A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Irish History: Fascinating Snippets of Irish History from the Ice Age to the Peace Process

by Jonathan Bardon

  MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

  We thank you for your noble and spirited, though hitherto ineffectual efforts, in defence of the great constitutional and commercial rights of your country. Go on. The almost unanimous voice of the people is with you; and in a free country, the voice of the People must prevail. We know our duty to our Sovereign, and are loyal. We know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be Free. We seek for our Rights, and no more than our Rights; and, in so just a pursuit, we should doubt the Being of a Providence, if we doubted of success.

  The Dungannon Convention also debated the prickly question of Catholic rights. Luke Gardiner, Dublin’s leading Volunteer commander and a Patriot MP, had successfully steered a motion through the Irish parliament to remove some of the most damaging legal disabilities—above all, Catholics were now able (for the first time in nearly ninety years) to buy land outright. Only two delegates refused to support the resolution adopted by the Volunteers:

  ... that, as men and as Irishmen, as Christians and as Protestants, we rejoice in the relaxation of the penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects.

  The resolution was supported by Captain the Rev. Robert Black: ‘I rejoice to hear a motion in favour of our Roman Catholic brethren; Sir, I am proud to second it as a Protestant Dissenting clergyman, as an Irish Independent Volunteer.’

  Few of the delegates at Dungannon could have predicted that legislative independence would be won just a few weeks hence.

  Episode 140

  ‘I AM NOW TO ADDRESS A FREE PEOPLE’

  Our freedom’s declared, we’ll chase dull sorrows,

  All cares we’ll banish to feast and banquet,

  With bonfire smoke we’ll darken the skies.

  What mortal so grave in aged Hibernia!

  As to hate the frolic by fate allotted

  To groaning, moaning widows and wives.

  The Dungannon Convention of Volunteer delegates in February 1782 had electrified the whole of Ireland. The resolutions calling for Ireland’s legislative independence were enthusiastically ratified by meetings all across the island. Two Patriot MPs, Henry Grattan and Henry Flood, rallied support with fiery speeches.

  Dungannon’s great oak from whose trunk honey dropped,

  Whose branches spread over the four wide provinces,

  Ye topers now honour with port and claret!

  Hallo! Go maidin geal toast sweet Harry Flood

  In copious, flowing, logical tide.

  Henry Grattan seized his opportunity when the Irish parliament opened on 16 April 1782. Following catastrophic defeat in the American War of Independence, Lord North’s Tory government at Westminster was forced to resign. On the opening of the parliamentary session in Dublin, the public galleries and the bar of the House of Commons in College Green were packed, so great was the anxiety to hear what the new government intended. As soon as the Speaker had taken the chair, the Secretary of State, John Hely Hutchinson, read out the Address from the Throne, which outlined the Whig government’s intentions. This, rather vaguely, stated that the government intended to make concessions. Grattan then rose to make a carefully rehearsed speech which made the assumption that all the demands of the Patriots and the Volunteers would be met:

  I am now to address a free people: ages have passed away, and this is the first moment you could be distinguished by that appellation.

  I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, that I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by what Heaven-directed steps you have proceeded until the whole faculty of the nation is braced up to the act of her own deliverance.

  I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift! Spirit of Molyneux! Your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation! In that new character I hail her! And bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto perpetua.

  ... ‘Esto perpetua’ means ‘may it be forever’...

  She is no longer a wretched colony, returning thanks to her governor for his rapine, and to her king for his oppression.... Look to the rest of Europe, and contemplate yourself, and be satisfied. Holland lives on the memory of past achievements; England has sullied her name by an attempt to enslave her colonies. You are the only people—you, of the nations of Europe, are now the only people who excite admiration.... For acknowledging American liberty, England has the plea of necessity; for acknowledging the liberties of Ireland she has the plea of justice.

  Grattan then proposed an amendment to the address of thanks to the king, which in effect was a demand for full legislative independence for the Irish parliament. Grattan’s speech had such a powerful effect that not a single MP voted against the amendment.

  The alarmed Chief Secretary, Richard Fitzpatrick, wrote to London:

  Debate it can hardly be called, since that implies discussion.... Grattan’s speech was splendid in point of eloquence, all declamation, and what there was weak in argument, his manner I think, though certainly very animated, disgusting to the last degree from affectation.

  Nevertheless, feelings were running so high in Ireland that the Prime Minister, Lord Shelburne—himself owner of a huge estate in Munster—felt that all demands would have to be conceded. In a matter of weeks the necessary legislation was passed in London: no longer could Westminster pass laws for Ireland; and no longer did bills in the Irish parliament need to be approved by the English Privy Council. The Volunteers and the Patriots had won. Ireland appeared to enjoy an equal status with Britain in the British Empire. That summer a huge Volunteer parade in Dublin’s Phoenix Park celebrated the triumph. A grateful Irish House of Commons voted Grattan, a comparatively poor man, the huge sum of £50,000 so that he could buy himself an estate to become a country gentleman. For the remainder of its existence the Irish legislature would become known as ‘Grattan’s Parliament’. This was a period of apparent prosperity, when Dublin reached its climax as a glittering Georgian capital, adorned with elegant new streets and magnificent new public buildings, including the Four Courts and the Custom House.

  Henry Flood’s nose was out of joint: Flood was not at all pleased that Grattan had pushed him out of the limelight. He now became the champion of those Volunteers who wanted to bring about radical reform of the Irish parliament itself.

  Episode 141

  THE FAILURE OF REFORM

  The eighteenth-century Irish parliament in College Green was even more unrepresentative of the people than the Westminster parliament. For a start Catholics—three-quarters of the population—were ineligible to sit as members of parliament, and until the final decade of the century they were unable to vote; even a Protestant married to a Catholic could not vote. Only a handful of Presbyterians ever got elected, and there were no Presbyterians in the Irish House of Lords.

  There was no secret ballot, and in county elections landlords or their agents simply told the tenants how to vote—or risk eviction. Out of a total of 300 MPs, 234 were elected from boroughs, that is, towns with their own councils. Only a few, such as Dublin and Cork cities, had reasonably large electorates. Some fortunate towns, such as Lisburn, had a ‘potwalloper’ franchise—in other words, any man with a pot, a hearth to place it on, and a house could vote—only if he was a Protestant, of course.

  Most boroughs were owned by landlords, and it was they who decided who would be elected. Belfast was typical: Lord Donegall appointed all thirteen members of the Corporation, and they alone elected two members to sit in the Irish Commons. Some boroughs had no inhabitants at all: Bannow, Co. Wexford, was just a pile of sea sand without a single house; at Clonmines, in the same county, there was but one solitary house; and at Harristown, Co. Kildare, there nothing other than a single tree. Yet those boroughs each returned two members to parliament.

  The Irish Volunteers, with considerable justification, felt that they represented the Protestants of Ireland rather better than parliament. They had played a pivotal role in forcing the Bri
tish government to grant the Irish parliament legislative independence in 1782. Now they called for a radical reform of the Irish parliament. The campaign was kicked off by the Volunteers of Lisburn in 1783 and was enormously boosted when two young aristocrats, Hercules Rowley and John O’Neill, were elected by the freeholders of Co. Antrim. Both men were Volunteers and committed to the cause of reform.

  The reformers turned to the great orator Henry Flood for leadership. A Volunteer reform convention was held in every province, the first in Ulster at Dungannon on 8 September. These in turn elected 160 delegates to meet in Dublin on 10 November 1783. On that day the delegates met at the Royal Exchange and then marched in procession through the streets, escorted by the city and county Volunteers, with drums beating and colours flying, as thousands of spectators cheered them on to the Rotunda. Flood inspired the delegates with his speeches:

  Is there a man who will say that the constitution wants no reform? Will any man be found to say, that the constitution is perfect, when he knows the honour of the peerage may be obtained by any ruffian who possesses borough interest?

  After many days debate the delegates agreed on a programme, and on 29 November Flood, still in his Volunteer uniform, presented his parliamentary reform bill to the Commons.

  For some time members of the Irish parliament had been alarmed at the presence of armed Volunteers just a mile from College Green. They were outraged by Flood’s instructions to the delegates not to disband until they knew the outcome of the bill. Even supporters of parliamentary reform felt that an attempt was being made to overawe parliament by military force. The Attorney-General, Barry Yelverton, was not slow to express his objections:

  I do not mean to go into the discussion of the bill, but ... I will say, if it originates with an armed body, it is inconsistent with the freedom of debate for this house to receive it. We sit not here to receive propositions at the point of the bayonet. When the Volunteers with that ... rude instrument the bayonet probe and explore a constitution which requires the nicest hand to touch, I own my respect and veneration for them is destroyed.

  Instead of expanding on the merits of his bill for parliamentary reform, Flood was forced to defend the conduct of the Volunteers, pointing out that Yelverton himself was a Volunteer:

  Why did not the right honourable gentleman make a declaration against them?... He was then one of their body—he is now their accuser ... he cannot now bear to hear of Volunteers—but I will ask him, and I will have a starling taught to holla it in his ear, Who got you the free trade? Who got you the constitution? Who made you a nation?—the Volunteers.

  Most MPs, however, agreed with the Attorney-General. Flood’s bill was heavily defeated. What would the Volunteers do now? They were too law-abiding even to think of attempting to overawe parliament by force. They simply went home. Their moment was over. The Irish parliament would not be reformed.

  Episode 142

  ‘FOURTEENTH JULY 1789; SACRED TO LIBERTY’

  The defence of Ireland against a possible French invasion had depended entirely on the Volunteers. By 1784, however, the British government had given its recognition to the United States of America and regular troops were returning to Ireland from across the Atlantic. The Volunteers, no longer the only armed body on the island, now proved unable to exert pressure on the Irish parliament to make itself more representative of the people. Above all, the Volunteers were bitterly divided on whether or not Catholics should be given political rights.

  Over most of Ireland, Protestants were in a small minority, concerned to defend their privileges. Many would have agreed with the Rev. John Rodgers, who in a sermon to Volunteers at Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, urged his congregation ‘not to consent to the repeal of the Penal Laws, or to allow of a legal toleration of the popish religion.... Popery is of a persecuting spirit and has always marked her steps, wherever she trod, with blood.’ John Wesley, who visited Ireland many times, was inclined to agree. In 1780 he had written to the Freeman’s Journal in Dublin in favour of retaining the remaining Penal Laws: ‘I would not have the Roman Catholics persecuted at all. I would only have them hindered from doing hurt: I would not put it in their power to cut the throats of their quiet neighbours.’

  Only east of the River Bann in Ulster did Protestants have such an overwhelming majority that they had no fear of their Catholic neighbours. Here Presbyterians of Antrim and Down had a long tradition of defending their rights against tithe-collectors, clergy and landlords of the Church of Ireland, the Established Church. The Enlightenment had taken deep root in Belfast, still barely one-tenth the size of Dublin but growing fast. Here an energetic and confident middle class passionately debated new political ideas coming in with their cargoes from Scotland, America and France.

  The Belfast delegates to the Volunteer Convention in Dublin in 1783 were bitterly disappointed that they had failed to convince their fellow-Volunteers that Catholics should be given the vote. In the following year the Belfast 1st Volunteer Company defiantly invited Catholics to join their ranks, the first in Ireland formally to do so. Then in May 1784 they attended Mass at St Mary’s Chapel, which Protestants of Belfast had largely paid for, since the several hundred Catholics in the town were too poor to meet the cost.

  Across Ireland the campaign to make parliament more representative of the people slowly fizzled out. Parliamentary reform was, after all, an outlandish and largely irrelevant concept even in Enlightenment Europe—where, it should be remembered, Britain, Ireland and Holland were about the only countries with elected legislative assemblies. Then, in July 1789, that changed dramatically:

  Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,

  Les aristocrates a la lanterne!

  Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira,

  Les aristocrates on les pendra!

  News of the French Revolution electrified the citizens of Belfast. Their views were reflected in the Belfast News-Letter, which described it as ‘the greatest event in human annals’ and continued:

  Twenty-six millions of our fellow-creatures (near one-sixth of the inhabitants of Europe) bursting their chains, and throwing off in an instant, the degrading yoke of slavery—it is a scene so new, interesting and sublime, that the heart which cannot participate in the triumph, must either have been vitiated by illiberal politics, or be naturally depraved.

  The example of France spurred the Presbyterians of Belfast to campaign anew for the reform of parliament. A Northern Whig Club was formed in 1790, and in the following year it organised a great celebration of the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille.

  On 14 July 1791 the Belfast Volunteers, including a troop of light dragoons and the artillery corps trailing brass six-pounders, set out from the Exchange. The Belfast News-Letter described the banners they bore, including:

  A portrait of MONSIEUR MIRABEAU, (borne by two young volunteers) [and] ... The GREAT STANDARD, elevated on a triumphal car, drawn by four horses, with two volunteers as supporters; containing, on one side of the canvass, eight feet and a half long by six in depth, a very animated representation of The Releasement of the Prisoners from the Bastile ... Motto at the bottom of the painting—‘Fourteenth July, 1789; Sacred to Liberty.’ The reverse contained a large figure of Hibernia in reclining posture, one hand and foot in shackles, a Volunteer presenting to her a figure of Liberty.…

  After three o’clock they moved forward in this order, passing through every street of any consequence in the town; and when arrived at the White Linen Hall, three feu de joyes were fired by the Battalion companies, answered between each by seven guns from the Artillery.

  As yet there were few indications that for some present this was the first step towards rebellion.

  Episode 143

  THE UNITED IRISHMEN

  On 14 July 1791 the Volunteers and leading citizens of Belfast had formed a great circle inside the quadrangle of the White Linen Hall, and there they unanimously agreed to a declaration to the National Assembly of France:

  We meet this day to comm
emorate the French Revolution, that the remembrance of this day may sink deeply into our hearts ... with a sympathy which binds us to the human race in a brotherhood of interest, of duty, and of affection.…

  If we be asked, what is the French Revolution to us? We answer;—MUCH.

  Much as Men.—It is good for human nature that the grass grows where the Bastile stood. We do rejoice at an event which seemed the breaking of a charm that held universal France in a Bastile of civil and religious bondage.…

  AS IRISHMEN. We too have a country, and we hold it very dear—so dear to us its Interest, that we wish all Civil and Religious Intolerance annihilated in this land.…

  Go on then—Great and Gallant People!—to practise the sublime philosophy of your legislation ... and not by conquest, but by the omnipotence of reason, to convert and liberate the World—a world whose eyes are fixed on you; whose heart is with you; who talks to you with all her tongues. You are, in very truth, the Hope of this World.

  The success of the French in ending despotic power in their country—so far, with comparatively little loss of life—seemed to demonstrate to Belfast radicals that rapid political change was possible. Certainly this was the view of a group of young Protestants who met in Peggy Barclay’s tavern in Crown Entry on Friday 14 October 1791. They invited up from Dublin Theobald Wolfe Tone, a lawyer who had deeply impressed northern reformers with his recent pamphlet An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland. Tone gave them a name for their new organisation: the Society of United Irishmen: