18th Century Ireland Articles - The United Irishmen and Modern Revolutionary Movements by Dr. Samuel Couch

Article: 18th Century Ireland
IV. The United Irishmen and Modern Revolutionary Movements

by Dr. Sam Couch, Ph. D.
Owner, Rising Road Tours

Other events in Europe also had a profound effect on politics in Ireland. The French revolution of 1789 moved Irish leaders to think about freedom. French notions of liberte, egalite et fraternite moved the poor and rustics in Britain and Ireland. Leading political figures and intellectuals formed clubs and committees to advocate governmental reform. A group of young radicals including Henry Joy McCracken, Samuel Neilson, William Drennan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, a Protestant Dublin barrister, founded the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast on October 14, 1791. Most members were lawyers, merchants, and journalists. Tone's support of Catholics was entirely political. Born a Protestant but fired by ideas of the Enlightenment, he felt that all religion was superstition and would blow away like wood ash in the rational wind of revolution. Subsequently a branch formed in Dublin with James Napper Tandy, a Protestant shopkeeper, as its secretary. At first the society wished to stop corruption in government and to remove religious persecution. Its main goal was to repeal Penal Laws against Catholics. Originally the society was a legal one. Various branches of the United Irishmen debated the condition of the country and called for reform. There were few Catholic members and not many Anglicans. It created a reactive yeomanry militia, led by former Volunteer captains (mostly Anglican landlords), whose earlier calls for parliamentary reform had not included relief for Catholics. The Dublin branch of the United Irishmen was suppressed in 1794. It went underground. As a secret society, it attracted a larger and more ruthless membership.

In 1792, the Catholic committee sent a petition to the king which resulted in some relief from the Irish Parliament. The franchise was restored and most professions were opened to them. However a Catholic could not serve in parliament. During this time three leading United Irishmen were heavily fined and arrested for making violent speeches against the government. For the next several years many attempts at reform by the United Irishmen met with failure because government spies infiltrated them. In 1794 a Protestant clergymen of Irish extraction came from France to set up a French invasion. He was arrested, tried and condemned to be hanged for treason. He poisoned himself and dropped dead in the dock. The chief witness against him was a Dublin attorney who passed on all United Irishmen secrets to the government.

Conditions for Catholics gradually improved. In response northern Protestants reacted and various "boys" groups became more militant. The more militant Catholic groups became known as "Defenders". They developed in Cavan and Monaghan in the early 1790s and spread into Armagh. Catholic activity was matched by rival groups among the Protestants notably the Peep O'Day Boys, largely linen workers whose economic stability was perceived as depending upon alliances with landlords. Demographically they should have been attracted to the United Irishmen but their strong Anglicanism associated with the bishopric see of Armagh made them ideal members of the yeomanry.

Defendersim was as much a product as a cause of Protestant violence. The most notorious confrontation is the Battle of the Diamond at the crossroads near Loughgall, County Armagh where, on September 21, 1795, the local Peep O'Day Boys met and killed thirty Catholic Defenders. The sequel was more significant than the actual battle. The first lodge of the Orange Order was founded that evening in Loughgall in the home of James Sloan. The basic principle of the order was stated as defense of the King and his heirs so long as he or they support the Protestant ascendancy. The following July 12, the new calendar anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, was marked by demonstrations of the ninety Orange lodges that had been founded in the ten months since the Diamond. The titular and persistent tribute to William III is ironic in light of his known non-sectarian views.

In 1795, British Prime Minister William Pitt proposed total Catholic emancipation. Some Irish officials objected and persuaded the king against the move. The act could not be passed without the king's approval. Disappointment at this action caused much distress in Ireland.

This series of articles is based on lectures given by Dr. Samuel Couch to Irish Studies courses at Georgia Southern University and Young Harris College between 1997 and 2004. Documented sources come from Couch's research and studies in American universities and with scholars in Ireland. The articles are in no way intended to be comprehensive.

Background materials come from, but are not limited to, readings in the following books:

Duffy, Sean, ed., Atlas of Irish History. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1997.
Joyce, P.W., Outlines of the History of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1905. M.H. Gill & Son: Dublin. 1909.
Killeen, Richard, A Short History of Ireland. Gill & Macmillan: Dublin. 1994.
Smyth, Daragh, A Guide to Irish Mythology. 2nd ed. Irish Academic Press: Dublin. 1996.

Any lack of attribution to primary sources is unintentional and the sole responsibility of Dr. Couch.

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Article: 18th Century Ireland IV. The United Irishmen and Modern Revolutionary Movements

Article: 18th Century Ireland
IV. The United Irishmen and Modern Revolutionary Movements