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Old 06-16-2021, 06:21 PM   #91 (permalink)
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Henry Grattan (1746 - 1820)

One of the greatest advocates on Ireland’s side during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Grattan, though a Protestant, supported Ireland’s right to self-governance, though he still believed it should always pay homage to the English king. Under Poynings Law (1494) no legislation could be passed in Ireland until it had gained the approval of the English Privy Council, and in fact laws could be passed pertaining to Ireland by the English government without any involvement of the Irish Parliament, making it entirely dependent on, and subservient to, the Crown. Grattan intended to have this ancient law abolished, so that Irish matters could be decided by Irishmen, or at least, Anglo-Irish, as Catholics - what you would have to call the true Irish - were still banned from holding any public office by the Penal Laws still in force, and that most definitely included sitting in Parliament. Grattan was a patriot, born in Dublin and having studied at Trinity College, and quickly rising to the leadership of the Irish Patriot Party, which stood in strong opposition to what was known as the Castle Party, those hardline Protestants who wished England to retain total control over Irish legislation and fought any efforts to the contrary.

Grattan took his seat in the Irish Parliament in 1775. A year later, England was having serious trouble with another, younger colony, and events in Ireland began to take something of a back seat, less important now than bringing the upstart America to heel. Partly as a response to this, and also using the absence of British troops as a springboard to further their own political agenda, the Volunteers were formed.

The Volunteers

When British troops were sent to the colony to fight in what would become the American War of Independence, wealthy landowners feared for their own safety and that of their property, worrying about who and what would fill the power vacuum which opened up. I guess it’s easiest to equate the Volunteers with the British Home Guard that ostensibly protected Britain from Nazi invasion during the Second World War. They were held in contempt by the regular army, who deemed them as barely fit for service and ensured they were given the crappiest and most menial jobs they could be given; their commitment was questioned, as was their courage. They were basically militias of Protestant (obviously: at this point the Penal Laws still forbade Catholics to carry arms, and while the secret societies already discussed may have got around that, there could be no official sanction for arming Catholics) who feared Spanish or French invasion of Ireland, believing that England’s traditional enemies might take advantage of the bulk of His Majesty’s forces being abroad. There were however some Catholics and Presbyterians admitted after the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.

With the British victory over the Spanish in 1780 the fears of invasion dissipated, and the Volunteers turned to political aims, intending to gain concessions for Ireland, such as free trade with Britain, and with their power growing the British government acceded to their demands. The chapters in Ulster seem to have been the most militant, calling for Irish legislative independence (while of course remaining loyal to the king) and between pressure from them and Grattan (no I haven’t forgotten who I’m writing about) what was known as the Constitution of 1782 came to be, and the largely autonomous parliament that ruled - for a few short years - was known as Grattan’s Parliament.

Grattan’s Parliament

While it would take another 150 years before Ireland would gain her total independence, the Constitution of 1782 was the first major step in freeing her from the bondage of the English Crown. Since Norman times the Irish Parliament had acted only under the sufferance of the monarch, effectively an arm of the English government. Therefore no laws could be passed there without the approval of the king or queen, which meant of course no laws the English government did not agree with. Grattan was, however, loyal to the Crown and wished to preserve the connection with England, just not be at its whim. He was also for Catholic emancipation, which as you can imagine did not go down well across the water. Or indeed in Ireland, at least with the landed classes, who had made their money off the backs of poor Catholics, either as servants (virtual slaves with few if any rights) or by possessing their land for themselves. Equal rights for Catholics was most assuredly not on the Protestant agenda!

Nevertheless, when the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 was passed in the British Parliament, Grattan managed to get an Irish version passed only two years later, which eased pressure on Irish Catholics, allowing them into some public offices and to be educated, but the king’s stubborn refusal to even countenance the freedom of his Catholic subjects would explode in violence and uproar seven years later.
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Old 06-17-2021, 08:04 AM   #92 (permalink)
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Have not read at all today, as I honestly have been chasing my tail last few days..Bought this heavy duty farmy type grass cutter used it twice and the engine has blown..Taken it to a Honda dealership in Ruffec, a stone's throw away in the large trailer..ramped it to get in on board. Storms last night and the garden is now a shared one with the neighbours..they have 4 hunting bloody dogs snarling and growling at everything and everyone..lucky they keep them in 90% of the time.
This evening, going to have a good read slot. Printed off over 100 pages so that is a Real Book here... Trollybookends...everyone is getting new names..could be worse my mate Ash is now Willysilly..I shall go no further to embarrass you, as if........
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Old 06-18-2021, 02:40 AM   #93 (permalink)
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Rebellion! Ireland fights back

Having seen the success the French had had in 1789, Irish Catholics banded together with Presbyterians from Ulster to form a society they called the United Irishmen, to try to force reform and fair treatment for all. The recent American War of Independence, and the triumph of George Washington’s fledgling colony over the might of the British Empire, was also fresh in their minds. Having sent a declaration to the French people on the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastille which read "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 land,” the Irish were honoured in turn by the Revolution on Bastille Day the following year with the French National Assembly hailing the soldiers of the new republic as "the advance guard of the world".


William Drennan (1754 - 1820)

The man who proposed the United Irishmen was a physician, a poet and a radical democrat. Born a Presbyterian in Belfast, he moved to Dublin in 1789 and got involved first with the Volunteers, and then helped create the United Irishmen, seeing Britain’s embarrassing defeat by the Americans as the perfect time to force Ireland’s agenda. He suggested the society as a “benevolent conspiracy, a plot for the people” and contended its true aim would be “Real independence to Ireland and Republicanism.” The United Irishmen would push for total emancipation for Catholics and proper representation for all peoples in the Parliament.

When he was arrested in May 1793 however, accused of sedition and consorting with French spies, though acquitted and having called all Irish men to stand to arms, he seems to have been abandoned by his fellows, and moved to Scotland, and while there worried that the course the French Revolution was taking, as Catholicism - indeed, all religions - were being trodden on and denounced by the Assembly, might turn Irish people (especially Catholics, known to be always devout to their religion) from these possible allies. The bloody and often indiscriminate violence that followed the coup d’etat didn’t seem to give him such a problem.


Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798)

Known forever after in Irish history only as Wolfe Tone, he would go on to be one of the great heroes of, and martyrs to Irish independence. Although a Protestant (and an Anglican at that) he was forward-thinking enough and had enough patriotic fervour to reach across the sectarian divide and suggest that all Irish people, of all faiths and religions work together for the true independence of Ireland. He abhorred Grattan’s acceptance of the Constitution of 1782, believing it was a compromise, and his insistence on Ireland remaining tied to the Crown. Wolfe Tone proposed full and free autonomy for his native land, and to this end helped create the United Irishmen with William Drennan.

Despairing, however, of any chance of acceptance by the Irish Parliament, which was still controlled by Protestants, Tone set his sights on France, and when the Reverend William Jackson, an Irish priest who had been exiled to France, arrived to scope out Ireland as a possible invasion target from which to harry the English, Tone received him enthusiastically, telling him Ireland was ripe for revolution. Unfortunately, the bishop was betrayed and, having been arrested for treason, killed himself by taking poison and collapsing during his trial. Before fleeing to America, Tone met with other United Irishmen and together they swore “never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence." Tone spent only a year in America, thoroughly disenchanted with the place before making his way to France, where he requested a French invasion of Ireland. There too he recorded his philosophy of independence for his native country, words which would later appear on his tomb: "Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property"

The invasion was agreed, and he accompanied an expedition at the close of 1796 which was sent to support the coming Irish revolution, but weather off Bantry Bay made it impossible for the French vessels to land, and they were forced to return home. He tried again - with both the French and the Dutch (Batavia) - and finally managed to land in Ireland in September of 1798, but his fleet was defeated by the British, he was taken prisoner, put on trial, and committed suicide rather than wait for an answer to his request that he be shot.

The bloody massacres in Paris of 1792 added fuel to a panicky fire among Protestants that should Catholics gain power they would act in a similar manner, savagely taking retribution on their oppressors. However the French Republic’s move away from the respect for and authority of the Pope alienated them from the Irish Catholics, who deplored the capture of Pius VI under Napoleon, his imprisonment and later death. On the one hand, you’d have to imagine that George III, traditionally an enemy of Rome since Henry VIII’s time, might have welcomed the news of the old pope’s death, but on the other, he certainly didn’t like the idea of the new French Republic extending their revolution to Italy and claiming it, too, a republic. So the last thing he wanted was an Irish revolution to go with it.

But that’s exactly what he got.
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Old 06-18-2021, 03:21 AM   #94 (permalink)
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Prelude to the Rising: The Battle of the Diamond and the formation of the Orange Order

With tensions between Protestants and Catholics as high as ever, feelings running high at the rise of the United Irishmen and their potential threat to the Ascendancy power, the two secret societies, the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders arranged to meet at the Diamond, a small crossroads halfway between Loughgall and Portadown in Armagh. Despite the efforts of four Protestant landowners and three Catholic priests to broker a truce or peace treaty, the two factions met on September 21 1795 and prepared for battle. It appears from contemporary accounts that in fact the peace deal had been struck, but that it was Defenders not from Armagh but from Tyrone, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth, who had come for the fight and were disappointed to see there would be none, who kicked it all off.

The Peep o’ Day Boys, heading home, were accosted by a force of about 300 Defenders and turned to engage them. Though outnumbered, the Protestants had the high ground, and were better skilled with weapons, resulting in their taking no casualties in the short brutal battle while accounts vary of the losses taken by the Catholics, from thirty to forty-eight. Clearly, the Peep o’ Day Boys won the Battle of the Diamond decisively. After the battle, glorying in their victory, the Peep o’ Day Boys founded the Orange Order, with the declaration of defending “the king and his heirs so long as he or they support the Protestant Ascendancy.” Pretty much immediately afterwards they took their revenge on Catholics, burning houses, attacking homes and perpetrating what have gone down in history as “the Armagh outrages”.

This was part of a concerted effort on the part of the Orangemen to drive “from this quarter of the country the entire (sic) of its Roman Catholics population”, from where the oft-used phrase originated, that appeared on signposts around the county and warned Catholics they had two choices: “To Hell or Connaught” (Connaught or Connacht being one of the other provinces of Ireland, part of what is now the Republic, where the likes of Galway and other western towns are) - essentially kicking them out of Ulster and over the border. Their intimidatory tactics worked, and within a month over 7,000 Catholics had been forced to leave Armagh. The Governor, Lord Gosford remarked of what was pretty little less than a pogrom: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country ... the only crime is ... profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges ... and the sentence they have denounced ... is nothing less than a confiscation of all property, and an immediate banishment.”

This process would, you may be surprised to hear, be repeated almost two hundred years later, when in the 1970s Catholics would be forced from Ulster in the face of growing Protestant oppression and would seek refuge here in the south.

Maith an Chailin!* A Woman’s place is in the fight - the women also rise

(*Literally, good girl!)

Nobody would venture to suggest that Ireland was ever a hotbed of suffrage, and it’s hard to name one Irish advocate for women’s rights, but then that does come with the proviso that up until 1923 we were not a sovereign nation and would have to go along with what was decided in Britain. Nevertheless, like the women of France during the French Revolution, and despite attempts by revisionist historians to write them out and ignore them, women did fight in and support the rebellion of 1798. Not all of them physically fought, but many offered shelter or encouragement or whatever they could to the rebels, and here I’d like to look at some of those names which have triumphed above the efforts of male chroniclers to pretend all an Irish woman was good for was making babies or homes, or as it was disparagingly put at the time, that they could only be “maids or madonnas.” Yeah.

Mary Ann McCracken (1770 - 1866)

Sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the founders of the United Irishmen, she provided shelter for her brother and his comrades after their defeat at the Battle of Antrim (SPOILER ALERT! Now come on: you didn’t really think the rebellion was going to succeed, did you? What about 1916?) and brought them food and supplies as they hid in the hills. She was preparing their escape by sea when her brother was recognised by soldiers, and he and his compatriots arrested. After his execution, she took care of his illegitimate daughter, as nobody else in the family would recognise her.

She was a reformer, social campaigner and later an abolitionist, working to better the lives of Belfast’s children, setting up schools and orphanages and engaging teachers to educate the children. She helped form, and was chair of, the Ladies Committee of the Belfast Charitable Society from 1832 - 1855, inspecting homes to which children from the orphanage and poorhouse had been sent to ensure their safety and suitability. She led the Womens Abolition Committee in Belfast, tirelessly campaigning for an end to slavery, and was aghast when the cause was so quickly dropped after the rebellion, but even at the ripe of age of 88 she haunted the Belfast docks, handing out anti-slavery pamphlets to those boarding ships headed to America.

Mary Shackleton Leadbetter* (1728 - 1826)

In contrast to Bridget Dolan, of whom we will hear soon, she was a total pacifist, involved with the Society of Friends, a Quaker organisation, which was her faith, but she experienced first-hand the brutality of the English forces after the defeat of the rebels in 1798. She was a diarist, and writes of yeomanry “from whose bosom pity seems banished” and soldiers who occupied her village of Ballitore, torturing and flogging the people, till a force of 300 rebels took the town, taking revenge on the oppressors before being themselves routed by a returning English force. Mary herself was almost killed by a soldier, and saw the town doctor, a man who she “believed had never raised his hand to injure any one” be killed “unarmed and alone”. When the village was burned, Mary fled with the rest of the survivors.

* May be Leadbeater, as this is how it’s spelled in some accounts

Elizabeth Pim

Another Quaker, she did not take part in the rebellion and seems to be one of the few who did not take sides, seeing the brutality of it from both factions. On May 24 she watched the rebels approach the town and battle with the British, and when the latter were withdrawn the next day it seems to have been a shock to the villagers, many of whom accompanied them as they left, presumably for protection. Two days later, as the rebels took the town, she saw the garrison which had been left behind surrender but be butchered by the Irishmen, priests and teachers among them.

By May 28 the British forces had retaken the village, having been only dissuaded from levelling it with cannon by the discovery that there were Quakers living there, with whom they had no quarrel. Showing there was after all little difference between the two sides, the British soldiers then began to plunder the village and celebrate their victory.

Elizabeth Richards

On the other side of the fence you have this lady, a devout Anglican, a wealthy landowner (or I should say, married to one, as women did not have the right to own property at this time, no matter their faith or standing, and depended entirely on their husbands in that regard, and in the eyes of the law) and a staunch supporter of the Crown, who hated the United Irishmen and their cause, and worried what would happen to her should their rebellion succeed. A very brave woman, she refused to follow the example of her contemporaries in converting, even though she was of the very clear conviction that it might cost her her life.

Assured by a Catholic priest that no massacre was intended (though as we have seen, slaughter on a smaller scale, village by village or town by town did occur; whether that was planned or just the result of frustrations, long-pent-up hatred and the euphoria of victory is uncertain) she nevertheless referred to the Catholics as “savages” and had full confidence in the power of the Protestant soldiers to defeat them. Perhaps naive in her arrogance, she refused to countenance rumours - which were true - of Orangemen killing and raping as they came; maybe this description would nor or could not fit into her overall view of her countrymen as saviours and patriots. She wore, under duress and only to preserve her life, the Irish colours but trampled on them when she had a chance, tried to convince rebels to give up their struggle and submit to the authority of the Crown, but for all that, she made no move against the rebels, fuming instead in impotent anger as she waited to be delivered.

Mary Moore (1776 or 1777 - 1844)

But here was one woman who was a true patriot. Both she and her father were United Irishmen, and she would courier messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald to other rebels by the ruse of pretending to be injured and having to go to the doctor, even going so far as have her arm bandaged up and her clothes bloody. When the rebellion failed, Lord Edward was staying with Mary, masquerading as her French tutor, and when news came to them that the house was to be raided she managed to move Lord Edward to the house of another trusted rebel, Francis Magan.

Well… not quite. Magan turned out to be yet another informer, and sold her out, pretending he knew nothing about it the next day when he called to ask why Lord Edward had not arrived. The previous night, as she had tried to move him to Magan’s, they had been intercepted by Major Sirr (no, really) but His Lordship had legged it and Mary had him hidden at the house of another sympathiser. When their own house was raided later that day Mary ran to tell the rebels, who were meeting nearby, to be on their guard, and as she returned she was attacked by a British soldier, who cut her with his bayonet. He was shot by an Irish sniper for his troubles.

In the evening the house of Thomas Murphy was raided and Lord Edward taken prisoner. He died in June, succumbing in prison to the wounds he had sustained during his arrest. Mary’s father was arrested the next month, imprisoned for a year and looked likely to be transported, until Mary bribed the prison doctor to rule he was insane, and he was released. Interviewed in 1842, Mary averred that Magan had to be the informer, as he was the only other one who knew where they had been going: even Lord Edward was kept in the dark. Mary died of an unspecified illness in 1844, remembered as a true Irish patriot.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Gray ( c. 1778 - 1798)

Remembered in song and poem, little is actually known of the life of one of the true Irish heroines of the rebellion, but it is known that she was a Presbyterian, fought riding a horse alongside her brother and lover, holding the (or an) Irish flag, and was killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch shortly after the two men were cut down, pleading for the life of their sister with British soldiers (the hated Yeomen, who seem to equate to the Black-and-Tans of the early twentieth century) who had no intention of sparing her because she was a woman. Perhaps surprisingly (or perhaps because it was not opportune for them to do so) they did not rape Betsy - who was said to be beautiful - but cut off her sword hand and then shot her through the head.

Later the wife of one of the “Yeos” was seen wearing her earrings and her green petticoat, which ostracised them from the Catholics in their divided community.
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Old 06-18-2021, 03:24 AM   #95 (permalink)
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Red, White and… Green? The influence of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence on the Irish Rising

I noted elsewhere in this article that had Catholics been granted the same rights as Protestants in Ireland, there would have been little appetite for any sort of rebellion. Overall, Irish people didn’t seem to have a problem with being ruled by an English king, just one who oppressed them on the grounds of their religion. So up until about now, the mid to late eighteenth century, I see no moves towards gaining independence for Ireland. But with the French Revolution seeming, on the face of it, so successful, and with the breaking away of the American colonies from the iron and unfair grip of the king, to say nothing of the Polish Constitution passed in 1791, it must have looked to the United Irishmen as if Ireland had a chance. England had been weakened by its war with America (both in manpower and, more importantly, in its reputation as one of the superpowers of the eighteenth century) and the French, initially at least, were fellow Catholics.

I’m sure it wasn’t that glib or simple that the Irish just thought, sure why not, let’s give it a go, but the time must have seemed opportune to press their cause. In other ways, it might have been the worst possible time. Fuming at his defeat in America, worried over the expanding reach of the new French Republic, which had just taken Rome and captured the Pope, King George III might have been in no mood to take shit from a load of piss-poor Catholics and assorted what he would have considered traitors. While it’s unlikely he was spoiling for a fight, you could make the argument that he might have relished the chance to bolster back up his reputation, take out his frustration at being kicked out of America, and ready too to show the French they weren’t going to have it all their own way, that Britain was still, despite what they might have heard, a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, I could equally be talking complete bollocks. I’m no historian and these conclusions or guesses are not based on anything other than my own reading of the situation, which may be way off. Maybe the Irish just decided they’d had enough with being ruled by kings and queens. They’d tried unsuccessfully for centuries to sponsor the rise of a Catholic monarch to the English throne, and even when their prayers were answered, he was still a bastard to them. So it’s possible they said, Catholic or Protestant king? You know what? We’ll have none of the above. And decided it was time to be their own masters.

His Majesty, of course, had other ideas on that score.


Land of Spies and Snitches: Turncoats and Traitors of the Rising

Not every Irishman was dedicated to the overthrow of British rule over Ireland, it would seem, and as in so many instances down through our history, there was a line of people willing to sell out their comrades for either amnesty, money or both; people who betrayed Ireland at a time when, had it not been for their cowardice and treachery, we might have had a chance of winning our independence, something we would now have to wait a further 150 years for.

According to Brendan O' Cathaoir, writing in The Irish Times in 2004, Irishmen were not the best at keeping secrets in the first place, and while there were plenty ready to sell them out, some of their own talk may have sealed the fate of many. The idea of a quiet Irishman in a pub - particularly a fired-up, oppressed, English-hating would-be rebel, is hard to imagine, if such a creature existed. So some of the secret plans of the United Irishmen were doubtless loudly proclaimed in drinking establishments, boasted of, used as threats and forecasts of things to come, and surely reached the ears of those who should not have heard of such things.

All of that notwithstanding though, let’s look at some of the people who were instrumental in thwarting the first real attempt by Ireland to throw off her shackles and free her people.


Leonard McNally (1752 - 1820)

Probably not fair to call him a supergrass, as that referred more to a turncoat, someone captured for committing crime (usually of a paramilitary kind) and who turned informer for money. Supergrass was an expansion on the term grass, which has two proposed origins, one being that it comes from grasshopper, which is said to be Cockney rhyming slang for copper (though I’ve never heard of anyone using that term) and the other refers to the traditional snake in the grass, denoting a traitor. Whichever story is true, while McNally may not have been a supergrass he certainly was a grass, a spy who worked for the British government and betrayed his comrades in the United Irishmen.

A barrister by trade, McNally took it one step further, collaborating with the prosecution while ostensibly conducting the prisoner’s defence, to ensure a conviction. It does appear though that he didn’t join the United Irishmen intending to betray them (from all accounts and as far as I can gather) but was spooked by the betrayal of Reverend Jackson as he and Wolfe Tone discussed a French invasion of Ireland. He obviously found it profitable then to use his position in the organisation, of which he was a founder member, to pass secrets back to the British and ensure the coming rebellion failed. There’s no record of his having been pressured or threatened to do this, so whether he had intended to become a spy or it just happened, he’s still a bastard and his name reviled here in Ireland.

Seems he was never caught, either. His treachery (or patriotism I guess, depending on which side of the conflict you’re on) only came to light after his death.


Edward John Newell (1771 - 1798)

Possibly the worst and most prolific informer who did more to turn in rebels during and after the rebellion, Newell started out of course as a member of the United Irishmen, though originally he had tried to hold down various jobs, the longest being as a painter and glazier, his naturally fractious nature leading to his parting with his employer after two years. He did spend nearly a year at sea, but in the eighteenth century that could be almost just one voyage, so it’s no great indication that he took to the life of a sailor.

It’s not clear whether he joined the United Irishmen in order to inform on them, whether he felt pushed into it by circumstances or whether he just changed loyalties, but he became an invaluable spy for Dublin Castle. His preferred method seemed to be to accompany a squad of soldiers through villages and towns (suitably disguised) and point out rebels, who would later be arrested. He boasted in his autobiography, rather provocatively titled The Life and Confessions of Newell, the Informer, that he had sent 227 men into the tender mercies of the British government, for which he says he was paid £2,000.

Unlike McNally though he did not survive the rebellion, being assassinated (it is said, and only expected too) by the United Irishmen as he made plans to escape by sea to America. Bones found on the beach at Ballyholme in Bangor, Co, Down in 1828 were said to be his, indicating he may have drowned - or more likely, been drowned or thrown into the sea there.

There were even female traitors and spies…


Bridget Dolan (1777 - )

Perhaps the quintessential Irish tomboy, Bridget mixed with boys and learned to ride, a skill which would stand her in good stead when it came to taking part in the rebellion, which she did, riding on raiding trips and possibly reconnaissance ones too. In the rebellion, women were used as couriers, nurses, to carry supplies and carry messages and information to the men. Bridget was different. At Kilballyowen she took part in the ambush of a military supply convoy, setting the baggage car on fire. She later turned traitor though, selling out her comrades to the English and bearing witness against them in their trials after the rebellion was crushed (what? I told you that already).

Samuel Turner (1765 - 1807)

Appropriately named indeed! With aliases such as “Richardson” and “Fumes” he betrayed the United Irishmen, having been captured as part of their executive just prior to the rising, and was paid afterwards a pension from the British government. He it was who passed the information to the British that Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O’Connor were meeting in Hamburg to secure support for the rebellion. It’s said he died in a duel in the Isle of Man. He is however another one whose treachery was never uncovered while he lived, and he enjoyed the reputation of an Irish patriot, even sharing the company of later freedom fighter Daniel O’Connell.

Francis Higgins

One of four editors of supposedly nationalist newspapers and journals which paid obeisance to Dublin Castle and in addition informed on the Irish rebels, Higgins ran the so-called Freeman’s Journal, and was in fact a kind of handler or spymaster, controlling, among others, Francis Magan, who as we saw betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He was known as “the sham squire”, due to his actions in securing a bride through the agency of forged documents which portrayed him falsely as a wealthy landowner, his wife fleeing in the wake of the discovery of his treachery, and her father taking an action against him which landed him in jail. After a further fraud returned him behind bars Higgins fell in with the owner of a pub and gambling den, Charles Reilly, from whom he assumed ownership of both it and Reilly’s wife until her death, after which he turned the pub into a brothel.

In perhaps an attempt to go a bit more legitimate (and in so doing increase his rather low standing in Irish society) Higgins next got into the clothing trade, then became a barrister and finally had a chance to buy a share in, and then buy outright the newspaper mentioned above, The Freeman’s Journal. He made most of his profit from contracts received from the British government, and was happy to work for them, employing a network of spies which grew to a complement of seven at its height. In 1801 he received an annual pension from the government of £300 a year but died a year later.

Thomas Reynolds (1771 - )

Born a Catholic, he originally support the Catholic Convention of 1792, but later became more cautious and converted to Protestantism. He married a sister of Theobald Wolfe Tone’s wife, and joined the United Irishmen, ironically at the invitation of the man he was to betray, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, becoming its treasurer and given the rank of colonel. According to his own statement, when he realised how violent the rebellion was to be, he turned against them and informed Dublin Castle where the ruling council known as the Directory (surely as a nod to the same assemblage in France) could be found, leading to their arrest.

Having retired to his castle in Kilkea, he was more than surprised, as a government agent, to find it attacked and destroyed by British forces. In his biography Life of Thomas Reynolds, 1839, his son recounts the destruction of the castle: “It has been my father’s lot since then to witness the ravages of war in the peninsula, where Spanish, French, Portuguese and English, with their German auxiliaries, men trained to rapine, alternately plundered and devastated the country; but in all that disorder of which he was an eye-witness for six years, he has frequently assured me that he never saw such cold-blooded, wanton, useless destruction as was committed [by the King’s troops] at Kilkea and the surrounding country.”

After repeated attempts to kill him, he eventually sought the protection of Dublin Castle, declaring himself firmly on the side of the British, was given lodging there and gave evidence against his former comrades. He later left Ireland and went to Lisbon, Iceland and eventually died in Paris in 1836 at the age of 65.
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Old 06-18-2021, 04:07 PM   #96 (permalink)
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Just agree 100% with you Mindfulness. One day Trollybookends will establish himself as an Author....Realise the competition is heavy, thousands and thousands of writers out there ignored..Have to make a Story about yourself that hits the headliners...all will see you then...just my thoughts...
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Old 06-19-2021, 05:04 AM   #97 (permalink)
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Hey thanks guys! Just doin' what I love, and if others love it too, then so much the better. Dianne, I have stories if you're interested. They're all of the fantasy/horror/sci-fi theme, one or two crime, the odd bit here and there, some humour. If you want to take a look at anything just me know. In the meantime...
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Old 06-19-2021, 05:24 AM   #98 (permalink)
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Are you ready, Lord Edward? Uh-huh. Thomas? Yeah! Oliver? Okay.

Well all right, fellas.... LET'S GO!!!!


The Irish Rebellion, 1798


“England had its luckiest escape since the Spanish Armada” - Theobald Wolfe Tone, The Writing of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-1798 Volume II: America, France and Bantry Bay: August 1795 to December 1796 (December 26 1796)

With the failure of the French invasion of 1796 and his own return to exile, Wolfe Tone attempted to persuade the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte (who had yet to rise to the throne of France as its emperor) to invade Ireland, but he really wasn’t that interested. Napoleon, a product of the Revolution, cared little for the sectarian politics of Ireland and knew less about the country itself (though the idea of sticking it to England surely must have tickled him). Although born and baptised as a Catholic in Italy, he had no time for religion, other than using it to increase his power, and until the Concordat between France and Pope Pius VII in 1801 France technically had no state religion, Indeed, ten years after the signing Napoleon would invade Italy and take the pope hostage. In a chilling both reverse and future echo, French children at the time were taught to love not the Church but Napoleon (Henry VIII may not have gone quite this far but the implication was clear - that he was the Church and the Church was him, and Hitler of course ensured all members of the Nazi party swore a personal oath to him, not to Germany, though this wasn’t exactly a religious one), and later emancipated all faiths during his reign.

Despite that fact that it had been a failed effort, when reports came to the British government of Wolfe Tone’s approach to Napoleon it caused unease, and the rising tensions in Ireland only added to that, as magistrates in several counties were attacked. Ireland seemed to be heading for an uprising, and was not about to wait for French assistance that might not arrive. The Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Camden, was pressured to take action and arrest the leaders of the unrest, by hardline Irish MPs who had no idea what the strength of feeling was back in Ireland. Camden feared provoking the would-be rebels, but when it became clear the size of the force assembling he had no choice and moved to arrest some of the leaders. As expected and feared, this only whetted the appetite of the United Irishmen for rebellion, especially as their main leader had escaped.


Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763 - 1798)

Son of the first Duke of Leinster, Fitzgerald was a British Army officer who distinguished himself against the Americans in the War of Independence, but after spending time in France during the Revolution - where he publicly renounced his own title - he became enamoured of the Irish cause for freedom. Elected to the parliament in 1790 he sided with Grattan’s Patriot Party, and in 1796 travelled to Hamburg with Arthur O’Connor to try to open a dialogue with the French and gain their support for the planned uprising, much as Wolfe Tone was doing at the same time. The Duke of York warned his wife that Fitzgerald’s plans were known to them, and he had better step back, but he ignored such advice, leading to the abortive attempt at invasion at the end of the year.

Fitzgerald was betrayed on multiple fronts, first by Samuel Turner, who advised London of his dealings in Hamburg, and later by Leonard McNally, treachery that led to his almost being captured, and finally by Francis Magan, which did lead to his being arrested. His fellow Protestants however were willing to save him, allow him to escape to England and avoid the fate of a traitor, (most likely to spare the Ascendancy’s blushes at one of their own having thrown in his lot with the Irishmen) but Fitzgerald refused to abandon his comrades, and accordingly was taken, as related in the stories above of both McNallly and Mary Moore.

Although apparently he was entreated to go quietly, having been taken sick in bed (out of which he leaped when he heard the soldiers at the door) he attacked the men who came to arrest him, and was only subdued when Major Sirr shot him in the shoulder. As his wound does not seem to have been treated during his incarceration it worsened and eventually he died of his wounds on June 4 1798, at the height of the rebellion.

After his death, his sister made this eulogy of her brother: Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward FitzGerald's sister who addresses you: it is a woman but that woman is his sister: she would therefore die for you as he did. I don't mean to remind you of what he did for you. 'Twas no more than his duty. Without ambition he resigned every blessing this world could afford to be of use to you, to his Countrymen whom he loved better than himself, but in this he did no more than his duty; he was a Paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this.


Arthur O’Connor (1763 - 1852)
(Yes, another of history’s little quirks: two major leaders of the rebellion, born in the same year)

Born into a family of divided loyalties, O’Connor, a Protestant, had five brothers, three of which shared his republican sentiments (fuelled, again, by the French Revolution) while the other two were fiercely Unionist. His sister, Anne, forbidden by the family to marry the Catholic man she loved, killed herself. A Member of Parliament from 1790, he joined the United Irishmen in 1796 and with Fitzgerald sought French support for an invasion of Ireland. He later served as a general in Napoleon’s army, and retired to France, having been banished from Ireland.


Thomas Addis Emmet (1764 - 1827)

A lawyer by trade, Emmet joined the United Irishmen in 1795, becoming its secretary that year and being raised to the Executive two years later. Unlike Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who believed the rising should press on with or without them, Emmet favoured waiting for French aid but was taken by the British around the same time as Lord Edward Fitzgerald. You’d have to believe one of the main reasons for the failure of the rising must have been a dearth of leaders and commanders; they all seem to have been arrested before the damn thing got going!

Emmet was imprisoned until 1801 when he was visited by his brother Robert, who also tried to get the French to invade, but his efforts too were futile. Thomas Emmet emigrated to the USA where he became a successful lawyer, eventually rising to the position of Attorney General for the state of New York.

Oliver Bond (1760 - 1798)

The son of a dissenting minister, Bond was born in Donegal and from early in his career added his voice to those loudly demanding parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and then this road was blocked by the intransigence of the British Crown, he joined the United Irishmen. In defiance of the House of Lords, he continued to promote Irish independence and opposition to a new war with revolutionary France in which England was engaging, and for his pains was imprisoned for six months. A member of the executive of the United Irishmen, meetings usually took place in his house and it was there that the famous declaration was made and signed by all members: "We will pay no attention to any measure which the Parliament of this kingdom may adopt, to divert the public mind from the grand object we have in view; as nothing short of the entire and complete regeneration of our country can satisfy us."

He was with the fourteen other members of the council when the house was raided on the morning of March 12 and taken prisoner. Four months later, with the rising over and put down, he was convicted and sentenced to hang, this sentence commuted through the intercession of the remaining members of the United Irishmen, but it was all in vain: he died in prison less than five weeks later.

William James McNeven (1763 - 1841)

A physician and chemist, he too was part of the Catholic Convention but unlike Thomas Reynolds he did not withdraw, taking the harder line and joining the United Irishmen and became a contemporary of Wolfe Tone, Fitzgerald and O’Connor, helping to lay the groundwork for the proposed French invasion of Ireland. When that, and the subsequent rebellion failed, he was taken with the other leaders and imprisoned, first in Ireland and later in Scotland. Released in 1802, he joined Wolfe Tone in Paris, fighting for the French, but seeing there was to be no possibility of an invasion he left to go to America, where he held many important academic posts and is affectionately known as “the father of American chemistry”. He died in 1841 in New York.



Samuel Neilson (1761 - 1803)


Originally a member of the Ulster Volunteers, it seems the idea behind the United Irishmen came from Neilson, who suggested it to Henry Joy McCracken, and so he is seen as one of the founders. Though the newspaper he launched, the mouthpiece of the organisation, the Northern Star, took all his money and made him a target for libel (for which he was imprisoned twice) he did not give up and pressed for rebellion once released from prison. He was not on the side of those who wished to wait for the French to step into the fray, and was one of only two (the other being Lord Edward) who avoided arrest the morning Thomas Reynolds turned the leadership in.

Deciding he couldn’t do it on his own, Neilson set out to spring Lord Edward but unfortunately his time at Newgate told against him, as he was recognised by one of the jailer as he cased the joint, dragged in and imprisoned himself. After sharing the same fate as McNevin in the wake of the failure of the rising - imprisoned in Kilmainham and then Scotland - he made his way to the Netherlands but then also followed in McNevin’s footsteps to the USA, where died of yellow fever in 1803.


Henry Joy McCracken (1767 - 1798)

Founder member of the United Irishmen, we’ve already heard about the efforts of his sister Mary Ann during the rebellion, and that of six children they were the only two to have Irish/Catholic sympathies. Born into a relatively wealthy Presbyterian family (his father was a shipowner and the family made their fortune in linen, also founding the Belfast News Letter, which is still in publication today) he worked with Presbyterian tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers, and carried messages and information between Belfast and Dublin. Arrested in 1796 he was freed a year later due to serious illness.

He attempted to lead a rising in the north, but ran into apathy, fear and resistance, and a dogged determination not to go ahead without French support. His attempt to seize Antrim Town with a force of 4,000 - 6,000 men failed miserably and he went on the run with about fifty other survivors, but was captured at Carrickfergus as he waited to board a ship, and incarcerated in the jail there. Refusing to turn in his comrades he was hanged on July 17 1798, his body was released into the care of his sister Mary Ann. His last words were that he had done his duty. Perhaps the best eulogy to him was written years later by his friend James “Jemmy” Hope, in his memoir, United Irishman: The Autobiography of James Hope: "When all our leaders deserted us, Henry Joy McCracken stood alone faithful to the last. He led the forlorn hope of the cause ..."
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Old 06-19-2021, 09:02 AM   #99 (permalink)
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Thomas Palliser Russell (1767 - 1803)
(Yep, here we go again: born in the same year as McCracken, though he outlived him by a few years)

Another founding member of the United Irishmen, Russell was an Anglican and actually spent time in the British Army in India when younger, distinguishing himself by rescuing his commanding officer, but a meeting with Wolfe Tone (who described it as “the most fortunate of my life”) led to the setting up of the United Irishmen, and after spending some time as a magistrate in Dungannon, appalled by the attitudes against Catholics, he resigned and committed himself to the cause for Irish independence and Catholic emancipation. He was no admirer of Henry Grattan, believing him weak and ineffectual, and denouncing him as "declaiming, and grinning, and chattering at the abuses of that ministry, which but for him would not now exist".

In June 1795 he was among the gathering at Cave Hill where, prior to Wolfe Tone’s enforced exile, the United Irishmen made their pledge to the cause of Irish freedom, and the next year published A Letter to the People of Ireland, in which he took to task the inequalities of class in Ireland, the greedy aristocracy, and the urgent need for change in the country. He believed in a fairer, more equal government and the rights of the ordinary man and woman - he was a great supporter of suffrage for women - and was so opposed to slavery that he would refuse to even take sugar until the practice of slavery was abolished in the West Indies. He travelled widely throughout the North, recruiting for the United Irishmen, and became known to the government and their spies both there and back in Dublin.

Arrested in September of 1796 while in Belfast, he was in prison when the rising took place (and failed) and having served four years, when released he plotted with Robert Emmet, younger brother of Thomas, the details of a further rising, which also failed. Almost seven years to the day, he was again captured after the failure of the second rebellion, but this time there would be no escape for him. As he listened to the verdict being read against him for the crime of high treason, he expressed surprise "to see gentlemen on the jury (looking at the grand jury box) who had often expressed and advocated political opinions similar to those on which he acted, and for which he had forfeited his life, for the sentiments publicly delivered by them, had assisted to influence his conduct". Found guilty, he was hanged and beheaded.


James “Jemmy” Hope (1764 - 1847)

A Presbyterian, Hope was greatly influenced by the Hearts of Steel while living in Antrim, and joined the Volunteers, where he met both Henry Joy McCracken and Samuel Neilson. He lamented the secret nature of the United Irishmen, even though he later joined them, believing that the organisation should be upfront and overt about its opposition to the ruling government, prophesying that “oaths will never bind rogues”. Of course he was right, as we’ve seen from the long list of traitors above. Nevertheless he was elected to the executive in Ulster and organised the northern branch of the society, counting only Thomas Emmet, Thomas Russell, Neilson and McCracken as those who truly understood the causes of social disorder and conflict. He said of Belfast that it relied on a system built on three types: those whose industry produced the necessaries of life, those who circulated them, and those whose subsistence depended on fictitious claims and capital, and lived and acted as if men and cattle were created solely for their use and benefit.

In the spring of 1796 Neilson sent him south to organise the workers in Dublin, which he did, returning to Ulster to whip up support for the coming rising. In one week he travelled 700 miles, a hell of a distance in those times of non-mechanised transport and poor roads. During the Armagh Disturbances he attempted to reconcile the Peep o’ Day Boys with the Defenders, but when the rising came he fought well, later refusing amnesty as he believed to have done so would have been "not only a recantation of one’s principles but a tacit acquiescence in the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on thousands of my unfortunate associates".

He again answered the call in 1803, when Robert Emmet tried another rising, which was equally brutally put down, and was one of the few to survive not only the 1798 rising but also the 1803 one, dying at the age of 83 in Belfast in 1847.

Thomas McCabe (1739 - 1820)

An industrialist and rabid abolitionist, McCabe was born a Presbyterian in Belfast and vehemently opposed the setting up of a Belfast-based slave trading company, thundering “May God eternally damn the soul of the man who subscribes the first guinea!” He also prevented a slave-owner setting up his shipping business in the city. Wolfe Tone was impressed, and named him “the Irish Slave”. Having read the man’s pamphlet Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, McCabe invited Wolfe Tone to Belfast, where he set up the northern branch of the United Irishmen.

Though he was too old to fight in the rising, at 59 years old, the meeting to attack Antrim was held in Thomas’s house, and his son, William, acted as the bodyguard for Lord Edward Fitzpatrick before the rebel peer was arrested, later escaping to France. Having taken no provable active part in the rebellion, Thomas was not arrested and he died at age 80. Two of his five children were named after rebel leaders, Henry Joy McCabe and Robert Emmet McCabe.

William Putnam McCabe (1776 - 1821)

Third son of Thomas, he joined the United Irishmen and helped Jemmy Hope rally support for the coming rebellion. He was a master of disguise, at one point fooling a judge into believing he was a British Army officer and releasing convicted Defenders into his custody. This talent for disguise came in handy when, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald when he was arrested, he was able to mimic a Scottish accent and plead innocence, thus being set free. He went on to fight in Kildare and Mayo, before fleeing the country in the wake of the failure of the rising. First he settled in Wales (where he married) and later France, where he established a cotton mill which served as a gathering place for Irish rebels preparing for Robert Emmet’s 1803 rising.

With the failure of this rebellion too, and the decisive victory by Nelson at Trafalgar ending any hope of French help, McCabe accepted that there would be no more risings and sued for clemency with the British government. He was allowed entry to England and Scotland, but not his homeland. His end is a little pathetic, as it all seems to hinge on payment of a debt to, of all people, Arthur O’Connor. In an attempt to service this debt, McCabe returned to Ireland - illegally - and was seized and re-deported, this time to Portugal. He tried again, this time he was arrested and imprisoned, which weakened his health. Commenting on the excuse the Irishman pled for breaking his banishment, the Home Secretary remarked ‘"It might be true that Mr McCabe never went to any part of England or Ireland except upon business of his own; but it was very extraordinary that, in whatever part of the king's dominions his own business brought him, some public disturbance was sure to take place".

Whether McCabe actually came back to Ireland to try to get his money back from O’Connor, or whether it was subterfuge, cover for other, more rebellious purposes, was never proven. William Putnam McCabe died in Paris, one year after his father’s passing, half his age.
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Old 06-19-2021, 09:06 AM   #100 (permalink)
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Ulster Rises First: Sectarian Slaughter and the Dragooning of Ulster

While the British leadership in Dublin had feared declaring martial law initially, the commander of the forces in Ulster had no such problem.

General Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake (1744 - 1808)

Originally Governor of Limerick, Lake was promoted to command of the forces in Ulster, where he set about brutally dealing with the nascent rising there. He believed in his own maxim - “Nothing but terror will keep them in order” - and made good on his boast, ordering that anyone not in the service of the Crown relinquish any weapons they had, and had the leadership of the Belfast United Irishmen arrested and executed. He let loose the feared and hated Yeomanry - the “Yeos” - who burned houses, raped and tortured, flogged and hanged people, often without trial, or without evidence at a trial. Only Catholic and other dissenters were targeted, and some of the Yeos were in fact of the Orange Order.

His savagery knew no bounds, and was “untroubled by legal restraints or by his troops’ actions” as he essentially harrowed the north, in a wave of violence and repression which became known to history as “the dragooning of Ulster”. One particular punishment his men used was called “pitch-capping”, a process by which a thick piece of paper soaked in pitch (tar) was stuck to someone’s forehead and set alight. They also practiced “shearing”, in which a victim’s earlobes were cut off, for some reason.

General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was appointed to command of Ireland, tried to restore order, horrified at the butchery his predecessor had wrought on the country, but found himself blocked by Dublin Castle, who were still shaken by the almost-invasion by France which had only been prevented due to the Irish weather, and they gave their tacit approval and endorsement to Lake’s inhuman methods. Abercromby, disgusted, returned to England, leaving Lake to it. Rather ironically, and extremely unfortunately for the Irish, Lake was chosen as his replacement. He now had complete control over the island, and lost no time in bringing his barbaric methods of suppression south.

Critics warned that his brutal treatment of the Irish would force their hand into rebellion, not stay it. They were right.
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