would have been "no rebellion": "Catholic Emancipation, a Reformed Parliament, a responsible Executive and equal laws for the whole Irish

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prominent among them) joined in the determination to make common cause. Early in 1796, the Dublin Defenders sent a delegation to Belfast for the purpose of laying a "foundation" for a union between parties that, while equally hostile to the state, had been "kept wholly distinct".

1864:, with "keen irony", wondered whether Catholics were to ascend the "ladder" to liberty "by intermarrying with the wise and capable Protestants, and particularly with us Presbyterians, they may amend the breed, and produce a race of beings who will inherit the capacity from us?" 1762:

by Englishmen, and the servants of Englishmen whose object is the interest of another country". Such an injury could be remedied only by "a Cordial Union among ALL THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND" and "by a complete and radical reform of the Representation of the People in Parliament".

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allegiance to the King) Defenderism developed an increasingly seditious character. Talk in the lodges was of a release from tithes, rents and taxes, and of a French invasion that might allow the repossession of Protestant estates. Arms-buying delegations were sent to London.

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The Belfast Catholic Society sought to underscore Tone's argument. Meeting in April 1792 they declared their "highest ambition" was "to participate in the constitution" of the kingdom, and disclaimed even "the most distant thought of unsettling the landed property thereof".

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In March 1798, almost the entire Leinster provincial committee were seized along with two directors, MacNevan and Emmet, together with all their papers. Faced with the breaking-up of their entire system, Fitzgerald, joined by Neilson who had been released in ill health from

1852:(also celebrated in Belfast) with its promise of amity between Catholic, Protestant and Jew. If Irish Protestants remained "illiberal" and "blind" to these precedents, Ireland would continue to be governed in the exclusive interests of England and of the landed Ascendancy. 2026:

popular suffrage to an economic or social programme. Given the central role it was to play in the eventual development of Irish democracy, the most startling omission was the absence, beyond the disclaimer of wholesale Catholic restitution, of any scheme or principle of

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What Townsend and the Ascendancy feared most of all were "the manifestations of an incipient Irish democracy". "In the long run," concludes Murphy, "the emergence of such a democracy, rudimentary and inchoate, was the most significant legacy" of the United Irishmen.

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of April and May 1797. The United Irish were reportedly behind the resolution of the Nore mutineers to hand the fleet over to the French "as the only government that understands the Rights of Man". Much was made of Valentine Joyce, a leader at Spithead, described by

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The initiative passed to the Leinster directory. The southern organisation remained too weak in the summer of 1797 to respond to the call for immediate action. But in the winter of 1797–98, its organisation consolidated in existing strongholds such as Dublin,

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From the outset, the Dublin had been distinguished by the presence of those described by Edmund Burke as the "new race of Catholics": representatives of the emergent Catholic mercantile and professional middle class. Among them were prominent members of the

2287:. They withdrew to barracks when, as related by Martha McTier, about 1,000 armed countrymen came into the town and mustered at McCracken's Third Presbyterian. Further "military provocations" saw attacks on the homes of Neilson and others associated with the 3348:

tried to seize control of the penal colony and to capture ships for a return to Ireland. Poorly armed, and with their leader Philip Cunningham seized under a flag of truce, the main body of insurgents were routed in an encounter loyalists celebrated as the

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a further address from the United Britons. While its suggestion of a mass movement primed for insurrection was scarcely credible, it was deemed sufficient proof of the intention to induce a French invasion. The United movement in Britain was broken up by

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families visited by misfortune) often occasioned mustering and drilling – men, shouldering their spades, marching four to six deep accompanied by the sounding of horns. In May 1797, Yeomanry and Fencibles charged one such gathering near

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the landlord to continue to draw the last potato out of the warm ashes of the poor man's fire". But for the great rural mass of the Irish people this was an existential question upon which neither he nor any central resolution spoke for the Society.

2689:'Irishmen'". At their height, during a summer of anti-militia riots, the United Scotsmen counted upwards of 10,000 members, the backbone formed (as had increasingly been the case for Belfast and Dublin societies) by artisan journeymen and weavers. 2353:

Defenders and United Irishmen began to seek one another out. Religion was not a bar to joining the Defenders. In Dublin, in particular, where the Defenderism appealed strongly to a significant body of radical artisans and shopkeepers, Protestants

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proposed to his friends "a benevolent conspiracy — a plot for the people", the "Rights of Man and the Greatest Happiness of the Greater Number its end — its general end Real Independence to Ireland, and Republicanism its particular purpose."

2103:, shared in the reading of Wollstonecraft and of other progressive women writers. As had Tone on behalf of Catholics, Wollstonecraft argued that the incapacities alleged to deny women equality were those that law and usage themselves impose. 2825:

meeting broke up in disarray, with many of the Ulster delegates, fearful of arrest, fleeing abroad. In the north, the United societies had not recovered from their decapitation the previous September: from arrests (personally supervised by

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evangelical tradition), their elected, Scottish-educated, ministers inclined in their teaching toward conscience rather than doctrine. In itself, this did not imply political radicalism. But it could, and (consistent with the teachings at

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county franchise. But the Volunteer moment had passed. Having accepted defeat in America, Britain could again spare troops for Ireland, and the limits of the Ascendancy's patriotism had been reached. Parliament refused to be intimidated.

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In 1784, beginning in Belfast (the "Boston of Ireland"), disappointed Volunteers in Ulster began taking Catholics into their ranks to form "united" companies. Belfast's First Company acted in the firm conviction that "a general Union of

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in March 1802. They revived again when the war resumed in May 1803. But as in 1798, Napoleon had committed elsewhere the naval and military forces that might have made a descent upon Ireland possible. Instead of returning to Ireland,

1903:"an impartial and adequate representation of the Irish nation in parliament" was too vague and compromising. But within two years, the Dublin society had agreed on reforms that went beyond the dispensation they had celebrated in the 3443:(1799) which maintained that the United Irish had been "goaded" into insurrection by "rapines, burnings, rapes, murders, and other sheddings of blood". But, in Ireland the first public rehabilitation (preceding Madden's monumental 3324:

in Hibernian societies, and in the War of 1812 realised what may have been the extent of their ambition: the opportunity to "strike a blow against the British Empire" and, in so doing, to secure "their place in American society".

2737:, and LCS president Alexander Galloway. Meetings were held at which delegates from London, Scotland and the regions resolved "to overthrow the present Government, and to join the French as soon as they made a landing in England". 1837:), Catholics did not insist upon a wholesale return of their lost estates. As to the existing Irish Parliament "where no Catholic can by law appear", it was the clearest proof that "Protestantism is no guard against corruption". 3479:

neighbour who had been a United Irishman and had laughed at the idea that the issue was kings and governments. What mattered was the land from which the people got their bread. Instead of indulging "Gallic passions" and singing

2212:, County Londonderry, had been complaining of "daily incursions of disaffected people... disseminating the most seditious principles".Until his arrest in September 1796, Thomas Russell (later celebrated in a popular ballad as 2107:, in particular, was articulate in taking to heart the conclusion that women had to reject "their present abject and dependent situation" and secure the liberty without which they could "neither possess virtue or happiness". 3057:, is reported by Henry Joy (a hostile witness) as saying: "the Presbyterians of the north perceived too late that if they had succeeded in their designs, they would ultimately have had to contend with the Roman Catholics". 1350:

to recruit among tradesmen, artisans and tenant farmers, many of whom had been organised in their own clubs and secret fraternities. Following its proscription in 1794, its goals were restated in uncompromising terms.

3176:

and to spark insurrection in the mill towns of the north. Undaunted by the defeat of what he acknowledged as "this similar attempt in England," and with no further consideration of French aid, Emmet planned to seize

2236:, it is estimated that half were implicated in the eventual rebellion. In Antrim thousands filled fields to hear the itinerant Reformed preacher William Gibson prophesy – in the tradition that saw the 2458:

remained an important strain in English politics. Meanwhile, Drennan recalls, "Catholics were being driven to despair" and were prepared to "go to extremities" rather than again be denied political equality.

9294: 2298:

The difficulties posed by the repression were "compounded" by the news from France. Increasingly, this persuaded liberal middle-class opinion of a link between "the march of democracy" and the guillotine.

4066: 1800:

descent, Tone may have had an instinctive empathy for the religiously persecuted, but he was "suspicious of the Catholics priests" and hostile to what he saw as "Papal tyranny". (In 1798 Tone applauded

2897:

Some historians conclude that what connects the United Irishmen to most widespread and sustained of the uprisings in 1798 are "accidents of time and place, rather than any real community of interest".

2401:

Rents etc.". Nothing less would rouse "the lower orders of Roman Catholics" (and nothing less, he suggested, would in time reconcile them to the alternative to separation, a union with Great Britain).

1374:

seizures and arrests forced the conspiracy in Ireland into the open. The result was a series of local risings suppressed in advance of the landing, in August, of a small French expeditionary force.

6458:

NA1, Dublin, Rebellion papers, 620/30/211. 'Left Hand' to Secretary Pelham and Secretary Cooke, 27 May 1797; R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen their Lives and Times (New York, 1916 ), vol. 6 p. 18

1817:. Bruce spoke of the danger of "throwing power into hands" of Catholics who were "incapable of enjoying and extending liberty," and whose first interest would be to reclaim their forfeited lands. 1641:

as the British garrison was drawn down for American service, Volunteer companies were often little more than local landlords and their retainers armed and drilled. But in Dublin, and above all in

1518:

continued to be appointed by the King's ministers in London. Ireland, the Belfast conferees observed, had "no national government". She was ruled "by Englishmen, and the servants of Englishmen"

1385:. In 1803, a renewed republican conspiracy, organised on strictly military lines, failed to elicit a response in what had been the United heartlands in the north, and misfired with an aborted 3220:) was redeployed to counter-insurgency in Spain. The United network unwound. McCabe, and other exiles, started seeking terms with the British government for a political surrender and return. 3122:(the younger brother of Thomas Addis Emmet), together with veterans Malachy Delaney and Thomas Wright, sought to restore a United organisation. With the support and advice of state prisoners 1568:, born into the town's leading fortunes in shipping and linen-manufacture, was a Third Church member. Despite theological differences (the First and Second Churches did not subscribe to the 3134:'s arrest in March. But the influx of refugees from Ireland (from Manchester there were reports of as many as 8,000 former rebels living in the city);. the angry response of workers to the 2905:. But his view that the uprising in Wexford had been "forced forward by the establishment of Orange lodges and the whipping and torturing and things of that kind" was to be widely accepted 2157:

On the role in the movement of peasant and other working women there are fewer sources. But in the 1798 uprising they came forward in many capacities, some, as celebrated in later ballads (

2134:, published two direct addresses to Irish women, both of which "appealed to women as members of a critically-debating public": the first signed Philoguanikos (probably the paper's founder, 1585:

did, lead to acknowledgement from the pulpit of a right of collective resistance to oppressive government. In Rosemary Street's Third Church, Sinclare Kelburn preached in the uniform of an

9708:

Detection of a conspiracy, formed by the United Irishmen, with the evident intention of aiding the tyrants of France in subverting the government of the United States. / By Peter Porcupine

3093:

surrendered his forces on 8 September. The last action of the rebellion was a slaughter of some 2000 poorly-armed insurgents outside Kilala on the 23rd – refugees from the

2418:

societies in 1795 (and 80 by the spring of 1797), Dublin, with ten times the population, maintained just one general society comprising, at its height in March 1793, 350 to 400 members.

3053:

Yeomanry Corps, Anglican clergyman Edward Hudson claimed that "the brotherhood of affection is over". On the eve of following his leader to the gallows, one of McCracken's lieutenants,

2389:, appear to have had command over the Down, Antrim and Armagh Defenders. United Irishmen were able to offer practical assistance: legal counsel, aid and refuge. Catholic victims of the 9873: 1769:

The "conspiracy", which at Tone's suggestion called itself the Society of the United Irishmen, had moved beyond Flood's Protestant patriotism. English influence, exercised through the

3902: 3333:

The British colonies of Newfoundland and New South Wales provided the more credible reports of United Irish subversion. In Newfoundland, two-thirds of the colony's main settlement,

2573:

With his troops' reputation for half-hanging, pitch-capping and other interrogative refinements travelling before him, at the end of 1797 Lake tuned his attention to disarming

2341:

The greatest body, existing, of men of no property, and with whom alliance was to be sought if a union of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter was to take to the field, were the

1899:

Beyond the inclusion of Catholics and a re-distribution of seats, Tone and Russell protested that it was unclear what members were pledging themselves to in Drennan's original

1681:

the inhabitants of Ireland is necessary to the freedom and prosperity of this kingdom". The town's Blue Company followed suit, and on 30 May 1784 both companies paraded before

11259: 8943: 9544: 7768:

Graham, Tommy (2003), "The transformation of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen into a mass-based revolutionary organization, 1791–62, in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

3061:

assaults upon loyalists, especially in Antrim. Here, however, they were now organised in Defender cells (from whose oaths references to religion had been notably dropped).

1982:

manner", Samuel Neilson (who had pledged his woollen business to the paper) proposed that the Volunteers assist the authorities in enforcing the laws against combination.

2490:, to caution against the "fascinating illusions" of French principles and, in advance of the Society's proscription, to threaten any Catholic taking the United test with 2063:

had advised them of the moral and intellectual enlightenment found in an "equal and liberal intercourse" between men and women. The paper had also reviewed and commended

1537:, and with the supremacy of the English interest, Presbyterians had been voting by leaving Ireland in ever greater numbers. From 1710 to 1775 over 200,000 sailed for the 1976: 1941:

describes the "Irish Jacobins" as an established democratic party in Belfast composed of "persons and rank long kept down" and ,chaired by a "radical mechanick" (sic).

103: 3677: 2767:

the authorities were more than ready to see the hand not only of English radicals but also, in the large Irish contingent among the sailors, of United Irishmen in the

2553:

with administering the United test to two soldiers. The movement's first acclaimed martyr, he was hanged in October. Orr's arrest in Antrim signalled the onset of

1359:

and a republic. Sharing on a common democratic programme, and trading on the prospect of French assistance, agents were active in organising "United" societies in

9290: 2494:. Lingering hopes of a return to open agitation were dashed in March the following year when, after endorsing Catholic admission to Parliament, the newly arrived 2010:, to mention? Believe us, they can be redressed by such reform as will give you your just proportion of influence in the legislature, AND BY SUCH A MEASURE ONLY. 3484:, what the men of '98 should have borrowed from the French was "their sagacious idea of bundling the landlords out of doors and putting tenants in their shoes". 1892:

In 1793, the Government itself breached the principle of an exclusively Protestant Constitution. Dublin Castle put its weight behind Grattan in the passage of a

1777:

Club) Tone had found himself "teased" by people agreeing in principle to Catholic emancipation, but then proposing that it be delayed or granted only in stages.

2952:

insurgents in Kildare, the few hundred remaining Wexford men surrendered. All but their leaders benefited from an amnesty intended by the new Lord Lieutenant,

969: 7835:

Prison Adverts and Potato Diggings: Materials from the Public Life of Antrim and Down During the Years of Government Terror Which Led to the Rebellion of 1798

2228:

they were theologically, leadership was found among church ministers and their elders, and not least from those who were foremost in championing the Scottish

1796:. In honour of the reformers in Belfast, who arranged for the publication of 10,000 copies, this had been signed A Northern Whig. Being purportedly of French 3172:

was convicted of conspiring with the united network in London (disaffected soldiers and labourers, many of them Irish) to assassinate the King and seize the

9798: 6968: 3341:

men still making a seasonal migration to the island fisheries, among them defeated rebels who are said to have "added fuel to the fire" of local grievance.

3245:

and "such of the French as were in the island". The alarm spoke to a fear current both in the West Indies and in the United States (then engaged in its own

1552:

Most of the Society's founding members and leadership were members of Belfast's first three Presbyterian churches, all in Rosemary Street. The obstetrician

10776: 8307: 8261: 7943: 724: 2051:

As were the Presbyteries, Volunteer companies and Masonic lodges through which they recruited, the United Irishmen were a male fraternity. In serialising

1689: 1324: 3272:

Conspiracy, Formed by the United Irishmen, With the Evident Intention of Aiding the Tyrants of France In Subverting the Government of the United States.

2526:. A gale prevented a landing. Hoche's unexpected death on his return to France was a blow to what had been Tone's adept handling of the politics of the 3507:

misrepresented the true object of the United Irishmen. There was, they insisted, no irony and no paradox in descendants of the United Irish entering a

797: 9129: 11305: 10728: 3524:

as the radical benchmark" – and as one which might suggest "difference rather than solidarity" with the new Irish state in the south.

2240:

defeated in the overthrow of the Catholic Church in France – the "immediate destruction of the British monarchy". On the pages of the

641: 1404:, have claimed and disputed the legacy of the United Irishmen, and of the union they sought to effect between Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. 10350:

Terence LaRocca (1974) "The Irish Career of Charles Gavan Duffy 1840–1855", Doctoral Dissertation, Loyola University Chicago, p. 3. Loyola eCommons

10048:

Ceretta, Manuela (2001). "Chapter 6: The 'Like a Phoenix from the Ashes': United Irish Propaganda and the Act of Union". In Brown, Michael (ed.).

8054: 5379: 2622:

The war with France was also used to crush reformers in Great Britain, costing the United Irishmen the liberty of friends and allies. In 1793 in

2271:

From February 1793, the Crown was at war with the French Republic. This led immediately to heightened tensions in Belfast. On 9 March, a body of

1998:, the only United Irish leaders "perfectly" understood the real causes of social disorder and conflict: "the conditions of the labouring class". 347: 5258:

Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town, in the years M, DCC, XCII and M, DCC, XCIII

3249:

with the French) that Irish Jacobins would conspire in the cause not only of France but also of her putative allies, her former slaves in the

3127:

the promise of simultaneous risings in Ireland and England. To this end McCabe set out for France in December 1798, stopping first in London.

5485: 2362:

Oaths, catechisms and articles of association supplied to Dublin Castle nonetheless suggest the Defenders were developing a kind of Catholic

1259: 8644:

Graham, Thomas (1993), "A Union of Power: the United Irish Organisation 1795–1798", in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan eds.,

7140:

Graham, Thomas (1993), "A Union of Power: the United Irish Organisation 1795–1798", in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan eds.,

3285:, this American Society of United Irishmen appears to have had chapters in several ports-of-entry including, in addition to Philadelphia, 2550: 2430:. With Tone as his accompanying secretary, in January 1793 Keogh had led a Committee delegation to London where they had an audience with 2280: 2006:

Are you overloaded with burdens you are but little able to bear? Do you feel many grievances, which it would be too tedious, and might be

1626: 1545:

commenced in 1775, there were few Presbyterian households that did not have relatives in America, many of whom would take up arms against

10909: 3391: 2865:

barrels). The movement, nonetheless, had withstood the government's countermeasures, and seditious propaganda and preparation continued.

2014:

In the "explosion" of handbills, pamphlets and newspapers in 1790s, a small number of tracts "directly addressed economic inequalities".

1309: 2557:'s "dragooning of Ulster". For the authorities its urgency was underscored by public expressions of solidarity with those detained. The 11300: 9399: 2071:(1792). But the call was not made for women's civic and political emancipation. In publishing excerpts from Wollstonecraft's work, the 9350: 11290: 6999:"William Drennan to Samuel McTier, 21st May 1791 (Agnew, Drennan-McTier Letters, vol. 1, p. 357). Category Archives: William Drennan" 5048:"William Drennan to Samuel McTier, 21st May 1791 (Agnew, Drennan-McTier Letters, vol. 1, p. 357). Category Archives: William Drennan" 2499: 1949: 832: 8301: 3334: 2681:

tide of migrants, helped to promote such thinking and foster an interest in establishing societies on the new model Irish example.

2327: 1459:, the participants who resolved to reform the government of Ireland on "principles of civil, political and religious liberty" were 195: 6468: 11280: 5866:

Antrim and Down in '98 : The Lives of Henry Joy m'Cracken, James Hope, William Putnam m'Cabe, Rev. James Porter, Henry Munro

3212:. A French Irish Legion (reinforced by 200 former United Irishmen sold by the British government as indentured mine labourers to 2967:), Wexford did not see martial law lifted until 1806. In continued expectation of the French, and kept informed by Jemmy Hope of 2960:. A staunch defender of the Ascendancy, Clare was determined to separate Catholics from the greater enemy, "Godless Jacobinism." 2233: 1702: 377: 9998:

O'Donnell, Ruan (2003), "'Liberty or death': The United Irishmen in New South Wales, 1800–4", in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

8023:

Graham, Thomas. (1993), "'An Union of Power'? The United Irish organisation, 1795–1798", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan,

8814:

Cullen, L.M. (1987) "The 1798 Rebellion in Wexford: United Irishman organisation, membership, leadership", in Kevin Whelan ed.

8579:"'We will have equality and liberty in Ireland': The Contested Geographies of Irish Democratic Political Cultures in the 1990s" 5340:

Elliott, Marianne (2003), "Religious polarization and sectarianism in the Ulster rebellion", in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

5079:

The Society of United Irishmen of Dublin . . [who] have taken as their Declaration that of a similar society in Belfast

3892: 2455: 2168: 1900: 1557: 9668:"The United Irishmen, International Republicanism and the Definition of the Polity in the United States of America, 1791–1800" 7642:

Kelly, James (1987). "The Origins of the Act of Union: An Examination of Unionist Opinion in Britain and Ireland, 1650–1800".

6195:

Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793

5783:

Belfast Politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793

5275:

Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793

5034:

Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793

5002:

Belfast politics: or, A collection of the debates, resolutions, and other proceedings of that town in the years 1792, and 1793

11158: 10721: 9955: 9781: 9626: 7084: 5746:

Martha McTier to Drennan, . Public Records Office Northern Ireland, Drennan Letters T.765/548, cited in Curtin (1985), p. 473

4186: 2483: 1986:, a self educated weaver, who joined the Society in 1796, nonetheless was to account Neilson, along with Russell (who in the 1845: 1082: 845: 837: 10634: 6404: 4718: 10919: 6682: 5839: 4030: 3217: 2826: 2631: 2594: 2135: 979: 911: 729: 190: 10940: 9372: 8852: 2783:

That the Valentine Joyce in question was Irish and a republican has been disputed, and while that "rebellious paper, the

2744:

At the end of February 1798, as he was about to embark on a return mission to Paris, Coigly was arrested carrying to the

2519: 465: 402: 9901: 1720:(of which the new society was to distribute thousands of copies for as little as a penny apiece), had won the argument. 10506: 10141: 10106: 10082: 9846: 9810: 9433: 9325: 9199: 9008: 8823: 8799: 8620: 8431: 8241: 8203: 8085: 7857: 7694: 7564: 7359: 7226: 7201: 7174: 6951: 6844: 6792: 6765: 6601: 6378: 6217: 6166: 6099: 6074: 5765: 5539: 5322: 5222: 4974: 4848: 4667: 4490: 4337: 4106: 3390:, in Hamburg, hailed "the downfall of one of the most corrupt assembles that ever existed", and predicted that the new 2957: 2068: 1472: 4213: 2232:

tradition. Of those who – bowing to "no king but Jesus" – were elected to preach by the

6998: 5047: 4515: 4161: 3747: 2200: 1648:

In April 1782, with Volunteer cavalry, infantry, and artillery posted on all approaches to the Parliament in Dublin,

1601: 1252: 1160: 873: 616: 10883: 2841:. Their removal had opened up the leadership in Belfast to less reliable elements, including government informants. 2537:

Bantry Bay nonetheless made real the prospect of French intervention for which it was clear the forces available to

2203:

who walked the length and breadth of Ireland in 1796–97, was appalled to encounter in a cabin upon the banks of the

2188: 1660:. In 1783 Volunteers converged again upon Dublin, this time to support a bill presented by Grattan's patriot rival, 1427: 11285: 10714: 10685: 9457: 9262: 7620:

Cullen, Louis. (1993), "The internal politics of the United Irishmen", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan eds.,

5131: 4947: 3998: 3687: 3021:, who had stood in for Russell, was arrested with all his "colonels". Under the command of a young Lisburn draper, 2338:

can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property".

1710:

had sought to discredit any analogy with 1688 in England. But on reaching Belfast in October 1791, Tone found that

1693: 1198: 1190: 770: 755: 681: 578: 249: 31: 1922:

The new democratic programme was consistent with the transformation of the society into a broad popular movement.

11295: 11254: 10257:

Love, Timothy (Spring 2017). "Gender and the Nationalistic Ballad: Thomas Davis, Thomas Moore, and Their Songs".

8578: 7981:

Fagan, Patrick (1998). "Infiltration of Dublin Freemason Lodges by United Irishmen and Other Republican Groups".

6976: 4121: 3912: 3812: 1957: 1834: 1774: 1634: 1586: 1582: 1569: 1431:

Theobald Wolfe Tone by Charles Joseph Hullmandel - 1827 - Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium - Public Domain.

1077: 1067: 939: 883: 714: 17: 9672:

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature

9192:

The Cato Street Conspiracy Plotting, counter-intelligence and the revolutionary tradition in Britain and Ireland

8985:

Historical collections relative to the town of Belfast: from the earliest period to the Union with Great Britain

656: 11310: 10914: 10567: 10555:

Dickson, David (2003), "Smoke without fire? Munster and the 1798 rebellion", in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

10481: 10334: 10309: 10226: 10201: 10057: 10032: 10010: 9481: 8931: 8653: 8546: 8351: 8032: 7817: 7780: 7756: 7629: 7605: 7149: 7113: 7104:

Curtin, Nancy J. (1993), "United Irish organisation in Ulster, 1795–8", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan,

6930: 6921:

Smyth, J, (1993), "Freemasonry and the United Irishmen", in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Kevin Whelan eds.,

6721: 6509: 5352: 5114: 4873: 4814: 4783: 4758: 4694: 4646: 4602: 4458: 4431: 4111: 3767: 3717: 3592: 3054: 3007: 2838: 2554: 2307: 2120: 1460: 1328: 934: 868: 792: 686: 10327:

Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford

10302:

Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford

9972: 4289: 2797:

a court martial took evidence of oaths of allegiance to the United Irishmen and sentenced eleven men to hang.

11016: 10852: 10696: 7592:

Cullen, Louis (1993), "The internal politics of the United Irishmen", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan,

4050: 4004: 3993: 3842: 3386:

that in 1801 abolished the parliament in Dublin and brought Ireland directly under the Crown in Westminster.

3350: 3022: 2734: 2546: 1688:

With the news in 1789 of revolutionary events in France enthusiasm for constitutional reform revived. In its

435: 7808:

Curtin, Nancy J. (2000). "The Magistracy and Counter-Revolution in Ulster, 1795–1798". In Smyth, Jim (ed.).

3197:

veterans alike the spirit of rebellion quite broken. Before his arrest, and with all else lost, Emmet asked

2276: 7027:

Belfast Politics: Enlarged, Being a Compendium of the Political History of Ireland for the Last Forty Years

5893: 5656:"The Transformation of the Society of United Irishmen into a Mass-Based Revolutionary Organisation, 1794-6" 4353: 3852: 3692: 3313: 3000: 2726: 2666: 2423: 1770: 1682: 1511: 1245: 1180: 1170: 1072: 989: 853: 583: 132: 9190:

Murtagh, Timothy (2020), "The shadow of the Pikeman: Irish craftsmen and British radicalism, 1803–20", in

5732: 4619: 3281:

Proposed by Tone's confidante in America, a veteran Volunteer, Freemason and United Irishman from Tyrone,

2901:, who abhorred the rebellion, may have been artful in proposing that there had been no United Irishmen in 893: 10966: 4156: 3922: 3817: 3617: 3512:

people – these", they maintain, were "the real objects of the United Irishmen". Later, in

3097:

among them – led by a scion of Mayo's surviving Catholic gentry, James Joseph MacDonnell.

2914: 2709:) worked from Manchester with James Dixon, a cotton spinner from Belfast, to spread the United system to 2662: 2435: 2002:

offering manhood suffrage, it made a direct appeal to these ranks, "the poorer classes of the community":

1904: 1893: 984: 817: 671: 490: 367: 269: 5619:

Thomas Addis Emmet (1807), "Part of an essay towards the history of Ireland" in William James MacNeven,

3552:

Catholics were harangued in their chapel by Rev. Horace Townsend, chief magistrate and Protestant vicar.

1919:. In the exercise of political rights, property, like religion, was to be excluded from consideration. 1645:(where they convened provincial conventions) they mobilised a much wider section of Protestant society. 10878: 10700: 8046: 6532: 6157:

Nancy J. Curtin and Margaret MacCurtain (1991), "Women and Eighteenth Century Irish Republicanism," in

5273: 5077: 5000: 4116: 4091: 3742: 3401: 3309: 3147: 3090: 2768: 2627: 2530:. With the forces (and ambition) that might have allowed a second attempt upon Ireland, Hoche's rival, 2495: 2475: 1945: 1849: 1669: 1597: 1593: 1542: 1515: 1491: 1476: 1356: 1336: 1062: 1042: 878: 858: 827: 699: 352: 8534:

Roger, N.A.M.(2003), "Mutiny or subversion? Spithead and the Nore", in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

8143:"'Womanish Epistles?' Martha McTier, Female Epistolarity and Late Eighteenth-Century Irish Radicalism" 7747:

Lindsay, Dierdre (1993), "The Fitzwilliam episode revisited", in D. Dickson, D. Keogh and K. Whelan,

5815:. Belfast: Belfast Trades Union Council and the United Irishmen Commemorative Society. pp. 13–18. 3420:

launched in the wake of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to reverse the Acts of Union and to restore the

3204:

In October 1805, any remaining hopes of a return of the French were blasted by the destruction of the

2956:

to flush out remaining resistance. The law was pushed through the Irish Parliament by the Chancellor,

2642:(Australia). The judge seized on Muir's connection to the "ferocious" Mr. Rowan (Rowan had challenged 666: 11142: 11132: 11036: 9572:

The Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh. Third Series: Military and Diplomatic. Vol. 2

9451: 4637:

Tesch, Pieter (1993), "Presbyterian Radicalism", in David Dickson, Daire Keogh and Keven Whelan eds.

4151: 3988: 3151: 3030: 2929: 2925: 2643: 1115: 780: 775: 357: 8127: 6434: 4040: 2999:

The northern executive had not responded to the call on 23 May. The senior Dublin Castle secretary,

2306:

In June 1795, four members of the Ulster executive – Neilson, Russell, McCracken and

2119:, described by informants as "very active" in Belfast "at the head of the Female Societies" (and by 1510:. Swayed by Crown patronage, parliament, in any case, exercised little hold upon the executive, the 1381:

upon the Irish Parliament and transferred its unreformed, exclusively Protestant, representation to

500: 470: 11315: 11249: 4171: 4146: 4081: 3500: 3387: 2479: 2471: 2382: 2172: 1814: 1729: 1313: 1281: 1052: 694: 676: 392: 337: 9474:

Wolfe Tone: Address to the People of Ireland (1796) and Napoleon's Address to An Irish Parliament

2995:

1798 by Thomas Robinson. Yeomanry prepare to hang United Irish insurgent Hugh McCulloch, a grocer.

1140: 505: 11168: 11066: 11031: 10737: 9001:

In the Wake of the Great Rebellion: Republicanism, Agrarianism and Banditry in Ireland after 1798

4243: 4014: 3857: 3702: 3607: 3533: 3375: 3301: 3163: 2806: 1386: 1346:

As it radiated out from Belfast and from Dublin, the society drew on the structure and ritual of

1297: 964: 954: 888: 709: 535: 322: 317: 307: 274: 10157:

Collins, Peter (1999). "The Contest of Memory and the Continuing Impact of 1798 Commemoration".

7542: 7490:"The Dublin Society of United Irishmen and the Politics of the Carey-Drennan Dispute, 1792–1794" 6497:

Keogh, Daire (2003), "Women of 1798: Explaining the silence", in Thomas Bartlett et al. (eds.),

6344:'What Can Women Give But Tears' : Gender, Politics and Irish National Identity in the 1790s 588: 11234: 11224: 11137: 11076: 11056: 10837: 8383:"The united Englishmen and Radical Politics in the Industrial North West of England, 1795–1803" 4223: 4086: 3968: 3872: 3862: 3777: 3321: 3186: 3123: 3037: 2992: 2948: 2830: 2598: 2216:) was one such agitator. Recruiting for the Society, he ranged from Belfast as far as Counties 2151: 1969: 1841: 1487: 1440: 1175: 1057: 1032: 10097:

William Drennan, Belfast Monthly Magazine, 7 (1811) quoted in Jonathan Jeffrey Wright (2013),

9214:"The United Englishmen and Radical Politics in the Industrial Northwest of England, 1795–1803" 9060: 8907: 8667: 7349: 7042: 7025: 5404: 5180: 1880:

in rural districts for tenancies and employment, toward the formation in 1795 of the loyalist

1833:

in 1689, and clearer title to what had been forfeit not ninety but forty years before (in the

11239: 11214: 11111: 11101: 11071: 11021: 11011: 11006: 10950: 10806: 10771: 10658:. The men of no property: Irish radicals and popular politics in the late eighteenth century. 9291:"Robert Emmet, the 1803 Proclamation of Independence and the ghost of 1798 – The Irish Story" 9034: 8983: 8114: 7191: 5212: 3957: 3942: 3917: 3722: 3637: 3622: 3382:

It was not the fulfilment of their hopes, but some United Irishmen sought vindication in the

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followed the Ulster system of parish-based cells (societies capped at thirty or thirty-six).

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This Painite radicalism had been preceded by an upsurge in trade union activity. In 1792 the

1961: 1953: 1861: 1728:

land." Bastille Day the following year was greeted with similar scenes and an address to the

1578: 1534: 1503: 1483: 1382: 1352: 1340: 1301: 1150: 1135: 999: 397: 156: 10099:

The 'Natural Leaders' and their World: Politics, Culture and Society in Belfast c. 1801–1832

7580: 6784:

Scripture Politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the Late Eighteenth Century

6782: 6350:. Submitted for the degree of PhD, University of York, Department of History. pp. 69–70 3802: 2725:. In London Coigly conferred with those Irishmen who had hastened the radicalisation of the 646: 11081: 11051: 10996: 10981: 10857: 10766: 9977: 9342: 4304: 4264: 4218: 4101: 4009: 3983: 3827: 3662: 3647: 3471:

proposed to forge this renewed unity in the struggle for tenant rights and land ownership.

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In March 1804, stirred by news of Emmet's rising, several hundred United Irish convicts in

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that many United Irish prisoners, "incautiously drafted" into regiments for service in the

3190: 3026: 2941: 2635: 1983: 1965: 1724: 1657: 1507: 1499: 1495: 1004: 994: 949: 485: 279: 254: 145: 8707:

Dunne, Tom (1999). "Rebel Motives and Mentalities: the Battle for New Ross, 5 June 1798".

7687:

The Men of No Property: Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century

7351:

The Men of No Property, Irish Radicals and Popular Politics in the Late Eighteenth Century

7219:

The men of no property: Irish radicals and popular politics in the late eighteenth century

4806: 4800: 2208:"foppish talkers" in Paris a decade before. In 1793, a magistrate in that same area, near 1792:

Thomas Russell had invited Tone to the Belfast gathering in October 1791 as the author of

1027: 8: 11219: 11194: 11096: 11091: 11061: 11001: 10986: 10976: 10924: 10847: 10842: 10781: 10756: 6180:

What Can Women Give But Tears': Gender, Politics and Irish National Identity in the 1790s

4181: 4166: 4141: 4126: 3937: 3822: 3612: 3492: 3472: 3436: 3417: 3205: 3194: 3094: 3078: 2898: 2834: 2791: 2706: 2654: 2390: 2378: 2363: 2342: 2330: 2295:, an auxiliary force led by local gentry. In May 1794 the Society itself was proscribed. 2245: 2064: 1877: 1873: 1830: 1697: 1653: 1565: 1452: 1401: 1393: 1320: 1145: 1087: 704: 651: 510: 214: 185: 6737:

Roulston, William (2008). "The origins of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Ireland".

3682: 3328: 2857:(of these the authorities had seized in the previous year 70,630 compared to just 4,183 2275:

rampaged through the town, purportedly provoked by taverns displaying the likenesses of

1930:, other towns in the North, and in Dublin, some of these had been maintaining their own 1656:, had a Declaration of Irish Rights carried by acclaim in the Commons. London conceded, 626: 11026: 10531: 10395: 10282: 10174: 9743: 9687: 9588:"White Slaves: Irish Rebel Prisoners and the British Army in the West Indies 1799–1804" 9526: 9243: 8767: 8759: 8724: 8404: 8164: 8102: 8006: 7998: 7917: 7723: 7667: 7659: 7525: 7517: 7417: 7323: 7295: 6900: 6881: 6817: 6646: 6574: 6476: 6140: 6132: 6047: 6039: 5986: 5947: 5939: 5887: 5691: 5683: 5584: 5466: 5458: 4928: 4568: 4552: 4404: 4396: 4347: 4254: 4136: 4024: 3932: 3762: 3578: 3496: 3421: 3413: 3383: 3254: 3250: 2953: 2917:, that the trigger was the arrival on 26 May 1798 of the notorious North Cork Militia. 2582: 2531: 2355: 2346: 2175:

had accused of child rape), troops treated women, young and old, with great brutality.

2104: 2092: 1995: 1923: 1826: 1802: 1785: 1638: 1573: 1464: 1378: 1047: 822: 631: 312: 8101:

Smith, A.W (1995). "Irish Rebels and English Radicals 1798–1820. Past & Present".

5214:

Poland in the Irish Nationalist Imagination, 1772–1922: Anti-Colonialism within Europe

3602: 1952:, after publicly urging Catholic admission to parliament was recalled and replaced by 450: 11199: 11189: 11163: 11127: 11106: 11086: 10945: 10761: 10563: 10502: 10477: 10330: 10305: 10286: 10274: 10222: 10197: 10178: 10137: 10102: 10078: 10053: 10028: 10006: 9951: 9842: 9806: 9777: 9735: 9679: 9622: 9518: 9477: 9429: 9321: 9235: 9195: 9076: 9004: 8927: 8819: 8795: 8771: 8728: 8649: 8616: 8542: 8427: 8237: 8199: 8195: 8168: 8081: 8028: 8010: 7909: 7853: 7813: 7776: 7752: 7690: 7671: 7625: 7601: 7560: 7529: 7509: 7409: 7355: 7287: 7222: 7197: 7170: 7145: 7109: 7080: 6947: 6926: 6873: 6840: 6788: 6761: 6717: 6638: 6597: 6566: 6505: 6374: 6213: 6162: 6144: 6095: 6070: 6051: 5978: 5951: 5931: 5761: 5695: 5675: 5588: 5576: 5535: 5470: 5450: 5348: 5318: 5256: 5218: 5110: 4970: 4920: 4869: 4844: 4810: 4779: 4754: 4690: 4663: 4642: 4598: 4560: 4511: 4486: 4454: 4427: 4408: 4388: 4333: 4203: 4035: 3907: 3732: 3697: 3504: 3305: 2976: 2909: 2701:

Describing himself as an emissary of the United Irish executive, the Catholic priest

2670: 2447: 2318: 2284: 2139: 2019: 1622: 1538: 1468: 1444: 1397: 1277: 495: 480: 264: 137: 9833: 9194:, Jason McElligott and Martin Conboy eds., Manchester: Manchester University Press. 6342: 6177: 5505: 5239: 5148: 4572: 4071: 3557:

country farmers and labourers to set up as politicians, reformers, and law makers...

3282: 2585:; Richard McCormick, Tone's replacement as secretary to the Catholic Committee; the 2413:"Terrors of Emancipation" – The final Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829 2409: 765: 11229: 11046: 11041: 10991: 10888: 10386:

MacDonagh, Oliver (2006). "Historical Revision: Was O'Connell a United Irishman?".

10266: 10166: 9510: 9225: 9173: 9101: 8751: 8716: 8394: 8312: 8266: 8191: 8183: 8154: 7990: 7948: 7901: 7651: 7501: 7448: 7401: 7279: 6630: 6182:(Submitted for the degree of PhD University of York, Department of History), p. 62. 6124: 6031: 5923: 5667: 5568: 5442: 4544: 4380: 4238: 4191: 4045: 3952: 3847: 3837: 3797: 3642: 3513: 3338: 3259: 3242: 3142: 3135: 3011: 2874: 2745: 2658: 2650:

of Scotland, to a duel) and on the United Irishmen papers found in his possession.

2586: 2527: 2096: 1991: 1629:– motto, "Can the African Slave Trade, though morally wrong, be politically right". 1185: 863: 750: 515: 244: 10606:

3). Dissenting Voices: Rediscovering the Irish Progressive Presbyterian Tradition.

8464:

The Floating Republic: An Account of the Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797

8331: 8285: 8190:. The International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest (2009). pp. 1–2. 7967: 2987: 2963:

Contending with marauding bands of rebel survivors (the Babes in the Wood and the

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Irish may have caused some desertions and a delay in McCracken's planned attack.

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the country, but in what proved to be a series of uncoordinated local uprisings.

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to finance care for pregnant women and the elderly, and education for the young.

1754: 1749:

William Drennan: "what is a country properly considered but a free constitution?"

1745: 1553: 1221: 1165: 1155: 1130: 1037: 812: 460: 445: 362: 160: 8944:"Author on the hunt for local tales as he pens new book on the Battle of Antrim" 7062:. Dublin: The Women's History Project/Irish Manuscripts Commission. p. 502. 2609: 525: 11209: 11204: 10971: 10822: 10580:

Murphy, John (24 May 1998). "We still fear to speak of all the ghosts of '98".

10349: 9587: 8316: 8270: 7952: 6236:, 620/20/1. William Drennan, 'Plan of Parliamentary Representation for Ireland' 6115:

Clemmit, Pamela (2004). "Godwin, Women and the 'Collision of Mind with Mind'".

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recorded an influx of "mechanics , petty shopkeepers and farmers". In Belfast,

1564:, owner of the largest woollen warehouse in Belfast, was in the Second Church; 1561: 1530: 1392:

Since the rebellion's centenary in 1898, Ireland's major political traditions,

1233: 760: 520: 440: 289: 9724:"In Defense of Civil Society: Irish Radicals in Philadelphia during the 1790s" 9230: 9213: 8755: 8399: 8382: 8159: 8142: 7937: 7655: 7505: 6533:"Remembering the start of the 1798 rebellion through Irish heroine Betsy Gray" 6035: 5927: 5671: 5572: 4548: 2593:) and two disillusioned parliamentary patriots: the future Napoleonic general 1732:

hailing the soldiers of the new republic as "the advance guard of the world".

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