Misplaced Pages

#951048

72-559: In the early years of the nineteenth century, St. John's had a large Irish population with some members of affluence. Many of these Irish both saw social needs which were not being met by government, and desired to belong to a fraternal, gentlemanly organization. Under Bishop O'Donel 's patronage, they founded the BIS under the motto He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord . By the 1820s, many BIS members were beginning to play prominent roles in

144-582: A French émigré who walked the length and breadth of Ireland in 1796–97, was appalled to encounter in a cabin upon the banks of the lower Bann 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 "foppish talkers" in Paris

216-486: A Dublin barrister , the participants who resolved to reform the government of Ireland on "principles of civil, political and religious liberty" were Presbyterians . As Dissenters from the established Anglican ( Church of Ireland ) communion, they were conscious of having shared, in part, the civil and political disabilities of the Kingdom's dispossessed Roman Catholic majority . Although open to them as Protestants,

288-595: A Volunteer Convention in 1779, boycotted a third in 1793. Under Ascendancy patronage they were already moving along with the Peep o' Day Boys , battling Catholic Defenders in rural districts for tenancies and employment, toward the formation in 1795 of the loyalist Orange Order . In 1793, the Government itself breached the principle of an exclusively Protestant Constitution. Dublin Castle put its weight behind Grattan in

360-482: A critically-debating public": the first signed Philoguanikos (probably the paper's founder, Arthur O'Connor ), 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 [who] scream in abhorrence of the idea of a female politician". (Among those who took the Society test in response to

432-524: A decade before. In 1793, a magistrate in that same area, near Coleraine , 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 The man from God-knows-where ) was one such agitator. Recruiting for the Society, he ranged from Belfast as far as Counties Donegal and Sligo . In recruiting

504-581: 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 Parliament summoned by James II in 1689, and clearer title to what had been forfeit not ninety but forty years before (in the Cromwellian Settlement ), Catholics did not insist upon

576-655: 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 Whig 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. Thomas Russell had invited Tone to

648-475: 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 "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

720-771: 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". Tone cited the examples of the American Congress and French National Assembly where "Catholic and Protestant sit equally" and of the Polish Constitution of May 1791 (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

792-459: Is absent. O'Donel's health deteriorated in the early 19th century, and he resigned his position in 1807 and returned to Ireland. He died of shock in 1811 after suffering minor injuries in a fire. Theologically, O'Donel subscribed to the Augustinian position that religion imposes a "reverential fear" on mankind's "naturally licentious" nature. This, and his belief in the essential mystery of

SECTION 10

#1732772751952

864-758: The Rights of Man (of which the new society was to distribute thousands of copies for as little as a penny apiece), had won the argument. Three months before, on 14 July, the second anniversary of the Fall of the Bastille 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 land." Bastille Day

936-640: The French Declaration of the Rights of Man , the Presbyterian merchants who formed the first United society in Belfast in 1791 vowed to make common cause with their Catholic -majority fellow countrymen. Their "cordial union" would upend the landed Anglican Ascendancy and hold government accountable to a reformed Parliament. As it radiated out from Belfast and from Dublin, the society drew on

1008-817: The French Revolution , to secure representative government in Ireland . Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican rebellion . Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Irish Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain . Espousing principles they believed had been vindicated by American independence and by

1080-646: The Parliament in Dublin offered little opportunity for representation or redress. Two-thirds of the Irish House of Commons represented boroughs in the pockets of Lords in the Upper House . Belfast's two MPs were elected by the thirteen members of the corporation , all nominees of the Chichesters, Marquesses of Donegall . Swayed by Crown patronage, parliament, in any case, exercised little hold upon

1152-584: The Saint Bonaventure's College and the opening of St. Patrick's School. In 1996, the then Taoiseach of Ireland , John Bruton , visited the BIS in St. Patrick's Hall on St. Patrick's Day . The headquarters of the BIS, fronting on Queen's Road, backing on Military Road opposite of the Basilicia, with its side on Garrison Hill, was converted into a condominium residence in the late 1990s/early 2000s;

1224-461: The Star positively urged unions for labourers and cottiers ), McCracken, and Emmet , the only United Irish leaders "perfectly" understood the real causes of social disorder and conflict: "the conditions of the labouring class". 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"

1296-806: The United Irishmen's first test or oath, was the son of the minister of the First Church; Samuel Neilson , owner of the largest woollen warehouse in Belfast, was in the Second Church; Henry Joy McCracken , 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 Westminster Confession of Faith , and

1368-522: The "Irish Jacobins" as an established democratic party in Belfast [they had issued an address calling for a universal franchise in December 1792] composed of "persons and rank long kept down" and [although joined in their proceedings by well-to-do United Irishmen such as the banker William Tennant ], chaired by a "radical mechanick" (sic). When April 1795 the new Lord Lieutenant , Earl Fitzwilliam , after publicly urging Catholic admission to parliament

1440-445: 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" and making "tools of them". In final months before the rising, the paper of the Dublin society, The Press , published two direct addresses to Irish women, both of which "appealed to women as members of

1512-481: The 1798 uprising they came forward in many capacities, some, as celebrated in later ballads ( Betsy Gray and Brave Mary Doyle, the Heroine of New Ross ), as combatants. Under the command of Henry Luttrell , Earl Carhampton (who, in a celebrated case in 1788, Archibald Hamilton Rowan had accused of child rape), troops treated women, young and old, with great brutality. Jacques-Louis de Bougrenet de La Tocnaye,

SECTION 20

#1732772751952

1584-663: The Belfast gathering in October 1791 as the author of An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland . 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 Huguenot 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 Napoleon 's deposition and imprisonment of Pope Pius VI ). For Tone

1656-508: 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 Ulster (where they convened provincial conventions) they mobilised a much wider section of Protestant society. In April 1782, with Volunteer cavalry, infantry, and artillery posted on all approaches to

1728-928: The English interest, Presbyterians had been voting by leaving Ireland in ever greater numbers. From 1710 to 1775 over 200,000 sailed for the North American colonies . When the American Revolutionary War commenced in 1775, there were few Presbyterian households that did not have relatives in America, many of whom would take up arms against the Crown . Most of the Society's founding members and leadership were members of Belfast's first three Presbyterian churches, all in Rosemary Street. The obstetrician William Drennan , who in Dublin composed

1800-708: The Franciscan Prior in Waterford . Following developments in England, Catholics in Newfoundland gradually gained religious liberty, made explicit by a public declaration by the Governor in 1784. After a request from Irish merchants there to Bishop William Egan , O'Donel was sent to St. John's as Prefect Apostolic the same year, largely to deal with the presence of "unlicensed" and "unruly" priests on

1872-653: The Greatest Happiness of the Greater Number its end — its general end Real Independence to Ireland, and Republicanism its particular purpose." 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 by Englishmen, and

1944-617: 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 French Constitution of 1791 . In February 1794, they published, in the Dublin Evening Post and the Northern Star , a call for universal manhood suffrage . In the exercise of political rights, property, like religion,

2016-639: The Parliament in Dublin, Henry Grattan , leader of the Patriot opposition , had a Declaration of Irish Rights carried by acclaim in the Commons. London conceded, surrendering its powers to legislate for Ireland . In 1783 Volunteers converged again upon Dublin, this time to support a bill presented by Grattan's patriot rival, Henry Flood , to abolish the proprietary boroughs and to extend the existing, Protestant , forty-shilling freehold county franchise. But

2088-629: The Rights of Man and of the Citizen France and Civil Constitution of the Clergy , the greatest of the Catholic powers, was seen to be undergoing its own Glorious Revolution . In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Edmund Burke had sought to discredit any analogy with 1688 in England. But on reaching Belfast in October 1791, Tone found that Thomas Paine 's response to Burke,

2160-685: The Rights of Woman (1792). But the call was not made for women's civic and political emancipation. In publishing excerpts from Wollstonecraft's work, the Star focussed entirely upon issues of female education. In the rival News Letter , 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

2232-671: The Scottish Covenanting tradition. Of those who – bowing to "no king but Jesus" – were elected to preach by the Reformed Presbytery in Ulster , 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 Antichrist defeated in

Benevolent Irish Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-528: The Society. As were the Presbyteries, Volunteer companies and Masonic lodges through which they recruited, the United Irishmen were a male fraternity. In serialising William Godwin 's Enquiry Concerning political Justice (1793), the Northern Star 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 Mary Wollstonecraft 's Vindication of

2376-552: The Third sustained an Old Light 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 Glasgow of the Ulster divine Francis Hutcheson) 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

2448-528: 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. 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

2520-475: The abolition of bigotry in religion and policies, and the equal distribution of the Rights of Man through all Sects and Denominations of Irishmen". 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 Dublin Castle Executive , would be checked constitutionally by

2592-426: The address called a Catholic question." The only question was "whether Irishmen should be free." William Steel Dickson , 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, [so that] they may amend the breed, and produce a race of beings who will inherit the capacity from us?" The amendment

2664-418: The appeal were the writers Henrietta Battier and Margaret King ). 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. By 1797 the Castle informer Francis Higgins

2736-646: 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 him again by the Reverend William Bruce . 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. In his Argument Tone insisted that, as

2808-475: The bricklayers, carpenters and other trades. In the face of "demands made in a tumultuous and illegal 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. James (Jemmy) Hope , a self educated weaver, who joined the Society in 1796, nonetheless was to account Neilson, along with Russell (who in

2880-407: The divine nature gave rise to his support for religious tolerance, since God's inscrutability would inevitably lead to theological disagreement, but furthermore, as he wrote to his contemporary John Jones, "an observant [C]hristian of any denomination is...a better man". United Irishmen Inactive Defunct The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of

2952-502: The exclusive interests of England and of the landed Ascendancy. 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". On Bastille Day 1792 in Belfast, the United Irishmen had occasion to make their position clear. In

Benevolent Irish Society - Misplaced Pages Continue

3024-637: The executive, the Dublin Castle administration which through the office of the Lord Lieutenant 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" Faced with the tithes , rack rents and sacramental tests of this Ascendancy , and with the supremacy of

3096-435: The firm conviction that "a general Union of all 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 St Mary's Chapel , Belfast's first Catholic church, to mark its inaugural mass. With the news in 1789 of revolutionary events in France enthusiasm for constitutional reform revived. In its Declaration of

3168-430: 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 they were theologically, leadership was found among church ministers and their elders, and not least from those who were foremost in championing

3240-481: The following year was greeted with similar scenes and an address to the French National Assembly hailing the soldiers of the new republic as "the advance guard of the world". It was in the midst of this enthusiasm for events in France that William Drennan proposed to his friends "a benevolent conspiracy — a plot for the people", the "Rights of Man and [employing the phrase coined by Hutcheson]

3312-421: 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, [and] to exclude those in which we differ", the Society did not itself tie the prospect of 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

3384-679: The island. In addition to his personal popularity, one of his qualifications for the position was an ability to preach in Irish language in Newfoundland . O'Donel found that insubordinate priests were fighting Irish battles, and set about reorganizing the Catholic Church in Newfoundland . He built a chapel in St. John's, established parishes outside the capital, and gradually brought priests under his authority. During his first few years in post, O'Donel also found that Catholic Emancipation

3456-500: The legislature, AND BY SUCH A MEASURE ONLY. In the "explosion" of handbills, pamphlets and newspapers in 1790s, a small number of tracts "directly addressed economic inequalities". Union doctrine; or Poor man's catechism (1796?) proposed he confiscating the lands of the Established Church to finance care for pregnant women and the elderly, and education for the young. As a body, however, United Irishmen did not propose

3528-600: 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 the society. The true author may have been her friend Jane Greg , described by informants as "very active" in Belfast "at the head of the Female Societies" (and by General Lake as being "the most violent creature possible"). Mary Ann McCracken took Drennan's test but stood aloof from

3600-575: 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. 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 "test": "an impartial and adequate representation of

3672-448: The passage of a Catholic Relief Act . 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

SECTION 50

#1732772751952

3744-416: The people of Ireland", and to drop the reference to the Irish Parliament (with its Lords and Commons ). This Painite radicalism had been preceded by an upsurge in trade union activity. In 1792 the Northern Star 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

3816-414: The political life of Newfoundland and the Irish community in St. John's. By the 1840s the BIS had become so wealthy and influential that, next to the House of Assembly and the governor's council, the BIS was able to marshal considerable resources to address social problems and needs. In 1876 it sponsored the establishment in St. John's of the Irish Christian Brothers , and assisted with the maintenance of

3888-423: The price of a single condo unit can reach over 1 million Canadian dollars. The BIS is now based about two minutes walk west at 30 Harvey Road. 47°34′00.43″N 52°42′33.8″W  /  47.5667861°N 52.709389°W  / 47.5667861; -52.709389 James Louis O%27Donel James Louis O'Donel (1737, Knocklofty , County Tipperary , Ireland – April 1, 1811, Waterford , Ireland)

3960-413: The prospect of French assistance, agents were active in organising "United" societies in Scotland and in England with whom it was hoped action might be co-ordinated. Beginning in May 1798, martial-law 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. In

4032-470: The rebellion's centenary in 1898, Ireland's major political traditions, unionist , nationalist and republican , have claimed and disputed the legacy of the United Irishmen, and of the union they sought to effect between Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. The Society was formed at a gathering in a Belfast tavern in October 1791. With the exception of Thomas Russell , a former India-service army officer originally from Cork , and Theobald Wolfe Tone ,

4104-441: 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

4176-427: 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". 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,

4248-422: The soldiers in the St. John's garrison (including other ranks in the Royal Newfoundland Regiment , the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles and the Royal Artillery ) was prevented when a terrified O'Donel, upon hearing of the plans, alerted the authorities. The 19th-century historian Charles Pedley alleged that O'Donel shared his information in violation of the Seal of Confession , but credible evidence for this claim

4320-427: The structure and ritual of freemasonry 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. Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform became the call for universal manhood suffrage and a republic. Sharing a common democratic programme, and trading on

4392-399: The uniform of an Irish Volunteer , with his musket propped against the pulpit door. Assessing security on the eve of the American War , the British Viceroy , Lord Harcourt , described the Presbyterians of Ulster as Americans "in their hearts". For the original members of the Society, the Irish Volunteers were a further source of prior association. Formed to secure the Kingdom as

SECTION 60

#1732772751952

4464-419: The wake of the rebellion, the British government pressed a union with Great Britain upon the Irish Parliament and transferred its unreformed, exclusively Protestant, representation to Westminster . 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 rising in Dublin . Since

4536-441: The world". In Belfast Drennan's sister Martha McTier and McCracken's sister Mary-Ann , and in Dublin Emmett's sister Mary Anne Holmes and Margaret King , 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. Mary Ann McCracken , in particular,

4608-500: Was "as real and ought to be as really represented" as the "fixed and solid property" that presently monopolised Parliament. In offering manhood suffrage, it made a direct appeal to these ranks, "the poorer classes of the community": 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 unsafe , to mention? Believe us, they can be redressed by such reform as will give you your just proportion of influence in

4680-410: 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". Women formed associations within the movement. In October 1796 the Northern Star published a letter from the secretary of the Society of United Irishwomen. This blamed the English, who made war on

4752-480: 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 River Bann , 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

4824-420: Was less than absolute, and in 1786 he was physically assaulted by the future King of England , Prince William Henry . In 1796, O'Donel was consecrated as titular bishop of Thyatira at Quebec on 21 September. O'Donel's ministry in Newfoundland was largely characterized by trying to maintain peace, both between fellow Catholics and with the British. In 1800, imminent plans for a United Irishmen uprising by

4896-659: Was recalled and replaced by Ascendancy hard-liner, Earl Camden , 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

4968-466: 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 William James MacNeven , were reportedly active in the Dublin United Irishmen. On the role in the movement of peasant and other working women there are fewer sources. But in

5040-454: Was the absence, beyond the disclaimer of wholesale Catholic restitution, of any scheme or principle of land reform . Jemmy Hope might be clear that this should not be "a delusive fixity of tenure [that allows] 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

5112-410: Was the first Roman Catholic bishop of St. John's , Newfoundland . O'Donel was born into a prosperous family and received a classical Christian education before entering the Franciscan order. After the Penal Laws ceased to be rigorously enforced, he travelled to Rome to study for the priesthood, becoming ordained in 1770. He later taught philosophy and theology in Prague , and in 1777 became

5184-596: Was to be excluded from consideration. The new democratic programme was consistent with the transformation of the society into a broad popular movement. Thomas Addis Emmet recorded an influx of "mechanics [artisans, journeymen and their apprentices], petty shopkeepers and farmers". In Belfast, Derry , other towns in the North, and in Dublin, some of these had been maintaining their own Jacobin Clubs. Writing to her brother, William Drennan, in 1795 Martha McTier describes

#951048