1795 AD
Willian Wentworth - United Irshmen's Oath - Further Sectarian Violence
1795 AD Thomas Lewis O Beirne
was
appointed the Ascendancy Church of England / Ireland Bishop of Ossory
/ Co. Kilkenny in Southern
Leinster
until 1787 AD.
January :
William Wentworth,
the second Earl
Fitz William,
who was an ally of the English Earl of
Portland was appointed the
British Lord Lieutenant / Viceroy in
Ireland and he began speedily to
try and bring about some further "democracy"
in Ireland,
although he
was given "strict instructions" by William Pitt - the Younger
the British
Imperial Ascendancy Conservative Tory Prime Minster. who told him not to bring forward any
"further
Irish
Catholic reforms,"
and he also informed him to also "block" any private members
Bills that attempted to bring
about any "reforms"
at all in Ireland, unless they were likely to get through regardless. Being a man of
reasonable compassion and justice, with some urgency he
took the initiative in his own hands instead, and immediately "dismissed" members of the
ruling
Ascendancy, including
John Beresford the
Ascendancy Church
of England / Ireland Bishop in Armagh and two of
the Under - Secretaries of State who
had been
also
previously appointed, and he also intended to "replace" the appointed
Attorney - General and the
Solicitor General with supporters
of Henry Grattan the Irish
Patriot Party leader
of the "Opposition"
who was
for
overall reform in
Ireland.
John Beresford the Ascendancy Church of England
/ Ireland Bishop in Armagh,
who was also the "richest"man in Ireland, then "appealed" to
William Pitt - the Younger, and was supported by his "Placeman"
John
"Black Jack"
Fitz Gibbon and their
other Ascendancy
supporters, who used all of their influence for the "re - instatement"
to their previous Ascendancy positions.
February:
William Wentworth
/ Fitz William
the British Lord Lieutenant in Ireland was quite willing to act
"positively" on behalf of the
"majority"
Catholic Irish population and
bring about "reform,"
and to this end despite his previous instructions he constantly urged
William Pitt -
the Younger
the
British Prime Minister to bring in
"further reforms," but his advice continued to fall
on death ears.
February 23rd:
William Wentworth
/ Fitz William
the British Lord Lieutenant in Ireland was immediately
"recalled" from
Ireland by William Pitt - the Youmger after only
7
weeks on the job, and the whole
of Ireland was in
shock as he
was considered to be a man of "great foresight" and was by now well known for carrying out
"good works,"
and the Ascendancy
well and truly under the control of the Tory "Placemen"
John "Black Jack"
Fitzgibbon had succeeded
once again in retarding any chance of further reform in
Ireland, and the
British
Conservative Tory Government for good measure then created
John "Blasck
Jack" Fitz Gibbon the
English Earl of Clare for his
continuing services to their Imperial Ascendancy agendas. Although
his own father had converted to become an
Anglo - Irish
Catholic,
"Black Jack" Fitz Gibbon had remained a zealous
"opponent "and hard - line anti - Catholic, and was always against any type of
Irish Catholic relief, for fear of loss
of his personal property under English Common Law ,and
he was to be such an "embittered" person, that he was to make
each of the members of
Trinity
College "swear to answer" all of his questions, and his "harrassing attitude" was to cause the
young
Robert Emmet, who already believed in the "Rights of the
Common Man," to disappear from the college and go "underground also",
to try and bring about further "democracy" in Ireland for all
of the population.
March: John Jeffreys
Pratt,
the second English Earl of
Camden,
was now put in to replace William Wentworth / Fitz William as the
British Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, and he was more
then willing to go along with
William Pitt - the Younger the British Imperial Conservative Prime
Minister and John "Black Jack" Fitzgibbon to
"resist" any chance of any further
Catholic Irish
relief, and he was
therefore not well received in Ireland, and all of those who were from the
Ascendancy, who were previously dismissed were
opnce again
"reinstated,"
including
John Beresford the Ascendancy Church of England /
Ireland Bishop in Armagh.
This retrograde backward step also did
not sit too well with
Thomas Pelham.
who was once
again appointed as the British
Chief
Secretary to oversee
Ireland,
and
Catholic Irish hopes for any
further Constitutional democratic reform were now
once again "lost, " and this further democratic repression pushed them once again towards the cause and aspirations of
the
United Irishmen Society
who where by now, due to the lack of any chance of gaining any further "political democratic solutions,"
outright
total revolutionaries.
May:
With any chance of any further reform now out of the picture
in Ireland, the
Catholic Irish
Relief Bill,
that had been previously proposed by
Henry Grattan the leader of the
Irish Patriot Party "Opposition" in
Ireland in the previous
February that had also been supported by
William Wentworth / Fitz
William, was "rejected" outright by the
Ascendancy
Anglo Parliament
in Ireland,
following on
from the directions of William Pitt - the Younger the Imperial Tory Conservative Prime Minister of Britain.
May: In the meantime the United Irishmen Society had been infiltrated "secretly" by British Imperial Government agents, and John "Black Jack" Fitzgibbon / Lord Clare the British Lord Chancellor in Ireland who was their number one "Placeman" in Ireland encouraged them to go into "exile or else," and by now Theobold Wolfe Tone really had "total disgust and hatred" for those in the Ascendancy authority in England, and their restrictions on democracy, and he too was ready to leave for America from Mac Airt's Fort on Cave Hill near Belfast in Co. Antrim in the north - east of the Ulster Province. This now meant that the United Irishmen Society members there were physically and mentally forced to hold their meetings eternally "underground" and they decided to adopt a "New Constitution,"" and Henry Mac Cracken, Thomas Russell, Nielson, Simms, Simon Butler, and Thomas Addis Emmet (who was another older brother of the young Robert Emmet), who had become their Secretary, had taken a new United Irishmen's Oath based on the principles of "political and religious liberty" where they vowed, "Never to rest until Ireland was free." William Jackson, a non - Catholic clergyman, was also among those "arrested" while he was carrying plans for an intended Irish Uprising to be carried out by the Republicans, and he stated that, "The young Presbyterians at this time were the most enlightened body in the Nation" which further emphasised what an overall education can really bring about.
June: A lone Irish Catholic youth was "bashed to death," during a gathering at a cock - fighting event at a tavern in Loughgall in Co. Armagh in the east of the Ulster Province, in a region where there were few Irish Catholic "tenants" now left, on those particular confiscated Land Lords' Estates, and to the north of there was Grangemore Hill which was a non - Catholic "tenant" region, and to the south - west and south - east was Faughard / Tullymore Hill, which was an Irish Catholic "tenant region," where there was an old fort. The single "murder" of this young Irish Catholic boy was to be a catalyst to the beginnings of the "Battle of the Diamond" in Oneilland, which was in an area on a Land Lord Estate's controlled by the non - Catholics there, who were backed up by the Ascendancy "officials" there, which allowed them to do whatever they liked and dominate the territory there in the south, and even have control over the ferries on the River Blackwater, and the territory on the River Bann to the west.
July 1st: By now feelings were running high in the Ulster Province over the previous "death" of the Irish Catholic youth, which was added to also by the long running festering provocations over "tenancy rights" on the confiscated Land Lords Estates in that region, and the lack of "official" intervention, and this then led onto another "sectarian" conflict at the Loughgall Fair.
July 12th: The followers of the Ascendancy position, were now stirred up by another "siege mentality" sermon made at Drumcree by a non - Catholic rector there to commemorate William of Orange's victory over James 11 the Stuart Catholic King of England in the Battle of the Boyne over a hundred years before, and as a result the Irish Catholics in the region came under more "wreck and paper" attacks, with another 2 murdered, and many more injured, and with the usual show of lack of interest on behalf of the "official" local magistrates again, and also the Militia, the "Defenders," who supported the Irish Catholic "tenants" were to be also called out then to defend their position and to carry out their own retaliatory action.
September 4th: The non - Catholic "Peep - O - Day Boys" directly attacked the Irish Catholics at the Fair at Loughgall, and some of them were to die because of their severe injuries, and this only added more heat to the boiling pot, and their constant fear of "further sectarian harassment" in that region in the Ulster Province.
September 14th: "Defenders" from the north of Co. Armagh, Co. Monaghan and Co. Tyrone in the Ulster Province, and also from nearby in Co. Louth in the north - east of Northern Leinster, held a meeting were they decided to take the "Peep - O - Day Boys" head on, and try and bring it all to a climax, and possibly even to an end, and thousands of the "Defenders" then gathered together at Annaghmore.
September 17th: Thursday. The "Peep - O - Day Boys" decided to begin their attack on the "Defenders" who were now at Annaghmore, which was their best position near the River Blackwater, where they had previously set up to be able to defend themselves against any further "Peep - O - Day Boys" coming in from Co. Tyrone, and the "Defenders" by this time had also created 2 camp sites, one on Tullymore Hill, and another on Faughard Hill, but James Verner, an Ascendancy "official," who was known to his cohorts as the "Prince of Orange," sealed off the River Blackwater crossings, to stop any of the other "Defenders" who were still arriving who were still on the other side of the river in Co. Tyrone, from being able to reach the scene also.
September 18th - Friday: 500 of the "Defenders" took over the gravel pit there on the hill, and hoisted a white flag, while the non - Catholics congregated on the opposing hill, but in the meantime, Mac Cann a "Defender" was to be personally killed in the town land of Teague / Teaguy, and James Verner, the Prince of Orange, took the North Mayo Militia and went to Annaghmore were he arrested 4 of the "Defenders," while the "Peep - O Day - Boys" came down from their hill and attacked the "Defenders" and the fighting between them then began to subside. The "Peep - O - Day Boys," now feeling more then ever well in control of the situation began once again to attack and wreck and paper the Irish Catholic cabins, plundering and harassing all of those who they came into direct contact with, and they also set alight all of the Irish Catholic turf stacks in the region, and the leader of the "Defenders" "Switcher" Donnelly agreed to a truce with Joseph Atkinson a non - Catholic official, and Father Trainor a local Catholic priest from Loughgall, while Terence Mac Keown was also there with the Catholic priest from Co. Armagh.,
September 19th - Saturday: The "Peep - O - Day Boys" continued on with their wrecking tactics on the Irish Catholic cabins, and the physical harassment of the Irish Catholic residents throughout the area, and for good measure also destroyed Robert Quigley's house and plundered all of his goods.
September 20th - Sunday: Mallon was to be the leader of the "Defender" reinforcements who had by now finally managed to make it into Co. Armagh from out of Co. Tyrone, and 17 of his men were to be killed in the ensuing conflicts.
September 21st - Monday: Captain Mac Garry from Armagh in Co. Armagh was killed along with 48 "Defenders," while trying to regain Robert Quigley's goods, with not one of the "Peep - O - Day Boys" killed and Joseph Atkinson then arrived from Charlemont Fort, and further Militia arrived from elsewhere, and this final surge of "official" interest ended the conflict with. 68 Defenders arrested, and only 2 Peep - O - Day Boys, and many of those arrested were given 3 options, they could either be pressed into the British Imperial Navy, be imprisoned, or go into exile from out of Ireland. That evening in an Ascendancy Church of England / Ireland church there, the "Orange Society / Order" was formed from a re - organized group of the "Peep - O - Day Boys" and James Sloan became their first secretary at Loughgall, with James Wilson near Caledon in Co. Tyrone setting up their Lodge No.1 and William Blacker became their Grand Master, as further individual Lodges were to be set up all over Ireland. Their main aim was to retain the Ascendancy position and to stop the Catholic Irish from tendering for the "tenant farms" on the confiscated Land Lord's Estates, and to this end over the following 2 months 180 Irish Catholic families were "driven off" of the Estates in that region and forced to flee from the "southern" districts of the Ulster Province because of the ongoing "sectarian intimidation" that followed. A Committee of Elders / Orangemen now sat in judgement on the male Irish Catholic population there, who were now sent to a British Military Regiment if they could not come up with some means of "bribery" to stop their being sent into "exile" from Ireland altogether and all of this ethnic sectarian violence was a further setback to the "ambitions" of Theobold Wolfe Tone and Henry Joy Mac Cracken who had been hoping that the United Irishmen Society would "unite" all of the population of Ireland, especially the people of Ulster, and then eventually all of Ireland regardless of their ethnicity or religious beliefs. The "Peep - O - Day Boys" were to carry out further attacks over night, especially during dawn, using "knee capping" on the Irish Catholic "tenants" in the area, and the surrounding Counties over the next few months, and continually wrote on the farm walls the demand of Oliver Cromwell, "To Hell or Connacht." By using these intimidating methods, all of the Irish Catholic "tenants" in Portadown alone were to be removed by the "Peep - O Day - Boys" during an all out effort, along with the support of the Orange Society / Order to completely take over the "tenant" farming land of the Land Lords in that region, and drive the Irish Catholic families from the Ulster region for good.
December 28th:
All of the "harassment" was so blatantly deliberate, that they
were to be even "accused" publicly by
Lord
Gosford, the
British Imperial appointed Governor in
Co.
Armagh, of actually "persecuting" the
Irish
Catholics there, and anyone who was in any way even associated with the
Irish Catholics there
"fled west" to
the Connacht
Province for
protection, as the local
Land Lords in the previously confiscated regions in the
Ulster Province now also openly supported the
"Orangemen" in their efforts to
"totally" remove the
Irish Catholic "tenant"
farmers, on
the Ulster
border, and replace them with non - Catholic "tenants."
(Lord Donegal
was to be one of those who deliberately cleared the
Irish
Catholics from off of his confiscated Estates in
Ulster.)
The "Peep - O - Day Boys"
who were then
well in control of the region operated arrogantly and openly, with the support of the
Ascendancy in the British Imperial Conservative
Government's
Dublin Castle authority, while the
"Orange Order" ranks were
bolstered
further
by the "Landed Gentry"
and the British Imperial
Government
officials. They also wanted all of the
Irish Catholics
"banned" from the
Linen Industry altogether, and this further
forced the "Defenders" to
naturally become more "anti -
State and anti -
British,"
and the
Irish
Catholic "tenants" now
swelled the ranks of the "Defenders," as they were now their
"only"
source of protection in Ireland, and t
With
no chance of
Catholic Emancipation
/ Representation in sight it was once again pushed aside
in the Ascendancy Anglo Parliament
in Ireland,, with
the only place for any recourse now in
Ireland to be carried out in the
"rural" areas by the
population iin
Ireland themselves,
and the leaders of the
United Irishmen
Society saw that
all of this further "persecution" was their best opportunity now to win over the vast
"majority" of those "tenant farmers" affected, and now pushed the line throughout the
"rural areas" that the only way to receive any "rights
or reform" in Ireland was
to
"overthrow" the
present
Ascendancy Imperial Governments, and becaus eof this the
United Irishmen Societies' ranks were now growing faster, as many more of the previous
"Defenders"
The
Irish
Catholics
were now able to, if they could afford it, attend the
University
in
Dublin,
but the Ascendancy and the
British Imperial Government's Dublin Castle
authority had a great fear of "educating the non - Catholics and
the
Irish Catholics together,"
while at the same
time they had to consider the fact that the
Irish Catholic youths previously were
sent
abroad to
France
and
Spain, which was their
only means
of achieving any reasonable "education," and those Irish Catholics that received their
Holy
Orders abroad as priests might now be also subject to
the
"revolutionary" propaganda of "Liberty,
Equality and
Fraternity" there. If they did, they
considered they would return to Ireland and spread that
"particular attitude" among the
Common People, who then might believe that they had
a right to choose their own destinies, and to try and avoid
any chance of the population in
Ireland becoming "united," and still ensure that the
Irish
Catholics did not become "indoctrinated" with
unsettling thoughts of "Liberty, Fraternity
and the Pursuit of Happiness," they
had now been forced "to allow" the education of the
Irish
Catholic clergy at
St. Patrick's College, a
Catholic Institution. It was
opened on the site of the
previous older College at
Maynooth, which was originally
established there in the 16th Century
AD
by
Gerald
Fitz Gerald the
ninth
Earl of Kildare, and was close by the
Maynooth Castle, but also under the
British
Imperial Ascendancy Government
and
Ascendancy Anglo
Parliament
in Ireland
guidelines, and it was to be nevertheless subject to periodic
British Imperial Tory
Government "inspections."
It
was also to be run mostly by the
Gaullist
Jesuit Professors who had been the ones who had previously taught in
France where they had been subject to
the "agitation" of the
revolutionaries and were now naturally
anti
-
Republican and
pro - Monarchists as they had been
driven from
France
by the "revolution"
and their attitudes in regard to this fact were to flow on through to the
Irish Catholic student priests for
"many
generations to come. "
Edmund
Burke,
the Anglo - Irish Statesman,
had the Ascendancy Anglo Parliament
in Ireland, partially "endow" the
Seminary as a concession for not granting the
Irish Catholics
"any rights to vote"
or being represented in the
Ascendancy Anglo
Parliament
in Ireland, as they were now so very sure that the young
Irish Catholic priests taught there
would come under the influence of the
pro - monarchist refugee "teachers" from the
French revolution,
as the
Professors there were also influenced by
Jansenism, which was denounced by
the Jesuits as a
Calvanistic approach,
"That man is a helplessly doomed being, who must endure punishing soul searching
and rigorous penance to prove his love of
God,
as faith an Church going are
not enough to win salvation." They were a very
Conservative group in their outlook, and attacked the
Jesuits for granting
lenient absolution for sins and not giving sufficient penance for the sins that
were confessed.
The
"upper class" Catholic
Irish
who on the whole had always "supported" those in authority in
England, as they felt
they had the most to lose, were not so impressed by it
at all, and still wanted the
right to be "represented" in their own
Irish Parliament, but
by now with no chance of gaining any
further rights by democratic means, they too began to see that the "revolutinary" stand by the
United Irishmen Society
to bring about self - determination for
Ireland was the "only alternative"
that was
now open to them also.
The
Catholic Committee
had since backed off due to the introduction of the "previous
reforms"
that they had already gained,
while the non - Catholic and
Irish Catholic
"tenant farmers" were
now in "open conflict," and the
United Irishmen
Society
was also by now not in such a good position to create
Irish Unity
for the cause of overall freedom in
Ireland,
so Theobold Wolfe Tone now turned his
eyes towards France for
assistance to those in Ireland
who wanted to bring in "justice for all" by the only
means now open to them, "revolutionary" means.
St. Patrick's College at Maynooth, for the education of the Irish priests, also received a contribution from John Butler who was now the English Baron of Dunboyne, who had previously been the Catholic Bishop of Cork for 23 years, and who had become a Church of England / Ireland adherent to allow him to marry the young daughter of his non - Catholic cousin, Theobold Butler from Co. Waterford in the south - east of the Munster Province, so as to continue on their family Butler male line.
Teague O Sullivan from the
Heberian Eoghanacht Chaisil Sept who was the poet "Gaedhealach,"
died, and was interred at Bally
Laneen.
Walter Butler became the eighthteenth English Earl of Ormonde in Co. Kilkenny in the south - west of Southern Leinster until 1820 AD, who was the son of John Butler the seventeenth Earl of Ormonde.
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