Above : Illustrating Picture Of Samuel Neilson In A Meeting

The progress of the French Revolution was watched with great interest in Ireland. Many of the Catholic gentry had spent some years of their youth at one or other of the French colleges, or had relatives or friends serving in the Irish Brigade. These, as a rule, sided with the Royalists, especially when news reached them of the terrible excesses of which the extreme section of the revolutionists had been guilty. The bishops and clergy also, fearing the spread of the anti-religious spirit of the Republican Party, constantly warned their flocks against the wild and criminal ideas which prevailed in France. We have seen that the Irish Parliament, which may be regarded as voicing the opinions of the upper and middle classes of the Episcopalian Protestants, almost unanimously supported the British Government in its declaration of war against the Republic.

By nobody in Ireland was the new gospel of equality generally welcomed except by the Ulster Protestant Dissenters, whose religious faith inclined them to democracy, and to sturdy independence, and who felt themselves aggrieved in many respects by the English Government.

In the case of the vast majority, of course, this feeling would never translate itself into action, but there were some enthusiasts whose passionate idealism raised them above fears of personal danger. The most prominent of these was a young lawyer, Theobald Wolfe Tone, then aged 28. Chiefly by him and his friend, Samuel Neilson, the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast in the year 1791. The avowed object of the association, and probably, during at least the early years of its existence, the real one of the majority of its members was, as their first rule declared’ to forward ” a brotherhood of affection, a communion of rights and a union of power amongst Irishmen of every religious persuasion, and thereby to obtain a complete reform of the Legislature, founded on the principles of civil, political and religious liberty.” Undoubtedly how-ever, even at first, many looked far beyond this, and dream of independence and an Irish Republic.

In Belfast sympathy with the French Revolution was openly expressed by large numbers of citizens of good position. On July 14th (1792), a banquet was held to commemorate the anniversary of the capture of the great State prison, the Bastille, by the Paris mob. On this occasion ” the sovereignty of the people ” was one of the toasts drunk.

At first the United Irishmen were an open society, pressing forward political objects in a constitutional manner. At that time the members were almost exclusively Protestants. In 1794, however, the association was repressed by Government, and next year it was reorganised as a regular secret society. Naturally it now became more extreme. Large numbers of Catholics joined, although none were very prominent. By the end of 1795 the policy of the United Irishmen had become distinctly Republican, and they looked to an armed insurrection as a means of obtaining their end.