by the EHFA Editors
Enjoy this week's articles from English Historical Fiction Authors.
by Arthur Russell
Showing posts with label Arthur Russell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur Russell. Show all posts
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Monday, December 31, 2018
#EHFA Top 20 Articles for 2018
The editors of English Historical Fiction Authors want to thank all the authors who contributed articles to the blog in 2018, and a sincere thank-you to all our readers.
Every week we bring you a bit of British history: people, places, social customs, and more. We hope you'll enjoy this look at the top 20 posts for 2018.
by Danielle Marchant
by Arthur Russell
by Kim Rendfeld
by Matt Lewis
by Maria Grace
by Mark Patton
by Arthur Russell
by Maria Grace
by Paula Lofting
by Anna Belfrage
by Annie Whitehead
by Paula Lofting
by Derek Birks
by Paula Lofting
by Anna Belfrage
by Danielle Marchan
by Derek Birks
by Paula Lofting
by Derek Birks
And, our most read post for 2018, with over 8600 views:
by Matthew Harffy
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Editors Weekly Round-up, February 11, 2018
by the EHFA Editors
Every week, visit English Historical Fiction Authors for posts on various aspects of British history. Enjoy this week's round-up!
Every week, visit English Historical Fiction Authors for posts on various aspects of British history. Enjoy this week's round-up!
Hugh O'Neill - The First Irish Nationalist
by Arthur Russell
by Paula Lofting
by Maria Grace
Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Hugh O'Neill - The First Irish Nationalist
by Arthur Russell
 |
| Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone |
For many, Hugh O’Neill (1550-1616), popularly called the Great O’Neill, is regarded as the first to make a credible effort to develop a unified Gaelic alliance to achieve Irish independence. Most of his life coincided with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the last of the Tudor monarchs who dominated 16th century English history, and who oversaw the transition of England from feudal kingdom to modern nation state.
It would take 3 centuries more for Ireland to arrive at its own sense of nationhood.
Since the 12th century Norman invasion of Ireland; Irish chieftains and local kings never quite grasped the potential of the incursion of this latest wave of foreigners into Ireland and Irish affairs. It never occurred to most that it would ultimately see an end to their own mastery of the island. Their failure to see the “big picture” was to cost them dearly. During most of the late medieval period, they resisted the invader only when he appeared to threaten the borders and integrity of their own territories. As often as not, they were happy to parley, even to form alliances with the interlopers to gain temporary advantage in their own localised squabbles with neighbouring chieftains. This meant that between the years of 1170 – 1600, there was an ever changing ebb and flow of the extent and reach of English power and influence against that of indigenous Gaelic chiefs and clans. From the English side, the conquest was not completed because English monarchs rarely had the resources to see it done. Several times during those centuries; a determined unified effort by Gaelic chieftains could have ended the occupation once and for all. Had this happened, it could have prompted the start of a process of nation state building, in line with what was evolving across Europe. There was no concept of an Irish nation or nationality except in the minds of Gaelic poets and bards. Much less was there any idea of developing strong centralised leadership to which all Irish/Gaelic people and chieftains could invest their allegiance.
As Sean O’Faolain, observed in his definitive work The Great O’Neill where he made reference to medieval Gaelic poets’ and bards’ vision of Ireland as a separate nation:
Henry VIII’s introduction of the policy of “Surrender and Regrant” fundamentally changed the relationship of Gaelic chieftains with the Crown. He had already declared himself King of Ireland and was more demanding and determined to command universal allegiance. He was also prepared to use force where diplomacy did not succeed in establishing his authority. What the O’Neills and most Irish chieftains failed to realise fully was that by acceding to Henry’s latest policy, they were declaring themselves subject to English rather than their own ancient Brehon laws. What many saw as a short term stratagem giving them security of lands and titles, carried serious risk that sooner or later would place them at odds with both the King’s authority as well as their own ancient tribal customs and laws. Increasingly many chieftains found themselves caught in an impossible legalistic trap that saw them facing the prospect of losing their newly granted royal titles and lands, at the same time losing support from their own clansmen who considered the clan, not any English King, to be the ultimate source of power in determining who should be chieftain. The consequence of disloyalty to the English Crown (treason) was that all lands and titles were automatically subject to confiscation and reassignment at the King’s pleasure.
The reality of this had already been demonstrated in the O’Moore lands in the midlands where the two counties of Laois and Offaly were confiscated and became subject of a newly devised policy of Plantation whereby lands were taken from the existing occupiers and assigned to colonists drafted in from England, Scotland and Wales. Some of the ejected native Irish were allowed to remain to work as servants and labourers (“drawers of water and hewers of wood”) for the newly endowed owners. The “surplus population” was simply forced out to make their own way in the world as best they could. These were the first land settlements (Plantations) that provided the template that came to be applied elsewhere in Ireland over following decades; first in Munster, later in Ulster, and finally in the comprehensive Cromwellian settlement of the mid 17th century; all of which effectively transferred the ownership of Irish land to non-Irish landholders. Colonisation was henceforth the follow-on solution ensuring the success of conquest, and would continue to be adopted elsewhere in the world as the British Empire expanded over following centuries.
To compound things, the 16th century witnessed religion entering the already complex dynamic between Ireland and its neighbour. The Reformation of the 16th century effectively split Continental Europe, and pulled England, Scotland and Wales, but not Ireland, away from the old faith and allegiance to Rome. It is tempting to speculate that had this vexed issue not intruded into Anglo-Irish relations, the evolution of a United Kingdom of the two North West European islands might well have progressed along a much different and possibly (?) more harmonious path. This was not to be and the two islands continue to live with the consequences of processes and events that originated during that troubled time.
Who was Hugh O’Neill?
It was into this paradigm of incomplete conquest, conflicted loyalties to opposing legal systems, and the more recent strains imposed by conflicted religious affiliation, that Hugh O’Neill was born in 1550. As an O'Neill, Hugh was a descendant of the ancient High Kings of Ireland who ruled at Tara during the previous millennium.
At the tender age of 12 years he was given the title Baron of Dungannon with the possibility of succeeding to the earldom of Tyrone in succession to his kinsman, Con Bacach (= the Lame) O’Neill who had been given the title First Earl of Tyrone by King Henry VIII in 1542 under the terms of “Surrender and Re-grant”. Under this, Con had surrendered the O’Neill lands to the English King and had immediately received them back with his new title, on condition that he recognise the Henry as his rightful King. The young Hugh was destined, and with English support; to become Con’s successor to the title of Second Earl of Tyrone. To prepare for this, teenager Hugh was sent first to the Hovenden family in North Co Dublin and then to several aristocratic houses in England where he learned English mores and manners with a view to becoming thoroughly Anglesized. Ulster had for centuries been the most difficult region for English influence to penetrate, so it was hoped young Hugh would change this in due time. English policy followed a “divide and conquer” approach in favouring or opposing claimants to Gaelic titles, thereby keeping them weak, divided and (if possible) dependent on their support.
While Hugh was supported by the English to succeed to the title, and was duly inaugurated Second Earl of Tyrone, it was not until 1595 that he was recognised as “The O’Neill” under ancient Brehon law. Meantime, he had to walk a precarious line between two opposing legal systems, in turn favouring one over the other, with a view to keep both satisfied. He joined the English in their suppression of the Desmond rebellions in Munster during the 1580’s, and helped the Lord Deputy supress the neighbouring Maguire chieftain of Fermanagh. He visited the Elizabethan court in 1587 to declare his continuing loyalty to the Queen and was a regular attendee at the Dublin Parliament. His contacts afforded valuable insights of the machinations and capriciousness of Tudor policy in relation to all Gaelic chieftains, making him wary and increasingly nervous of the ultimate objectives of English policy in Ireland.
O’Neill had many enemies in the Dublin government, who looked at Ulster in a most acquisitive way, and who continually accused him of playing a double game in contravention of his responsibilities to the Crown in spite of his declarations of enduring loyalty. He had acquired the undying enmity of Sir Harvey Bagenal after he eloped and married Mabel Bagenal, a lady of 20 years, who became 40 year old Hugh’s third wife after the death of his second wife, Ineen Dubh O’Donnell. Bagenal objected to his sister’s liaison with a member of “a rebellious race which he and his father had spilled their blood in repressing”. He had recently been appointed President of Ulster in just the latest measure imposed by the English to contain O’Neill’s power. His antipathy was fuelled with Mabel’s desertion of O’Neill to return to him with loud complaints about the “barbarous” Dungannon court. She died one year later.
The brutal suppression of the Desmond rebellion in Munster, followed by the wholesale settlement and plantation of Desmond lands, was a stark warning of the dangers that lay in resisting English authority. Hugh’s sense of security was further assailed by the massacre of 500 MacDonnell clanspeople on Rathlin Island by the Lord Deputy. Other incidents included the treacherous slaughter of the O’Byrnes of Wicklow after they had responded to an invitation to parley at Mullaghmast in Kildare. In 1593, Lord Lieutenant Sir John Norris attacked the Ulster territory of the McMahons in Monaghan and hung Hugh McMahon who had gone to Dublin to seek support for his claim to the McMahon territories. The supplicant was treacherously hung in front of his own house.
All such events made O’Neill realise that a net was progressively being tightened around him, making him determined to make some preparations for an eventual, final and largely unlooked for break with the English. He rebuilt his castle at Dungannon and procured lead for this purpose which included a surplus for casting into bullets for firearms he also procured from the Continent, notably King Philip II of Spain, the Pope and many Scottish allies. He trained O’Neill clansmen and subsidiary clans in modern warfare, creating a large reserve force that could be fielded at short notice.
Crucially he formed a friendship and alliance with the young Red Hugh O’Donnell in nearby Tir Connell (Donegal). The O’Donnells and O’Neills were traditional enemies, so the English authorities in Dublin worried what this might portend for the future. O’Donnell was a man who had his own recent negative experience of English rule after he was abducted and lodged in Dublin Castle as a hostage to ensure the good behaviour of the O’Donnells. After several unsuccessful attempts, he had managed to escape, but the experience reinforced Red Hugh’s undying enmity towards England and English policy in Ireland. On assuming the chieftainship of TirConnell (Donegal) he approached O’Neill to form an alliance, but initially O’Neill prevaricated, hoping to stay true to his oath of fealty to the Queen.
This post will continue tomorrow with The Nine Years War.
It would take 3 centuries more for Ireland to arrive at its own sense of nationhood.
Since the 12th century Norman invasion of Ireland; Irish chieftains and local kings never quite grasped the potential of the incursion of this latest wave of foreigners into Ireland and Irish affairs. It never occurred to most that it would ultimately see an end to their own mastery of the island. Their failure to see the “big picture” was to cost them dearly. During most of the late medieval period, they resisted the invader only when he appeared to threaten the borders and integrity of their own territories. As often as not, they were happy to parley, even to form alliances with the interlopers to gain temporary advantage in their own localised squabbles with neighbouring chieftains. This meant that between the years of 1170 – 1600, there was an ever changing ebb and flow of the extent and reach of English power and influence against that of indigenous Gaelic chiefs and clans. From the English side, the conquest was not completed because English monarchs rarely had the resources to see it done. Several times during those centuries; a determined unified effort by Gaelic chieftains could have ended the occupation once and for all. Had this happened, it could have prompted the start of a process of nation state building, in line with what was evolving across Europe. There was no concept of an Irish nation or nationality except in the minds of Gaelic poets and bards. Much less was there any idea of developing strong centralised leadership to which all Irish/Gaelic people and chieftains could invest their allegiance.
As Sean O’Faolain, observed in his definitive work The Great O’Neill where he made reference to medieval Gaelic poets’ and bards’ vision of Ireland as a separate nation:
“Such men (poets & bards) were speaking in effect, to an audience of shadows, not to a solid national phalanx. There was a Gaelic people. There was not a Gaelic nation.”The uneasy and constantly changing dynamic between English and Gaelic power in Ireland began to shift inexorably once the Tudor dynasty managed to finally establish themselves more firmly on the English throne. First under Henry VII and increasingly under his son Henry VIII during the early part of the 16th century, the English presence in Ireland became more pronounced. Gaelic chieftains found they had to find individual ways to accommodate to the reality of a strong unified political entity that England and the English presence in Ireland was becoming under the Tudors.
Henry VIII’s introduction of the policy of “Surrender and Regrant” fundamentally changed the relationship of Gaelic chieftains with the Crown. He had already declared himself King of Ireland and was more demanding and determined to command universal allegiance. He was also prepared to use force where diplomacy did not succeed in establishing his authority. What the O’Neills and most Irish chieftains failed to realise fully was that by acceding to Henry’s latest policy, they were declaring themselves subject to English rather than their own ancient Brehon laws. What many saw as a short term stratagem giving them security of lands and titles, carried serious risk that sooner or later would place them at odds with both the King’s authority as well as their own ancient tribal customs and laws. Increasingly many chieftains found themselves caught in an impossible legalistic trap that saw them facing the prospect of losing their newly granted royal titles and lands, at the same time losing support from their own clansmen who considered the clan, not any English King, to be the ultimate source of power in determining who should be chieftain. The consequence of disloyalty to the English Crown (treason) was that all lands and titles were automatically subject to confiscation and reassignment at the King’s pleasure.
The reality of this had already been demonstrated in the O’Moore lands in the midlands where the two counties of Laois and Offaly were confiscated and became subject of a newly devised policy of Plantation whereby lands were taken from the existing occupiers and assigned to colonists drafted in from England, Scotland and Wales. Some of the ejected native Irish were allowed to remain to work as servants and labourers (“drawers of water and hewers of wood”) for the newly endowed owners. The “surplus population” was simply forced out to make their own way in the world as best they could. These were the first land settlements (Plantations) that provided the template that came to be applied elsewhere in Ireland over following decades; first in Munster, later in Ulster, and finally in the comprehensive Cromwellian settlement of the mid 17th century; all of which effectively transferred the ownership of Irish land to non-Irish landholders. Colonisation was henceforth the follow-on solution ensuring the success of conquest, and would continue to be adopted elsewhere in the world as the British Empire expanded over following centuries.
To compound things, the 16th century witnessed religion entering the already complex dynamic between Ireland and its neighbour. The Reformation of the 16th century effectively split Continental Europe, and pulled England, Scotland and Wales, but not Ireland, away from the old faith and allegiance to Rome. It is tempting to speculate that had this vexed issue not intruded into Anglo-Irish relations, the evolution of a United Kingdom of the two North West European islands might well have progressed along a much different and possibly (?) more harmonious path. This was not to be and the two islands continue to live with the consequences of processes and events that originated during that troubled time.
Who was Hugh O’Neill?
It was into this paradigm of incomplete conquest, conflicted loyalties to opposing legal systems, and the more recent strains imposed by conflicted religious affiliation, that Hugh O’Neill was born in 1550. As an O'Neill, Hugh was a descendant of the ancient High Kings of Ireland who ruled at Tara during the previous millennium.
At the tender age of 12 years he was given the title Baron of Dungannon with the possibility of succeeding to the earldom of Tyrone in succession to his kinsman, Con Bacach (= the Lame) O’Neill who had been given the title First Earl of Tyrone by King Henry VIII in 1542 under the terms of “Surrender and Re-grant”. Under this, Con had surrendered the O’Neill lands to the English King and had immediately received them back with his new title, on condition that he recognise the Henry as his rightful King. The young Hugh was destined, and with English support; to become Con’s successor to the title of Second Earl of Tyrone. To prepare for this, teenager Hugh was sent first to the Hovenden family in North Co Dublin and then to several aristocratic houses in England where he learned English mores and manners with a view to becoming thoroughly Anglesized. Ulster had for centuries been the most difficult region for English influence to penetrate, so it was hoped young Hugh would change this in due time. English policy followed a “divide and conquer” approach in favouring or opposing claimants to Gaelic titles, thereby keeping them weak, divided and (if possible) dependent on their support.
While Hugh was supported by the English to succeed to the title, and was duly inaugurated Second Earl of Tyrone, it was not until 1595 that he was recognised as “The O’Neill” under ancient Brehon law. Meantime, he had to walk a precarious line between two opposing legal systems, in turn favouring one over the other, with a view to keep both satisfied. He joined the English in their suppression of the Desmond rebellions in Munster during the 1580’s, and helped the Lord Deputy supress the neighbouring Maguire chieftain of Fermanagh. He visited the Elizabethan court in 1587 to declare his continuing loyalty to the Queen and was a regular attendee at the Dublin Parliament. His contacts afforded valuable insights of the machinations and capriciousness of Tudor policy in relation to all Gaelic chieftains, making him wary and increasingly nervous of the ultimate objectives of English policy in Ireland.
O’Neill had many enemies in the Dublin government, who looked at Ulster in a most acquisitive way, and who continually accused him of playing a double game in contravention of his responsibilities to the Crown in spite of his declarations of enduring loyalty. He had acquired the undying enmity of Sir Harvey Bagenal after he eloped and married Mabel Bagenal, a lady of 20 years, who became 40 year old Hugh’s third wife after the death of his second wife, Ineen Dubh O’Donnell. Bagenal objected to his sister’s liaison with a member of “a rebellious race which he and his father had spilled their blood in repressing”. He had recently been appointed President of Ulster in just the latest measure imposed by the English to contain O’Neill’s power. His antipathy was fuelled with Mabel’s desertion of O’Neill to return to him with loud complaints about the “barbarous” Dungannon court. She died one year later.
The brutal suppression of the Desmond rebellion in Munster, followed by the wholesale settlement and plantation of Desmond lands, was a stark warning of the dangers that lay in resisting English authority. Hugh’s sense of security was further assailed by the massacre of 500 MacDonnell clanspeople on Rathlin Island by the Lord Deputy. Other incidents included the treacherous slaughter of the O’Byrnes of Wicklow after they had responded to an invitation to parley at Mullaghmast in Kildare. In 1593, Lord Lieutenant Sir John Norris attacked the Ulster territory of the McMahons in Monaghan and hung Hugh McMahon who had gone to Dublin to seek support for his claim to the McMahon territories. The supplicant was treacherously hung in front of his own house.
All such events made O’Neill realise that a net was progressively being tightened around him, making him determined to make some preparations for an eventual, final and largely unlooked for break with the English. He rebuilt his castle at Dungannon and procured lead for this purpose which included a surplus for casting into bullets for firearms he also procured from the Continent, notably King Philip II of Spain, the Pope and many Scottish allies. He trained O’Neill clansmen and subsidiary clans in modern warfare, creating a large reserve force that could be fielded at short notice.
Crucially he formed a friendship and alliance with the young Red Hugh O’Donnell in nearby Tir Connell (Donegal). The O’Donnells and O’Neills were traditional enemies, so the English authorities in Dublin worried what this might portend for the future. O’Donnell was a man who had his own recent negative experience of English rule after he was abducted and lodged in Dublin Castle as a hostage to ensure the good behaviour of the O’Donnells. After several unsuccessful attempts, he had managed to escape, but the experience reinforced Red Hugh’s undying enmity towards England and English policy in Ireland. On assuming the chieftainship of TirConnell (Donegal) he approached O’Neill to form an alliance, but initially O’Neill prevaricated, hoping to stay true to his oath of fealty to the Queen.
This post will continue tomorrow with The Nine Years War.
Further Reading:
The Great O’Neill by Sean O’Faolain
A History of Ireland (Volume 1) by Eleanor Hull
~~~~~~~~~~
Arthur Russell is the author of Morgallion, a novel set in medieval Ireland during the Invasion of Ireland in 1314 by the Scottish army led by Edward deBruce, the last crowned King of Ireland (an earlier “what if moment” in Irish history). It tells the story of Cormac MacLochlainn, a young man from the Gaelic crannóg community of Moynagh and how he and his family endured and survived that turbulent period of history. Morgallion has been awarded the indieBRAG Medallion.
The Great O’Neill by Sean O’Faolain
A History of Ireland (Volume 1) by Eleanor Hull
~~~~~~~~~~
Arthur Russell is the author of Morgallion, a novel set in medieval Ireland during the Invasion of Ireland in 1314 by the Scottish army led by Edward deBruce, the last crowned King of Ireland (an earlier “what if moment” in Irish history). It tells the story of Cormac MacLochlainn, a young man from the Gaelic crannóg community of Moynagh and how he and his family endured and survived that turbulent period of history. Morgallion has been awarded the indieBRAG Medallion.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Editors Weekly Round-up, October 15, 2017
by the EHFA Editors
Enjoy this week's posts from the blog.
Enjoy this week's posts from the blog.
by Maria Grace
by Cryssa Bazos
by Arthur Russell
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Editors' Weekly Round-Up, April 23, 2017
by the EHFA Editors
Never miss a post on EHFA. This week we featured several wonderful posts -
Never miss a post on EHFA. This week we featured several wonderful posts -
by Arthur Russell
by Kim Rendfeld
by Mark Patton
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Editor's Weekly Round-Up, April 2, 2017
by the EHFA Editors
Did you miss a post this week? Check out our weekly round-up...
Did you miss a post this week? Check out our weekly round-up...
by Arthur Russell
by Kim Rendfeld
Finding Love Among the Clauses - a Successful Medieval Marriage
by Anna Belfrage
Before Almack's
by Lauren Gilbert
by Anna Belfrage
Before Almack's
by Lauren Gilbert
And a timely post from the archives
by Lauren Gilbert
Monday, March 27, 2017
Arthur Wellesley - First Duke of Wellington (The Iron Duke)
by Arthur Russell.
Sir Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, garnered quite a few names over a long illustrious career – first as a military man, and later in life in a political career that saw him reach the highest position as a two term Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
His distinctive Roman nose gave him the name “Nosey” for the soldiers he led, while his military prowess and spectacular achievements on battlefields on two continents earned for him the name “The Iron Duke” or simply “The Duke”.
He was born in a house on Merrion Square, Dublin and spent most of his formative years in the Wellesley family demesne of Dangan Castle, in the rolling pastoral countryside between the village of Summerhill and the small provincial town of Trim in County Meath, Ireland. His upbringing was typical of many young men of his class, time and place, which is so well described in Philip Guedalla’s masterful tome, “The Duke” about the life and times of the hero of Waterloo as well as his successful campaign in Portugal, Spain and France against Napoloen Bonaparte in the European wars of the early 19th century.
Guedella’s book, which was written and published in 1931, just eight decades after Wellesley’s death in November 1850; opens with a description of the Wellesley family’s unique Anglo Irish aristocratic background of the late 1700’s.
“Castes mark their children deeply – and as a caste the English gentry resident in Ireland were pronounced. Every conquest leaves a caste behind it, since conquerors are always apt to perpetuate their victory in superior social pretentions. Had not the Romans been the noblemen of Europe? Even a Norman raid became an aristocracy in England; and in Ireland the Anglo-Norman conquest left a similar deposit. Such castes are frequently absorbed, assimilated by their subject populations. But where race combines with religious differences and recurrent insurrection to keep the two apart, the schism is absolute and the conquerors remain an alien caste. Such castes, where they survive, are aristocratic by necessity, since their hauteur is less a mannerism than the sole condition of their survival. For without a sinful pride the conqueror will vanish --
-------------
Anglo-Irish magnates knew themselves observed by long, resentful rows of Irish eyes; and what conqueror would condescend before such an audience? The silent watchers made and kept them prouder than ever; and in the last half of the eighteenth century the Anglo Irish magnate was indisputably “Grand Seigneur”. ----------------
A chasm yawned between the classes, as it yawned between Versailles and France. But safe on the hither side the gentry lived their lordly lives, drank claret, toasted the “glorious, pious, and immortal memory”, ran races, and matched fighting cocks. ---------
As their rents rose ever higher on the mounting tide of Irish population, they scattered their argosies (and mortgaged their remotest prospects) in the lordliest game of all. For they built as recklessly as kings. The trim Palladian facades rose gracefully in every Irish county ---------------
A light hearted gentry built with an increasing fervor, since rents could never fall while tenants swarmed in every cabin---------
They bore themselves with the immense patrician dignity that comes from super position on a foundation of slavery. For the native Irish, even in the last years of the eighteenth century, were not far removed from slavery ----------
The nearest social parallel to rural Ireland was to be found three thousand miles away, in the cotton fields of Carolina. There too a little caste lived on their acres. The grace of Southern manners on the white pillared porches of Colonial mansions matches the ease of Irish country houses. There is the same profusion, the same improvidence against the same background of slavery. The same defects recur------
Ireland at the end of the 18th century was truly a country of contrasts, social, religious, political. It was a country of native Irish and their Anglo Irish masters; of ruling class Protestant and oppressed Catholics; of a minority population of privileged haves and an overwhelming majority population of dispossessed and disenfranchised have nots. Ireland was a country that was ill-governed by a seriously unrepresentative Dublin based parliament which focused on serving the interests of those who made it up rather than the welfare of the country and the people it more rightly owed responsibility for protection and just legislation.
His privileged background inclined the future soldier politician to be an ultra conservative and non reformist. As a young man, he cut his political teeth serving under two Lord Lieutenants of Ireland (both appointed by the English House of Commons). He was also a member of the Irish parliament for the nearby borough of Trim in County Meath. As a young parliamentarian he was strong in his opposition to granting the Freedom of Dublin to the leading reformer in the Irish Legislature, Henry Grattan; precisely because Grattan and his Patriot party were reformers and its leader seen as being untrue and disloyal to his own (aristocratic) kind by many of his peers in the Dublin Parliament.
His long career was both political and military, his spectacular success in the latter helped to propel him to the highest office in capital city of the Empire he helped to expand during his Indian campaign (1796-1806). India was where he made his reputation as a supreme strategist and military commander.
He was no social reformer, but is credited as being the British Prime Minister who guided the Catholic Emancipation Bill through a reluctant House of Commons in 1829. In doing this he was making good on a promise made in 1805, when as Chief Secretary for Ireland he stated that he would always refuse to observe the excesses of the oppressive Penal Laws that the majority population of Ireland had endured for more than a century. As a supreme pragmatist he could well see the shifts in the wind that informed that such legislation had no place in enlightened governance in the aftermath of the American War of Independence, and the French Revolution. Ultimately he furthered the process of righting the massive legislative wrongs that had been perpetrated against Catholics for so long. His boyhood experience of Ireland and of the strictures the majority population lived under, may well have given him insights and motivation. It is a matter of record that the British Army that took to the field at the battle Waterloo under his command, was made up of 30% Irish soldiers, most of them Catholic. By that time they were allowed have their own chaplains, a reform made a mere 30 years before.
Of course his critics on both sides, argued that the pragmatist in him bowed to the inevitable only when it became inevitable. Against that, he had to operate against the not insignificant opposition of King William, who as head of the Established Church, saw Emancipation as an essential inherited Royal duty to deny, to protect and defend against a long perceived enemy – the Roman Catholic Church. Wellington’s threat to resign and collapse the Government quickly overcame whatever objections the King might have held. It was a risk the Duke was prepared to take, in the certain knowledge that civil war would have broken out in Ireland if the Act was not passed. Many of his Irish Ascendancy colleagues would find it hard to forgive what they saw as betrayal of his class.
By contrast, 2 years later (1831) he adamantly opposed the First Reform Act which sought to widen voting rights and suffrage in the United Kingdom. He was no great believer in the capacity of the “plain people” to engage in political processes, which he considered to be more rightly the preserve of their “betters”. His attitude no doubt drew on his inherited aristocratic perception of the social order, which was further reinforced by strong military experience garnered on 60 battlefields in India and Europe. So much depended on his ability and capacity as a military leader to know what was best for those under him. Because of these influences in his life and career, he would always find it hard to accommodate completely to the notion that the business of running a country is not quite the same as running a military campaign. Imposing discipline on soldiers is one thing, doing the same for a diverse population quite something else. To his credit, it has to be noted that at a time when the lives and welfare of rank and file soldiers drawn from what were considered “the lower orders”, was not set at high account in the scale of things; Wellington was always conscious of his responsibility for the lives and welfare of those under his command. This trait earned this aristocratic and rather aloof leader of men a well deserved reputation for his defensive as well as offensive approach to warfare, earning him the respect, loyalty and even sometimes the love of those who served with and under him.
In his day he was something of a fashion leader and did much to popularise the short tunic, tight breeches and high shiny boots so beloved by Society of the early 1800's.
Lady Catherine - First Duchess of Wellington
Lady Catherine - First Duchess of Wellington
 |
| Catherine Packenham - Duchess of Wellington |
As so often in life, long absence coupled with the excitement and uncertainty of the chase could well have outshone the attainment of the prize. Winning that particular battle as part of the upward trajectory of his career, was no guarantee of “happy ever after”. His life with Kitty was not what either of them had hoped for, though the marriage produced two boys, Arthur (1812) and Charles (1815). He had a series of mistresses and sexual dalliances during his long life, in a parallel life to his domestic life. Nor did he make any great secret of this as evidenced by his retort to a would be blackmailing newspaper publisher who threatened to expose one of his many affairs in exchange for payment. He is credited to have told him “Publish and be damned”.
Despite all of this, he was reported to be extremely saddened when Kitty died of cancer in 1831. It is reported that his one comfort was that after "half a lifetime together, they had come to understand each other at the end". Three years later he was equally saddened by the death during a cholera epidemic, of one particular mistress friend, diarist Harriet Arbuthnot.
This brilliant complex man, soldier and statesman died in Walmer castle on September 14th 1852 at the age of 83, and was accorded a state funeral in November of the same year, at which thousands paid their respects to one who had done so much during a long and interesting life of service to the Empire he had helped to establish. He was laid to rest in an imposing sarcophagus in St Paul’s Cathedral, beside another hero of the Napoleonic wars, Lord Horatio Nelson.
Memorials to Wellington in Ireland
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| "This column erected in the year MDCCCXV11 (1817) in honour of the illustrious Duke of Wellington by the grateful subscriptions of the County Meath |
The country that birthed and nurtured Wellington did not forget him in the aftermath of his greatest victories and death. Two years after Waterloo, his native Trim raised an imposing commemorative column close to the town centre, while a huge memorial, the largest obelisk in Europe; was raised to him in Dublin’s Phoenix Park after his death.
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| The Wellington monument in Dublin's Phoenix Park, the largest obelisk in Europe. Completed in 1861 |
While most Irish Nationalists in the wake of Irish independence almost a century ago are no great lovers of the Duke; the Wellington monuments in Trim and Dublin have been spared the fate of similar memorials to King William III (of Battle of the Boyne fame) on College Green and Horatio Nelson in the centre of O’Connell Street as somewhat uncomfortable reminders of Ireland’s sometimes difficult history as part of the British Empire. While their presence sometimes give cause for debate and flurries of letters to newspapers, (pro as well as contra); as time passes, and the nation comes to terms with its past; the desire to remove or destroy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arthur Russell is the Author of Morgallion, a novel set in medieval Ireland during the Invasion of Ireland in 1314 by the Scottish army led by Edward deBruce, the last crowned King of Ireland. It tells the story of Cormac MacLochlainn, a young man from the Gaelic crannóg community of Moynagh and how he and his family endured and survived that turbulent period of history. ‘Morgallion’ was awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion and is available in paperback and e-book form.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
The Origins of Democracy in Ireland
by Arthur Russell
During the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and after almost four and a half centuries of struggle, the old clan based system in Ireland had been finally broken. With the accession of James Stuart to the dual monarchy of England and Scotland in 1601, thereby becoming James I, the four nations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales had been effectively completely brought under a single monarch for the first time in history.
A century later the first Act of Union would constitutionally bind Scotland, and a further century later Ireland would be similarly grafted into the entity which would henceforth be known as the United Kingdom of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This union of the four nations remained intact until after World War I, when the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 between the Imperial Government and the elected representatives of the Irish people, who had established a Provisional Government in Dublin after the General Elections of 1918, saw the establishment of Saor Stát na hÉireann (Irish Free State) with dominion status in the British Commonwealth, under the British Crown. A totally independent Irish Republic, which was being sought by the Irish negotiators, was something Britain was unwilling to agree in 1921. The Saor Stát remained until 1949 when the Dáil (Irish Parliament) declared the establishment of the Republic of Ireland, thereby removing itself from the British Commonwealth.
It is interesting to track the birth and development of democratic Republicanism in Ireland from its earliest days in the late 18th century when the dual seismic events of the American War of Independence, closely followed by the French Revolution opened the minds of ordinary people in Europe to the feasibility of establishing representative government based on consent of the governed (of the people, by the people, for the people).
As in America and France, it is necessary to go back further into history to see how Republican ideals gained traction in the minds of ordinary people and gave birth to the modern notion of democracy.
In the aftermath of the Williamite War of the 1690’s, which ended the Stuart monarchy, the Catholic Irish, who had largely supported the Stuart cause, managed to get a reasonably generous settlement from King William III in the Treaty of Limerick which ended hostilities. A popular Irish Protestant poem of the day complained“the conquerers lose, the conquered gainers are”.
Under the Treaty provisions, Catholics were allowed a measure of legal and religious toleration in line with what their co-religionists enjoyed in England, but once the Royal army returned to England the Anglican Church dominated Parliament in Dublin in its wisdom, and dictated by self interest chose to ignore Treaty provisions and passed a series of laws imposing significant restrictions on Catholics who were more than 80% of the island’s population.
These laws were also directed against the sizeable Presbyterian (or Dissenter) population living mainly in Ulster who were targets of the Sacramental Act of 1704 requiring all members of parliament to recognise the authority of the Anglican Church. The infamous legal code was collectively called “The Penal Laws” and was designed to ensure that wealth and political power in Ireland would continue to remain in the hands of the dominant Anglicans who owned or controlled 90% of the land based wealth of Ireland. In effect, the Dublin Parliament, purporting to represent all the people of Ireland, was controlled by less than 20% of its population. The Laws remained on the statute book during the 18th century, and Parliament was always ready to selectively enforce them in response to periods of crisis in International affairs as happened in 1715, 1720 (War of the Spanish Succession), 1745 (War of the Austrian Succession and the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland), 1756-63 (Seven Years War with France).
The code was symptomatic of a severe sense of insecurity in the outnumbered but powerful Anglican population, and its unrepresentative nature was subject of criticism from the likes of Dean Jonathan Swift, an Anglican cleric, as well as a small group of politicians within Parliament itself called “The Patriots” under the able leadership of Henry Grattan. These progressive forces had limited success in dismantling some of the more glaring civil and religious injustices contained in the code as time went on, but progress was painfully slow and begrudging. The overall anti Catholic/Dissenter bias remained right through the 18th century and was supported by no less a person than King George III who saw it as his God given duty as head of the Anglican Church to veto granting full civil rights to Catholics everywhere in his realm.
Note - Full Catholic Emancipation within the United Kingdom was finally achieved in 1829 by which time the Dublin parliament was subsumed into a UK parliament in London following the Act of Union of 1801.
Catholic repression and reaction
In response to being blocked from any possibility to exercise power or influence, the 18th century witnessed the rise of oath bound movements among the dispossessed and disenfranchised Catholics of Ireland. Agrarian organisations such as The Defenders sought to redress what they saw as obvious injustices and imbalances in the laws of what was once their land. Such agitation had the immediate effect of justifying government restrictions in defending what they considered hard won ruling class rights and privileges against a tide of a by then largely dispossessed, poverty stricken (due to the same Penal Laws) Catholics who seemed to threaten those rights and privileges. This was not helped by the fact that the population of Ireland had quadrupled during the 18th century, most of that increase arising from the Catholics who were a permanent under-class in Irish society. Even some fair minded Government members and supporters considered Catholics inherently unfit to be allowed equal rights, and this was seen as "the rock of religion and indulgence to Catholics". The spirit that drove the 17th century Popish Plot of Titus Oates and the subsequent Glorious Revolution was truly alive and well in Ireland a century later, and the country was a powder-keg with serious potential to explode, sooner rather than later. From where would the spark to cause conflagration come?
American Independence and the Rights of Man
It can be easily imagined what the impact of momentous events in North America and later France had on the unstable and unsustainable socio-political conditions that existed in Ireland. Equally it can be imagined what the attitude of Government would be towards repressed people they ruled over with such fear and disrespect of basic civil rights such as the right to own or inherit property, the right to education, the right to parliamentary representation.
Disaffection was initially obvious among the strong, independently minded Presbyterian population who suffered a loss of 40,000 persons who left Ireland to escape restrictive economic and social conditions to settle in the North American colonies during the 1769-74 period and became serious protagonists on the rebel side in the American War of Independence.
Benjamin Franklin visited Ireland in 1771 and reported strong support from both “courtiers and patriots” for the colonists' case against Imperial impositions.
“I found them disposed to be friends of America, in which I endeavoured to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and by joining our interests with others, a more equitable treatment from this nation (England) might be obtained for them as well as for us”.
The Irish Volunteers 1778
Due to the fact that England was so distracted by serious problems all over its growing Empire and then by developments arising from the French Revolution, the Irish Parliament was forced to rely on its own resources, including those of its Patriot members, to protect Irish territory against potential invasion (particularly France). 1778 saw the formation of well resourced local Volunteer militias led by Lord Charlemont in 1778 in his own district, which was copied all over the country until it numbered an estimated 100,000 men under arms. This force was in reality a private army and was at the disposal of Government but not under Government control. It used its power and influence to win dearly held interests which had long been frustrated by the London government. They won significant self determination for the Dublin Parliament as well as overturning long standing restrictions on Irish trade to the Empire. Some hardwon measures were reversed when international tensions decreased and had the effect of radicalising many liberal minded members who were further influenced by returning Irish soldiers from across the Atlantic. Among these was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, son of the Duke of Leinster, who as a junior British officer witnessed the Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown but was attracted by the Republican ideals that inspired the Declaration of Independence of July 4th 1776, seeing its relevance to his own country.
The Irish Volunteer movement of 1778 was the moment it could be said the gun first entered Irish politics. At the time it was the prospect of force rather than its actual use that won political and economic concessions from an unwilling London parliament. The lessons of 1778 were well observed and would influence subsequent Irish history.
The French Revolution (1789)
The establishment of the Estates General in Paris after the fall of the Bastile in May 1789 was seen as a significant event all over Europe, but especially in Ireland.
Conservative Irish commentators such as Edmund Burke, while critical of Royal excesses and abuses, saw the destruction of many aspects of the “Ancien Regime” in Paris as catastrophic and retrograde. By contrast, Whig clubs in Dublin were excited by what was happening and caused 20,000 copies of Tom Paine's ‘Rights of Man’ to be printed and distributed. The Revolutionary Principles of the French Revolution resonated with Irish Presbyterians, reform minded Anglicans and, most significantly, Catholics, though there was some ambivalence due to the anti-religious nature of the French Revolution as it progressed and the negative attitude of Ireland’s Catholic hierarchy towards the liberal ideas of the Revolution as it progressed.
In July 1790 many Protestants and Dissenters actually marched to celebrate the Fall of the Bastille in Paris rather than the Battle of the Boyne of the previous century.
The United Irishmen (1793)
Many who viewed the emergent independent United States of America as “the promised land” drew inspiration from the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence of July 4th 1778. This was further strengthened by the earth shattering events in France in May 1789.
These events provided the backdrop to a new departure in Irish political life. Ulster Presbyterian Dissenters were convinced of the need to make common cause with the majority Catholics if the woes of Ireland were ever to be addressed in a fair and equitable way. This led to the establishment of the United Irishmen organisation in 1791which sought “to replace the name of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter with the common name of Irishmen”.
The leader of the new movement, Theobald Wolfe Tone, a young Protestant barrister from Dublin, wrote in August 1791 one of the most influental pamphlets in Irish History, called "An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland", which aimed at allaying Protestant and Presbyterian fears. It was a document that appalled both governments in Dublin and London who in common with all the crowned heads of Europe feared the liberating notions of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”.
After France declared war on Austria in 1792, all of Europe was on war footing. This meant that in Britain and Ireland security took precedence over all other issues, even the most worthy or high-minded. In order to mollify Catholic opinion and to help the drive to recruit Catholics into the army to fight the battles that all saw coming, the London government forced an unwilling Irish parliament to endorse a very limited measure granting the vote to Catholics which soon was shown to withhold as much as it granted. Prime Minister William Pitt considered it was not a good time for further reformist experiments. As war clouds gathered, the campaign to qwell radical thought was undertaken. Private armies, including the Volunteer militias, were suppressed as was the newly established United Irishmen which immediately went underground. The most significant outcome of this outlawing of the movement caused it to add an unequivocal separatist objective to its Republican programme:
"To break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of our country.”
During the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and after almost four and a half centuries of struggle, the old clan based system in Ireland had been finally broken. With the accession of James Stuart to the dual monarchy of England and Scotland in 1601, thereby becoming James I, the four nations of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales had been effectively completely brought under a single monarch for the first time in history.
A century later the first Act of Union would constitutionally bind Scotland, and a further century later Ireland would be similarly grafted into the entity which would henceforth be known as the United Kingdom of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This union of the four nations remained intact until after World War I, when the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 between the Imperial Government and the elected representatives of the Irish people, who had established a Provisional Government in Dublin after the General Elections of 1918, saw the establishment of Saor Stát na hÉireann (Irish Free State) with dominion status in the British Commonwealth, under the British Crown. A totally independent Irish Republic, which was being sought by the Irish negotiators, was something Britain was unwilling to agree in 1921. The Saor Stát remained until 1949 when the Dáil (Irish Parliament) declared the establishment of the Republic of Ireland, thereby removing itself from the British Commonwealth.
It is interesting to track the birth and development of democratic Republicanism in Ireland from its earliest days in the late 18th century when the dual seismic events of the American War of Independence, closely followed by the French Revolution opened the minds of ordinary people in Europe to the feasibility of establishing representative government based on consent of the governed (of the people, by the people, for the people).
As in America and France, it is necessary to go back further into history to see how Republican ideals gained traction in the minds of ordinary people and gave birth to the modern notion of democracy.
In the aftermath of the Williamite War of the 1690’s, which ended the Stuart monarchy, the Catholic Irish, who had largely supported the Stuart cause, managed to get a reasonably generous settlement from King William III in the Treaty of Limerick which ended hostilities. A popular Irish Protestant poem of the day complained“the conquerers lose, the conquered gainers are”.
 |
| The Treaty Stone in Limerick Provisions of this treaty in 1694 were ignored by the Protestant dominated Irish Parliament |
Under the Treaty provisions, Catholics were allowed a measure of legal and religious toleration in line with what their co-religionists enjoyed in England, but once the Royal army returned to England the Anglican Church dominated Parliament in Dublin in its wisdom, and dictated by self interest chose to ignore Treaty provisions and passed a series of laws imposing significant restrictions on Catholics who were more than 80% of the island’s population.
These laws were also directed against the sizeable Presbyterian (or Dissenter) population living mainly in Ulster who were targets of the Sacramental Act of 1704 requiring all members of parliament to recognise the authority of the Anglican Church. The infamous legal code was collectively called “The Penal Laws” and was designed to ensure that wealth and political power in Ireland would continue to remain in the hands of the dominant Anglicans who owned or controlled 90% of the land based wealth of Ireland. In effect, the Dublin Parliament, purporting to represent all the people of Ireland, was controlled by less than 20% of its population. The Laws remained on the statute book during the 18th century, and Parliament was always ready to selectively enforce them in response to periods of crisis in International affairs as happened in 1715, 1720 (War of the Spanish Succession), 1745 (War of the Austrian Succession and the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland), 1756-63 (Seven Years War with France).
 |
| The Irish Parliament of the 17th century being addressed by 'Patriot' leader Henry Grattan. |
Note - Full Catholic Emancipation within the United Kingdom was finally achieved in 1829 by which time the Dublin parliament was subsumed into a UK parliament in London following the Act of Union of 1801.
Catholic repression and reaction
In response to being blocked from any possibility to exercise power or influence, the 18th century witnessed the rise of oath bound movements among the dispossessed and disenfranchised Catholics of Ireland. Agrarian organisations such as The Defenders sought to redress what they saw as obvious injustices and imbalances in the laws of what was once their land. Such agitation had the immediate effect of justifying government restrictions in defending what they considered hard won ruling class rights and privileges against a tide of a by then largely dispossessed, poverty stricken (due to the same Penal Laws) Catholics who seemed to threaten those rights and privileges. This was not helped by the fact that the population of Ireland had quadrupled during the 18th century, most of that increase arising from the Catholics who were a permanent under-class in Irish society. Even some fair minded Government members and supporters considered Catholics inherently unfit to be allowed equal rights, and this was seen as "the rock of religion and indulgence to Catholics". The spirit that drove the 17th century Popish Plot of Titus Oates and the subsequent Glorious Revolution was truly alive and well in Ireland a century later, and the country was a powder-keg with serious potential to explode, sooner rather than later. From where would the spark to cause conflagration come?
American Independence and the Rights of Man
It can be easily imagined what the impact of momentous events in North America and later France had on the unstable and unsustainable socio-political conditions that existed in Ireland. Equally it can be imagined what the attitude of Government would be towards repressed people they ruled over with such fear and disrespect of basic civil rights such as the right to own or inherit property, the right to education, the right to parliamentary representation.
Disaffection was initially obvious among the strong, independently minded Presbyterian population who suffered a loss of 40,000 persons who left Ireland to escape restrictive economic and social conditions to settle in the North American colonies during the 1769-74 period and became serious protagonists on the rebel side in the American War of Independence.
Benjamin Franklin visited Ireland in 1771 and reported strong support from both “courtiers and patriots” for the colonists' case against Imperial impositions.
“I found them disposed to be friends of America, in which I endeavoured to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and by joining our interests with others, a more equitable treatment from this nation (England) might be obtained for them as well as for us”.
The Irish Volunteers 1778
 |
| The Irish Volunteers in College Green Dublin in 1778. |
Due to the fact that England was so distracted by serious problems all over its growing Empire and then by developments arising from the French Revolution, the Irish Parliament was forced to rely on its own resources, including those of its Patriot members, to protect Irish territory against potential invasion (particularly France). 1778 saw the formation of well resourced local Volunteer militias led by Lord Charlemont in 1778 in his own district, which was copied all over the country until it numbered an estimated 100,000 men under arms. This force was in reality a private army and was at the disposal of Government but not under Government control. It used its power and influence to win dearly held interests which had long been frustrated by the London government. They won significant self determination for the Dublin Parliament as well as overturning long standing restrictions on Irish trade to the Empire. Some hardwon measures were reversed when international tensions decreased and had the effect of radicalising many liberal minded members who were further influenced by returning Irish soldiers from across the Atlantic. Among these was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, son of the Duke of Leinster, who as a junior British officer witnessed the Cornwallis surrender at Yorktown but was attracted by the Republican ideals that inspired the Declaration of Independence of July 4th 1776, seeing its relevance to his own country.
The Irish Volunteer movement of 1778 was the moment it could be said the gun first entered Irish politics. At the time it was the prospect of force rather than its actual use that won political and economic concessions from an unwilling London parliament. The lessons of 1778 were well observed and would influence subsequent Irish history.
The French Revolution (1789)
The establishment of the Estates General in Paris after the fall of the Bastile in May 1789 was seen as a significant event all over Europe, but especially in Ireland.
Conservative Irish commentators such as Edmund Burke, while critical of Royal excesses and abuses, saw the destruction of many aspects of the “Ancien Regime” in Paris as catastrophic and retrograde. By contrast, Whig clubs in Dublin were excited by what was happening and caused 20,000 copies of Tom Paine's ‘Rights of Man’ to be printed and distributed. The Revolutionary Principles of the French Revolution resonated with Irish Presbyterians, reform minded Anglicans and, most significantly, Catholics, though there was some ambivalence due to the anti-religious nature of the French Revolution as it progressed and the negative attitude of Ireland’s Catholic hierarchy towards the liberal ideas of the Revolution as it progressed.
In July 1790 many Protestants and Dissenters actually marched to celebrate the Fall of the Bastille in Paris rather than the Battle of the Boyne of the previous century.
The United Irishmen (1793)
Many who viewed the emergent independent United States of America as “the promised land” drew inspiration from the ideals articulated in the Declaration of Independence of July 4th 1778. This was further strengthened by the earth shattering events in France in May 1789.
These events provided the backdrop to a new departure in Irish political life. Ulster Presbyterian Dissenters were convinced of the need to make common cause with the majority Catholics if the woes of Ireland were ever to be addressed in a fair and equitable way. This led to the establishment of the United Irishmen organisation in 1791which sought “to replace the name of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter with the common name of Irishmen”.
The leader of the new movement, Theobald Wolfe Tone, a young Protestant barrister from Dublin, wrote in August 1791 one of the most influental pamphlets in Irish History, called "An Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland", which aimed at allaying Protestant and Presbyterian fears. It was a document that appalled both governments in Dublin and London who in common with all the crowned heads of Europe feared the liberating notions of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”.After France declared war on Austria in 1792, all of Europe was on war footing. This meant that in Britain and Ireland security took precedence over all other issues, even the most worthy or high-minded. In order to mollify Catholic opinion and to help the drive to recruit Catholics into the army to fight the battles that all saw coming, the London government forced an unwilling Irish parliament to endorse a very limited measure granting the vote to Catholics which soon was shown to withhold as much as it granted. Prime Minister William Pitt considered it was not a good time for further reformist experiments. As war clouds gathered, the campaign to qwell radical thought was undertaken. Private armies, including the Volunteer militias, were suppressed as was the newly established United Irishmen which immediately went underground. The most significant outcome of this outlawing of the movement caused it to add an unequivocal separatist objective to its Republican programme:
"To break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of our country.”
In May 1793, Wolfe Tone was arrested and banished from Ireland. With his wife Matilda and their children, he sailed to America, a country he did not find much to his liking despite its Republican system of government.
"The aristocracy of money and achievement in America is still less to my liking than the European aristocracy of birth.”
A year later he took a ship to France where he was welcomed by the Revolutionary Government in Paris. During 1796, he persuaded them to organise a 43 ship armada carrying 14,000 French soldiers to make a landing in southern Ireland. This was planned to be a preliminary action to overthrow the Dublin government, replacing it with an independent Republican regime ultimately drawing democratic support from the people.
The invasion failed due to unfavourable weather conditions which prevented a successful landing in Bantry Bay in December 1796. The Government was now well warned of the potential threat of the United Irishmen and their French allies. 1797 and the early months of 1798 saw a concerted campaign to destroy the United Irishmen by arresting the entire leadership and provoking the disorganised rebels to prematurely take to the field. Ireland remembers 1798 as a year of bloodshed and terror in which an estimated 50,000 rebels died in battle and by execution. Thousands more were transported to penal colonies in Australia.
Such was the turbulent birth of Irish Republicanism which though defeated in 1798, and on three further occasions in 1848, 1867 and 1916, survived to see the declaration of 1949.
In today’s Irish Republic, which Theobald Wolfe Tone dreamt of creating, he is acknowledged as the “Father of Irish Republicanism”. Words he wrote as he awaited execution in a Dublin prison after he was arrested, are often quoted:
"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissentions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in the place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter—these were my means."
References
Irish Nationalism – A History of its Roots and Ideology (Sean Cronin)
Theobald Wolfe Tone – (Frank MacDermot)
The 1798 Rebellion – An Illustrated History (Thomas Bartlett, Kevin Dawson, Dáire Keogh)
The 1798 Rebellion – National Museum of Ireland (Michael Kenny)
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Arthur Russell is author of the historic novel Morgallion set in early 13th century Ireland during the invasion of Ireland by King Robert Bruce's younger brother, Edward, who is determined to establish the Bruce dynasty as High Kings of Ireland, thereby creating a "Celtic Empire of the West." It follows the story of the young man Cormac who lives through those turbulent days of medieval Irish history.Amazon
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