Rebellion in the North Was Not Just Antrim and Down!by Anton McCabeAbsolute misery was the lot of the mass of the people in the Western half of Ulster in the 1790s. For most of the time, their energies were to concentrated on survival for revolt to feature on the agenda. Outside of the Presbyterian community, illiteracy was fairly widespread. In big stretches of the countryside of Tyrone, Donegal and Monaghan, the peasantry were Irish-speaking and didn't have a word of English. Into this society in the early 1790s burst the United Irishmen, with their aim to "make all men politicians" by encouraging ordinary people to think about the way society was organized - and the possibility of changing it. Their paper the Northern Star circulated widely. Every town and village of any significance seems to have had its circle which read the paper - it is estimated that each copy reached at least ten people. Most subscribers were middle-class radicals, but there were a sprinkling from more modest backgrounds. In a society with a low rate of literacy, there was a tradition of newspapers being read aloud to groups of people. The backwardness of the region did not, by the mid-1790s, prevent the majority in West Ulster from believing a revolution was needed - that is, a fundamental change in the organization of society. They would no longer allow a minority to exercise control over them by force: if peaceful means failed, they would answer force with force. While only a determined minority were prepared to take up arms to overthrow the existing social order, that minority enjoyed the support of the majority in society. One hostile observer estimated that the United Irishmen were "almost the whole country". International InfluenceFor all the region's isolation, international events fired ordinary people. First came the American Revolution of 1776, when the common people of Britain's American Colonies rose against the rule of the British upper classes, demanding control of their own destiny. Many were from Ulster, because tens of thousands had emigrated there in the previous three generations: of these, the great majority were Presbyterians, fleeing religious persecution. When the Americans won their freedom in 1784, the Yankee Club of Stewartstown, Co. Tyrone, sent a message to George Washington, president of the new republic, assuring him that his activities "shed their benign influence over the distressed Kingdom of Ireland". There was sympathy too for the English radicals. In October 1794, the English radical Thomas Hardy was tried for treason. When the papers brought the news of the "not guilty" verdict against him to Maguiresbridge, Co. Fermanagh, the majority of the village's inhabitants celebrated the event in the local inn well into the night. Because they emphasized the personal interpretation of the Bible there was a high degree of literacy among Ulster Presbyterians. What helped them to read the Bible also helped them imbibe revolutionary ideas. Thus, the English radical Tom Paine was favorite reading in the Clones area of Monaghan round 1792. The French Revolution of 1789 was the event that politicized society, providing a living example of reform to all disgusted at the old political and economic set-up. In the Fintona area of Tyrone, a favorite toast was "No tithes, half-rent and a French Constitution". In 1793 a Methodist preacher reported that, in the mountains and bogs of Cavan, Fermanagh and Leitrim, people were informed of political events even in places "where you could not conceive any news to reach". A government supporter wrote from Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan, in 1794 that there were people in the area who "are as real republicans as ever was in France". Support for the French Revolution passed into popular Gaelic song. The masses saw the advantages for them in the French system. From the start of the United movement, the leaders had called for Catholic Emancipation. This had little effect on the mass of Ulster Catholics, who cared little for the disadvantages endured by their co-religionists. Once the movement began talking of the abolition of tithes, reduction of rents, and an end to other economic injustices, they flocked to it. The internationalist spirit included the wish to extend the revolution. Towards the end of 1797 James Boyle from Coagh in Tyrone went to Glasgow University, with a bursary provided by the local community. His purpose was not just to study, but to swear in United Scotchmen. Breaking Down SectarianismThe revolutionary movement was able to break down old ideas as well as old isolations. West Ulster was an area of some sectarian tension. Prejudice of all sorts thrives when conditions are backward - and that was certainly the case! History had left its legacy: the Plantations had only taken place in the previous century: they, and the terrible war of 1641, were still vivid in popular memory. Tensions were particularly acute in North Armagh, flowing over into the adjoining (Eastern) area of Tyrone, and also influencing North Monaghan. For more than a decade there had been clashes between groups of Protestants - usually known as "Peep o' Day Boys" - and Catholics: these had organized themselves into the "Defender" organization (despite its Catholic membership, it had been set up by a Presbyterian minister). At least 7,000, and possibly as many as 14,000, Catholics fled North Armagh in the early to mid 1790s. Sectarianism was sharpened to fever-pitch by land-hunger: this was a densely-populated area of small farms, with many if the peasants being also weavers. There had been a slump in trade: landlords had been evicting Protestant tenants on some estates, replacing them with Catholics, as the Catholics tended to be poorer, used to a lower standard of living, and so able to pay higher rents. In 1795 the Orange Order was founded at the Diamon, outside Loughgall, just over the Armagh border from Tyrone, after a fight between "Peep o' Day Boys" and "Defenders". It was encouraged by the landlords and magistrates as a counter-balance to the United movement. The Dungannon-based General Knox perfectly expressed this establishment view: "...I have arranged a plan to scour a district full of registered arms or said to be so... and this I do not do so much with a hope to succeed to any extent as to increase the animosity between the Orangemen and the United Irishmen or Liberty men as they call themselves. Upon that animosity depends the safety of the Central Counties of the North (my emphasis A McC)". While the Orange Order was the main sectarian instrument used by the establishment, any other opening was also used. In the Coagh area of East Tyrone a local magistrate, Andrew Newton, worked up the prejudices of the Catholics to get them to abandon the United movement, in an area where membership and leadership were overwhelmingly Presbyterian. The rank-and-file Orangemen were peasants, laborers, the occasional tradesman, usually members of the Church of Ireland. The ordinary Orangemen shared the conditions that were driving his neighbors to become revolutionaries. In some cases, he was even poorer than they - the difference being that he was less politically aware, and so blamed Catholics and United Irishmen, rather than landlords and government, for his hardships. But he wasn't immunized for life against revolutionary ideas. In South Tyrone, Joseph Cassells, the Aughnacloy-based United Irish leader, was able to win over Orangemen in some numbers. The Drum area of South-West Monaghan was one of Orangeism's early strongholds. In the spring of 1797, the local Orangemen found that they were "in the exact same state with what they called the enemies of their country, the United Irishmen", and so defected to the rebel side. As a social movement, the United Irishmen broke down barriers between different religious groups. United Irish meetings used to be held in the chapel at Aghayaran (outside of Castlederg in Tyrone), with the majority attending being Presbyterian or Established Church, and a significant proportion yeomen. Fermanagh is another example of how the movement encompassed all creeds. Not only were many of the Fermanagh rank-and-file members of the Church of Ireland: so were many of the leaders. In that county, there were very few Presbyterians, the people being either Catholic or Church of Ireland. An added local factor was overcome, the strong traditions from 1641 and the Williamite wars, when the Protestant "Enniskilliners" had defied superior Catholic armies. Growth and RepressionThe Yeomanry were set up in the summer of 1796 as an auxiliary force, to be largely composed of Orangemen. They were no great threat to any hostile army, but an asolute menace to civilians. These Yeomanry too were subverted, and not just by the two-faced who wished to keep their options open. The captain of the Castle Gore yeomanry (near Castlederg) was the leading United Irish figure in that area. He wasn't the only yeoman to play an important part: Davidson, from the Dungannon area, was several times Tyrone delegate to the Ulster Committee, as well as a yeoman. The United movement in West Ulster did not develop as a simple gallop from success to success. In the late spring/early summer of 1796, it made an alliance with the Defenders from a position of strength, effectively taking over the other organization. Many of the Defenders had been influenced by the spirit of revolution, and had moved on in the direction of egalitarian social ideas. Pike manufacture began in Monaghan in the summer of 1796. Large-scale production began in Tyrone in the autumn, the Coagh area being particularly active. By the latter part of 1796, the United Movement had the wind in its sails. At the November Fair of 1796 in Stewartstown (Co. Tyrone) it felt confident enough to come into the open and give battle to the Yeomanry, and four days later to teach them another lesson at Cookstown Fair. Many on the government side felt all was lost, one clergyman in Dungannon writing, "...to the North of us is quite lost. Dungannon is frontier and Stewartstown an advanced post in the enemies country with many Royalists in it. Thence to the Northern Sea scarce a friend". But within a couple of months the movement, particularly in Tyrone, seemed to be finished. Wolfe Tone's expedition had sailed away from Bantry Bay at the end of December. There was a big round up of suspects at the end of 1796-early 1797. Many of the leaders were imprisoned, martial law was in force, the countryside was at the mercy if the magistrates and the yeomen, who engaged in wholesale murder, torture and burning of property. A whole section of the less committed members capitulated to the authorities. But within another couple of months, the pendulum had swung back again. Between January and March 1797 the Tyrone membership of the United Irishmen nearly doubled to 14,000: of these, it was estimated that at least 2,000 were prepared to take the field. The county was in a state of smothered revolt. In early January the notorious rebel-hunter, Dr. William Hamilton, was assassinated in a well-planned attack near Newtowncunningham in East Donegal, his killers receiving excellent cooperation from the lower classes in a strongly Presbyterian area. The result was an exodus of government supporters. Juries at Omagh Spring Assizes had to be packed with gentry, as the middle classes were no longer reliable. Tyrone and Monaghan were both heavily-organized counties: Monaghan had over 10,000 United men and some estimates make it the third-most organized county in Ulster. Someplaces were particular hot-beds: Coagh in Tyrone, Glaslough in Monaghan (which was on the border of the sectarian cauldron that was North Armagh), and Cootehill in Cavan. In Cootehill the necessity of assassinating reactionaries was the still of polite after-dinner conversation. Donegal was estimated to have 20,000 United men, mostly concentrated in the "Laggan" in the east of the county. The numbers loyal to the government collapsed, those that remained were demoralized. The Rev. Wright, a Church of Ireland clergyman in Clones, complained that "Men I could have put into my heart from a conviction of their loyalty have suddenly turned to the other side and are now from their situation in the country become the most dangerous enemies of the constitution". The united men were able to march through Dromore (Co. Tyrone), unchallenged, in broad daylight. Revolution DelayedSuccess in revolution is never guaranteed, but it is certain that had the Tyrone United men risen in the early part of 1797, they would have carried the county within a couple of days. Monaghan also would most likely have also fallen. Instead, in the early summer of 1797, the wing of the United Movement who were depending of a French invasion to achieve their aims gained the upper hand, and put a stop to military actions. Their argument was that this enforced discipline, preventing premature battle and the scattering of forces. In the run-up to a revolution, a series of partial battles are inevitable and necessary. They give the revolutionaries time to test the enemy, to gain experience and develop confidence in their own strength. The decision to delay took the pressure off government forces on the ground. The previously-beleaguered class of government supporters took sufficient heart as to return to their old habits of mass flogging of civilians and wholesale burning of Castleblayney in Monaghan established a mobile infantry force to strike terror over the whole stretch of country from West Tyrone to South Armagh. On May 11 his column massacred eleven unarmed civilians who were setting potatoes for an imprisoned United Irish suspect at Annaghmakerrig, Co. Monaghan. The following week, he launched an attack on Glaslough, burning houses and destroying property. Suspects were interned, first in prisons then once these were full, on a tender in Lough Foyle. The more determined opposed the policy of waiting on the French. The sentiments of a resolution passed at Ballynahinch, Co. Down, in May 1797 were widely shared: "Resolved that our delegation do demand in explicit terms the nature of the engagement with France. We think that men who have risked their life and property in the support of the business could be entrusted with such information and that they be instructed to bring forward the business with or without such Assistance". Coagh was an area where such a spirit was prevalent: a section there was none too keen on a French invasion, which they saw as exchanging the domination of one foreign power for that of another. For all that some men held firmer, the less committed began to fall away. The continued postponement of the Rising, the orders against any armed action, the endless promises of a French invasion that never came, sapped zeal, energy and confidence. It was in this situation that the spirit of the Monaghan Militia was broken. This regiment had been well-infiltrated by the United movement, until three of the leading spirits were executed in early May 1797 at Blaris Moor (outside Lusburn). Then the former revolutionaries became zealous servants of the government, sacking the offices of the Northern Star the following week. In an era of atrocities, they showed particular blood-thirstiness after the Battles of Antrim and Ballynahinch in June the following year. This general loss of hope led to a certain hemorrhaging of Catholics from the movement by the end of 1797: at the bottom of Ulster's social pile, they felt more vulnerable and thus more fearful of the authorities. A Last StandRepeated hammer-blows of repression without a riposte from the revolution thinned the ranks, with many being pressed into the navy, or forced to flee to America - either as a sentence, or to evade either the prison cell or the hangman's rope. No movement could bear such a steady loss of experienced leaders. The sheer pressure from the government forces also sapped the energy which is needed for making revolution. Many formerly comfortably-off families were reduced to the status of beggars by imprisonment and destruction of property. Not that all was lost. Even by the start of 1798 it was estimated that over one-third of the military in Tyrone were United men. On May 19, 1798 the Ulster Committee met in Armagh, and decided on simultaneous risings, but the fighting spirit had been sapped. The general opinion was that, if there was to be no rising, they would all return to their homes and occupations, not meet again "and deceive the people any longer". Although aware the cause was hopeless, and to fight almost suicidal, some from West Ulster still took the field. Some Cavan and Monaghan men marched to join the rebellion in Meath. A couple of days after the defeat in Antrim, the Maghera area of South Derry rose, but without any leadership. With the other rebel forces in Ulster smashed, they dispersed. A handful of Monaghan men trekked to Down and took part in the battle of Ballynahinch. When in August the French landed, too few and too late, at Killala in Mayo, men from the Roslea and Belleek areas of Fermanagh walked to join them. The last act of the Rising in Ulster has been written out of history. On August 26, 800 (including four Presbyterian ministers) died in a bloody rising at Baileborough, Co. Cavan, where they had met in the hope of marching to join the French forces. The composition of the rising also disproves those who say that the North had then fallen away from the movement because the rebels in the South were largely Catholic. Demoralization followed, but revolutionary ideas, and organization round them, did not completely disappear. William Henry Hamilton of Enniskillen returned from France to be one of Robert Emmet's most trusted lieutenants for the planned rising of 1803. Emmet based himself much more on the lower-classes than did the men of 1798. His movement was thus far less compromised by informers. Mid-Monaghan was one of the areas where men were waiting to rise, with William Henry as an organizer. But the 1803 rising was confined to Dublin, premature and a failure, and William Henry was captured. As a revolutionary, he personified all that was internationalist about the United Irishmen, and died fighting in the army of Simon Bolivar for the liberation of South America from the Spanish Empire. Acknowledgement: This article is largely based on material in Brendan McEvoy's The United Irishmen in Tyrone and Brian McDonald's The United Irishmen in South Ulster. James "Jemmy" Hope (1763-1847) of Templepatrick, Co. Antrim, was one of the most radical leaders of the United Irishmen. A weaver, he had little schooling and was almost entirely self-taught. He dedicated over a decade of his life to revolutionary activity, and was a confidant of all the most resolute leaders. The following is a brief extract from his memoirs:
"The influence of the union soon began to be felt at all public places, fairs, markets, and social gatherings, extending to all the counties of Ulster, for no man of an enlightened mind had intercourse with Belfast, who did not return home determined on disseminating the principles of the union among his neighbors. Strife and quarreling ceased in all public places, and even intoxication. |