Volunteers, United Irishmen. 1760-1803

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CHAPTER XI***

The Volunteers and the United Irishmen***

1760-1803**

“Oh, the French are in the bay,

They’ll he here at break of day,

And the Orange shall decay,

Says the Shan Van Voght.” - Old Ballad.

On the accession of a new king Lucas returned to Ireland from his exile, and resumed the leadership of the popular movement. A rough and violent democrat, of a type not unlike Wilkes, he was nevertheless a most effective politician, and, under his guidance, the Opposition made great progress. In 1760 a bill was carried, limiting the duration of an Irish parliament to eight years. Before that date it might continue indefinitely during the king’s pleasure.

George II., during a reign of 33 years, had never dissolved the parliament which had met when he ascended the throne. It may be imagined how corrupt and corruptible members would be when thus emancipated from control. Lucas established a paper for the propagation of his principles. It still exists, having maintained the same political tenets with hardly a single relapse for nearly a century and a half. Originally called the *Citizens’ Journal *it is now the well-known Freeman’s Journal.

The spirit of resistance quickly rose in Ireland. The viceroys found no subservience in the elected assembly, charm they never so wisely. Cajolery, bribery, bullying alike failed to produce any effect.

In 1767 a Lord Lieutenant was appointed, Lord Townshend, a man of the generous, convivial type usually so popular in the country. Two years after his arrival a money bill for Ireland was drawn up by the English Privy Council, and sent over for docile endorsement by the people whom it mainly concerned.

The Irish Commons, holding that the direct representatives should have the first voice in questions of taxation, rejected the measure, “because it had not its origin in their house.” Townshend called them to the bar of the House of Lords and read them a sharp lecture, which he ordered to be entered in the journals of both houses.

The peers complied with his direction, but the lower house set him at defiance. The viceroy was unable to force his point, and found that he had only brought on himself a great deal of unpopularity. For the rest of his term of office he was annoyed by a perpetual fusillade of squibs and ballads, composed by the wits of the Opposition, who, as usually happens with militant minorities, quite outshone their opponents in this kind of warfare. In 1772 he gave up his post. A year previously Lucas had died. The stage was being cleared for a new set of actors, Henry Grattan and the leaders of the Volunteer movement.

Grattan was born in Fishamble Street, Dublin, in 1746. A brilliant and moving orator, he entered parliament at the age of 29 and soon assumed the leadership of the Opposition. The commercial restraints and the domination of the English parliament over the Irish by means of Poynings’ Law and the Act known as the Sixth of George I. were the objects of his unceasing attacks.

By an unforeseen series of events, he was enabled to procure the repeal of these clogs on commerce and good government in Ireland. The American war broke out in 1776, the year after he entered parliament. The Irish garrison was depleted to furnish reinforcements for the British armies in America.

Soon the revolted colonists began to have the advantage, and were joined by France and Spain. England had to face a formidable alliance of three maritime nations. The navy was at a low ebb and suffered several defeats. The coast of Ireland was exposed to the raids of numbers of well-armed privateers. During this period the American corsair Paul Jones was a veritable plague to the seaborne trade of the British Isles. In self-defence the Ulstermen formed volunteer corps for their protection in case the enemy, emboldened by success, should attempt an invasion. The movement spread all over Ireland. Within a year 40,000 men were enrolled. Practically all were Protestants, for the law did not yet permit Catholics to carry or possess arms.

The restrictions on Irish commerce had been probably felt in their own persons by all the leaders and half the rank and file of these citizen troops. Grattan boldly demanded freedom of trade, conscious that the claim was backed by thousands of bayonets. A motion to that effect was appended to an address sent by parliament to the Lord Lieutenant. The members determined to deliver this protest by their own hands.

The Volunteers lined Dame Street and presented arms as the Commons, headed by their speaker, passed on their way to the Castle. The government of Great Britain was threatened in no uncertain terms with war, if it refused to withdraw the obnoxious laws. Reviews were held around the statue of King William in College Green, where mottoes were displayed such as “Quinquaginta millia parati pro patria mori,” “50,000 men prepared to die for their country.”

More significant still, the mouths of the cannon were encircled with a legend which read “Free Trade - or this.” The Volunteers gained the day without recourse to bloodshed. In 1779 Lord North introduced measures into the British parliament, permitting free export of Irish wool and woollens and unrestrained intercourse with the Colonies.

Grattan, still strong in the support of the armed manhood of Ulster and Leinster, went on to demand self-government. The Crown, he declared, was the only constitutional link between the two kingdoms. In a famous phrase he asserted “the King with the lords and commons of Ireland” to be “the only power on earth competent to exact laws to bind Ireland.” At the same time, to show that he had no desire of complete separation, he affirmed that “Great Britain and Ireland were inseparably united under one sovereign.”

The American war was still dragging on. England, harassed on all sides, yielded again. In 1783 the assembly at Westminster by a special act renounced its claims to pass laws affecting Ireland. The parliament at College Green was made arbiter of the destinies of the country, restrained only by the influence of the viceroy.

Its first act was to vote £100,000 and 20,000 men to the British Navy in a great burst of gratitude. Grattan himself received a donation of £50,000, which enabled him to settle down as a country gentlemen at Tinnehinch near Enniskerry. The incoming Lord Lieutenant wished to present him with the viceregal lodge in the park, but Grattan declined an honour which might be misinterpreted.

The new system of government, for which its founder had hoped and prophesied a perpetual existence, only lasted 19 years. The man who had hailed it with “Esto perpetua ” was fated to stand gloomily by at its early death. It fell largely through its own faults, factiousness, intolerance, narrowness of view and a disposition to extreme measures. Yet it certainly conferred many benefits on Ireland in general, and Dublin in particular.

The law and the revenue were splendidly housed in two great edifices placed, with a nice regard to their artistic effect, on the quays fronting the river. The Four Courts and the Custom House, especially the latter, are beautiful examples of the semi-classic style. Their cost ran into hundreds of thousands. They are much larger buildings than the Parliament House itself. A state bank with a capital of 31,500,000 was set up in the obscure street known as S. Mary’s Abbey. The members, as they voted its establishment, little dreamt that their creation would live to store its gold and post its ledgers in the very chamber where they sat.

The activity of Grattan’s parliament extended in every direction. Dublin began to be honourably distinguished for the number of its foundations for the advancement of science and the mitigation of pain and suffering. The Royal Irish Academy was founded, with one branch for the study of science, the other for “polite learning and antiquities.” Hospitals rose all over the city. In 1784 the College of Surgeons was incorporated, and built itself a house on Stephen’s Green in the sombre classic style of the time.

Eighteenth century architecture in Dublin, when not elevated by a dash of genius in the designer, is somewhat heavy and depressing, in spite of its never-failing dignity and sense of proportion. Leinster House, the Rotunda Hospital and the Provost’s House in Trinity College are fair examples. The difference between the old and the new taste in private residences is shown by contrasting Harcourt Street or Merrion Square where the houses are as tall and uniform as a row of’ grenadiers, with a modern suburb like Palmerston Road or Leeson Park, a picturesque medley of villas, lawns, flowers and trees.

The Catholics began to contribute in some degree to the adornment of the city. Relieved from the fear, which had long pressed upon them, they commenced to erect churches in the older parts of the city, where they were very numerous. Meath Street and Arran Quay Chapels were among the earliest to be built. Even yet, however, they did not care to attract the attention of their enemies by any attempt at ostentation.

The older Catholic churches do not proclaim their mission by lofty steeples or ornate exteriors; they are often situated in obscure bye-streets and approached by narrow passages. But the devotion of the worshippers found full expression in a gorgeous interior hidden away from the jealous glances of the casual passer-by. The white gleam of marble, the glowing hues of stained glass, sacred picture and statue of saint combined to make these edifices, like the ” King’s daughter,” “all glorious within.”

Dublin progressed materially also. A penny post was established for the city and a district of eight miles around. There was a remarkable development of the means of communication. A great system of inland navigation was initiated. The Grand Canal, 100 miles long, running into the Shannon near Banagher, and the Barrow, near Athy, connected the capital with the greater part of the midlands and the south-east.

The Royal Canal, joining the Shannon further up stream than the Grand, brought the turf fuel and cheap provisions of Connaught and North Leinster to the city quays. Docks were built on both sides of the river. A daily service of sailing packets to and from Holyhead was started. Coaches commenced to run to the chief provincial towns.

A new staple industry replaced the vanished woollen manufacture. Brewers were encouraged by the Irish parliament to establish themselves in the city. Paradoxically enough, this was considered a temperance policy at the time, as providing a milder beverage for the consumption of the people than the whisky, which they had distilled and drunk from time immemorial. Guinness’s huge brewery dates back to the end of the 18th century.

It is a strange fact that a town, rent by internal faction and popular turbulence, should have made so many advances. Dublin was very restless and uneasy during the interval between the establishment of independence and the passing of the Union. Grattan was not able to control the forces he had called into being. His party clamoured for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation from civil disabilities. But their leader, while favouring both measures, deemed it wiser to obtain the desired concessions piecemeal, rather than to alarm the vested interests and inherited prejudices of his opponents by too bold and sweeping a demand.

He was soon displaced by the extremists, who now began to avow their hopes of absolute sepa ration from England. The Volunteers ran after such false gods as Frederick Augustus Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Londonderry. It was unfortunate that brilliant eccentricity should outweigh moderation and common sense, but the mob is easily dazzled. The clerical nobleman called for war and separation. He drove into Dublin in great splendour, clad in purple, with diamond shoe and knee buckles, gold tassels dependant from his gloves, even his horses caparisoned in the imperial purple. He was escorted by a mounted troop of citizen soldiery, who heralded his arrival at the Parliament House by a fanfare of trumpets. Hervey was graciously condescending to the astonished members as they poured out, and passed on his way amid popular plaudits.

Under such influences a convention of armed delegates from the Volunteer regiments met in the Royal Exchange, now the City Hall, on Cork Hill, from whence they removed to the Rotunda. A plan of reform was put forward, but sharp dissensions in the assembly caused the postponement of any measure for the relief of the Catholics. The government refused to be dictated to by an armed body of men, sitting not half a mile from the Parliament House.

At College Green the Volunteer proposals were rejected by 159*** ***votes to 77. There were grave fears of a civil war in Ireland between the two parties, but the situation was saved by the moderation of Lord Charlemont, the Volunteer commander, who obtained an adjournment of the convention for an indefinite period. The whole movement collapsed as suddenly as it had begun.

But the more ardent spirits were not satisfied with this tame result. The agitation was driven underground. Secret societies were founded, and their members drilled and instructed in the use of arms. In Dublin the mob became very troublesome; isolated soldiers were beaten and maimed in the streets; prominent members of the dominant party were mobbed and their houses attacked. Master manufacturers, now beginning their long fight with the trade unions, were subjected to the same treatment.

To cope with the disorder, a force of constables was established in 1786, replacing the old city watch. The body thus formed developed into the present Dublin Metropolitan Police, celebrated for the giant physique of its members and the genial manner in which they discharge their sometimes unpleasant duties.

The French Revolution began in the year 1789. Ireland was in a fit condition to catch the spark from that great conflagration. Like France, she was suffering from widespread poverty, lack of popular representation, an ascendant caste, and an unsympathetic church endowed with tithes extorted from starving peasants.

In 1791 Wolfe Tone, a Francophile Dublin barrister, then in his twenty-eighth year, established the society of the United Irishmen. Its avowed aims were Reform and Catholic Emancipation, but, in its later years, it degenerated into a treasonable conspiracy. An alliance was formed with the democratic section of the Catholic Committee, which soon bore fruit. Back Lane, so curiously connected with the struggles of the old faith in the capital, was the scene of an assembly of Roman Catholic delegates.

The hostile party sneered at the “Back Lane Parliament,” but, nevertheless, were obliged to pass a measure admitting Catholics to the franchise, the army, navy, and civil service, the jury box, and even the judicial bench. Trinity was freely thrown open. But there were still many disabilities left for O’Connell to remove 30 years later.

It was probably French intrigue that mainly tended to seduce the United Irishmen into projects of insurrection. Nearly all the leaders - gallant, high-spirited young men as they were-came to the miserable end that awaits the unsuccessful rebel. The government was watchful. Sometimes by bribery, sometimes by playing on the fears of a timid conspirator, over whose head they held a mass of evidence sufficient to hang him at any time, they secured full information of all the society’s most secret proceedings. Their spies, as in the case of Leonard MacNally, were for years thought to be heart and soul with the United movement.

In 1794 the tragedy began. Jackson, an Irishman entrusted with a mission from France, was being tried in the old Four Courts, when he was seen to be strangely agitated. The prisoner, foreseeing his fate, had taken arsenic, and died in the very dock. There was a brief interlude during the viceroyalty of Fitzwilliam, sent by Pitt, with instructions to conciliate all parties and complete the process of emancipation.

But the new viceroy was a little too hasty. He ejected certain holders of high office with scant courtesy. One of these, Beresford, Commissioner of Customs, went straight to Windsor, and induced King George III. to veto Fitzwilliam’s proposals. The plans of the viceroy, and of the greater man who had inspired him, were thus foiled. A recall soon came, and the late Lord Lieutenant, after but three months’ tenure of office, returned to England through a city bearing every appearance of mourning.

The United Irishmen increased until they numbered half a million. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster and a member of the historic Geraldine family, joined their ranks and became a prominent leader. A conspiracy was formed for a general rising on the 23rd May 1798. The signal was to be the stopping of the Dublin mail coaches on that night. But the government, as usual, held the plotters in the hollow of its hand. Two months before the date fixed a raid was made on a committee meeting in Bridge Street, and many persons were arrested.

Lord Edward escaped, but a reward of £1000 was offered for his apprehension. He was captured in a house in Thomas Street, after a desperate struggle, in which he wounded several of his captors, but received himself a bullet in the shoulder, from the effects of which he died in prison a month later.

Wolfe Tone met with a similar fate. He was on board a* *French invading fleet, which was defeated, and fell into the hands of the English. The victors recognised one of their prisoners as the celebrated United Irishman. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged, though he begged, as a French officer, to be allowed to suffer the less shameful soldier’s fate of being shot. On the execution morning Tone, by cutting his throat with a pen-knife, escaped either alternative.

Pitt was deeply impressed by the troubles of Ireland and the outrages of both soldiers and rebels in Wexford. He determined on a complete union of the two countries, coupled with full emancipation, as the best solution of the problem. The Irish parliament was strongly adverse, but a majority was secured by wholesale bribery. Dublin was very hostile, and had to be held down by a display of armed force.

Grattan, ill and feeble, came to the House in his old Volunteer uniform to inveigh against the overthrow of his great achievement, the Constitution of 1782. His exertions were of no avail. The Union was carried by considerable majorities, and Dublin ceased to be an independent capital.

There was one last belated rising of the United Irishmen in 1803. Robert Emmet, a brilliant and eager youth of 24, framed a project to seize the Castle and the Pigeonhouse Fort. The authorities were for once taken by surprise, but the insurrection was a hopeless failure. Country contingents failed to arrive, or, arriving, found no one to lead them.

Emmet himself, with no more than 100 men, marched against the Castle from his headquarters in Marshalsea Lane. The first patrols encountered were almost sufficient to disperse such a body, armed, as most of them were, with only the traditional pike of Irish rebellion-a steel spear head mounted on a long wooden shaft. Some yeomanry, however, hastening to join their regiments, were killed at their own doors in Thomas Street, and Lord Kilwarden, a just and humane judge, was dragged from his carriage and piked to death by a section of the mob.

But the fighting was soon over, and Emmet was a fugitive. With a lovable, but, perhaps, a foolish romanticism, he hazarded capture by staying to take leave of Sarah Curran, to whom he was secretly attached. The delay was fatal. Major Sirr arrested the unfortunate young man at Harold’s Cross on 25th August. A month later he was hanged outside S. Catherine’s Church, in Thomas Street. Sarah Curran died of a broken heart. Moore has enshrined the whole pathetic story in a touching little ballad:

“She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers are round her sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps,

For her heart on his grave is lying.

She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains,

Every note which he loved awaking;

Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking.”

Progress and Conciliation. 1803-1906. To Chart Index.