Irish-American History

Lesson 3: 100 Years that changed the world

The United Irishmen

Thousands of Presbyterians had fled from Ireland throughout the 18th Century. Those who remained were heartened by the support , vocal and financial which came home from North America.

The success of the American Revolution gave the Northern Presbyterians a great boost. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , Lord Harcourt observed , ‘The Presbyterians in the North are in their hearts Americans.’

William Drennan , the main originator of the Society of United Irishmen , was the son of the Minister of First Presbyterian Church , Rosemary Street and born in 1754 , he grew up in a time of political turmoil. Drennan was a Medical Student in Edinburgh during the period of the Revolutionary War in America.

Because the British Army which was normally stationed in Ireland was in America fighting against the Colonials , the Ulster Volunteer movement had been formed in 1778 , to protect against a possible French invasion. Because of the claims being made by the Colonists in America , the Irish , who were now physically guarding their land , felt motivated to seek free trade , legislative independence , parliamentary reform and Catholic Emancipation.

A measure of Free Trade and legislative independence were won in 1779 and 1782 , but it became unfashionable to seek any further concessions on Parliamentary Reform or Catholic Emancipation and for the remainder of the 1780s .

Drennan, however , did attempt to breathe life into the radical tenets he believed in , through a series of Articles ‘ Letters of Orellana ‘ published in The Belfast Newsletter at the end of 1784.

In the 1790s , the inspiration for a revival of radicalism came from the French Revolution and prompted by the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille , Drennan revived his ideas for a new Society which was formed in October of that year. Attending the meeting as a visitor and guest was Theobald Wolfe Tone , a Church of Ireland lawyer from Dublin ,who offered the meeting the name ; The Society of United Irishmen. The principal aim of the Society was the reformation of the Irish Parliament ; to remove privilege and through Catholic Emancipation , to allow Catholics to take part in the political life of the country.

At its inception , in a letter to his brother-in-law , Sam McTier,the Society was described by Drennan as,

‘ a benevolent conspiracy- a plot for the people –no Whig Club- no party titls- the Brotherhood its name- the rights of man and the greatest happiness of the greatest number its end- its general end, real independence to Ireland and republicanism its particular purpose- its business, every means to accomplish these ends as speedily as the prejudices and bigotry of the land we live in would permit.’ (5) However , after the outbreak of war between Britain and revolutionary France in 1793, the Government clamped down on anyone friendly to the ideals of a country with which they were at war. Drennan was tried for seditious libel in 1794 and even though he was acquitted , one of the main results was to drive the United Irishmen underground The Society became a clandestine revolutionary and military organisation.

The hopes of the United Irishmen centred on support coming from the French, always interested in helping others to inflict defeat on the British . The fact that Wolfe Tone managed to get an army of 16,000 men under General Hoche to sail into Bantry Bay at the end of 1796 showed the willingness of the French to support the cause of the United Irishmen . This expedition, however, was doomed to failure, partly due to the weather but more due to the quality of troops assembled to fight in a theatre of war which the Revolutionary Committee were unfamiliar with. The failure of this coup alerted the British Government to the activities of the Society and they determined to break the organisation.

Through a variety of sources ; informers , spies and ‘agents provocateurs’ , the British Government had kept a watching brief on the activities of the Society and during the Spring and Summer of 1797 ,General Lake and his yeomen brutally disarmed Ulster , with numerous tales of whippings , pitchcappings and hangings .This action and particularly the hanging of William Orr , a Presbyterian tenant farmer from County Antrim , hardened the resolve of many of the Society to oppose a tyrannical Government.

‘Remember Orr’ was used as a rallying cry during the mobilisation of rebels in Antrim and Down in 1798. Again , through a series of informers , the Leaders of the Rebellion and their whereabouts were known to the British Authorities and in a sweep on March 12th 1798 , most of the leadership in Leinster were arrested. Further arrests of leaders on the very eve of the rising in May effectively killed off any hopes of success. An ill – advised , badly planned and now hopelessly co-ordinated Uprising was set in motion . One by one , groups of United Irishmen were defeated in the field and despite some successes , and the arrival of General Humbert at the end of August at Killala in County Mayo with a thousand French troops , the Insurrection was over by October. It was a case of too little too late.

The defeat of the United Irishmen did bring about parliamentary reform , even though it was not as they had envisaged it. The British Government took the opportunity to abolish the Irish Parliament and transfer all authority back to London.

They did this by establishing The Act of Union on July 2 1800. The Third Article of the Act States that: ‘ That it be the third Article of Union that the said United Kingdom be represented in one and the same Parliament , to be styled The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’(6)

The Members of the Irish Parliament were encouraged to consent to the Act of Union through bribes and peerages liberally distributed by the British Government.

In the light of what was to happen less than 50 years later in Ireland, a section of Article Seven of the Act of Union makes interesting reading:

‘ H.M’s subjects of Ireland shall have the same privileges and be on the same footing as H.M’s subjects of Great Britain.’ (7)

Would the widespread evictions, land clearances , deportations and neglect of any other part of the United Kingdom have been countenanced? Would the inhabitants of Yorkshire , North Wales , the Lowlands of Scotland or the Midlands of England been allowed to suffer in the way those in Ireland did, less than 50 years after the signing of the Act of Union?

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