The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken, 1770–1866. Mary McNeill
the middle of the seventeenth century there was a considerable Scottish population in the north-east corner of Ulster. This continued to be augmented by a stream of religious refugees from Scotland, Presbyterian extremists for the most part who, for one reason or another, found themselves subjected in their own country to disciplinary measures which they were anxious to avoid. Covenanters, Burghers, Antiburghers, Seceders – people who did not understand the meaning of compromise – sailed from the coasts of Cantyre and Ayr to the harbours of Antrim, the route from time immemorial of a two-way traffic between shores that are seldom out of sight. [It is said that 50,000 Scots came to Ulster in the years following 1690.9] Here, in the Antrim hinterland they settled, pursuing their independent courses unmolested. Through time some became integrated in the general Presbyterian community, others maintained their separateness with the tenacity of the persecuted, and all of them acted as a stimulus to an independence of mind that already existed.
In addition to this religious intensity, perhaps indeed because of it, there was widespread interest in the new philosophical thought. Locke’s writings were well known, there was close contact with the Scottish philosophers, Rousseau had his admirers even in the country towns, and when Paine published The Rights of Man it was at once hailed in Belfast with rapture, becoming in Wolfe Tone’s phrase “the Koran of Belfescu”. So, throughout the Province, but especially in the neighbourhood of Belfast, political, economic and philosophic thought had prepared the community in a remarkable degree for the great upheaval of the French Revolution, and Henry Joy, jun. [later to come down so heavily on the side of moderation] could, with sincerity, write that:
the exultation with which they [the people of Belfast] hailed the downfall of civil and spiritual despotism in France in the year 1789, affords a decisive proof of their disinterested solicitude for the universal diffusion of liberty and peace. Their joy was expressed by affectionate congratulations to the French patriots and by annual commemorations of the destruction of the bastile, conducted with pomp and magnificance, and calculated to impress on innumerable spectators a conviction of the vast importance which they attached to this glorious occurance, and sensations of gratitude to the divine providence’ for dispersing the political clouds which had hitherto darkened our hemisphere.’10
Indeed, in Ulster, the French Revolution quickly became something more than an external occurrence; amongst the ardent reformers its ideals were regarded as a challenge, and assumed a significance unknown either in England or Scotland.
And so:
Encouraged by the success of these glorious efforts of the French nation, the friends of Liberty in this country once more turned their undivided attention to the salutary measure of Reform, and renewed those efforts from which they had been so ingloriously compelled to desist in the year 1785. The first appearance of this revival of public spirit in Belfast shone forth on the 6th of March 1790, when it was unanimously resolved at a Meeting of the Belfast First Volunteer Company, that this company do turn out in full uniform on the 17th inst. in order to celebrate our 12th anniversary, and elect officers for the ensuing year.11
To some, however, the red light of danger was apparent. Lord Charlemont, the Volunteer leader, already apprehensive of the more extreme opinion, inaugurated a Whig Club in Belfast in 1790, similar to that already founded in Dublin.
I think [he wrote to his Belfast friend Dr. Halliday], that an institution of this kind would, by holding out a congregation to the true believers at Belfast, be a means of fixing, and even recalling many who might otherwise wander from the faith.12
Not that the Belfast Whig Club was by any means reactionary, for within six months of its foundation we find the members, under the chairmanship of Dr. Halliday, and with Henry Joy, jun. as secretary, passing the following resolution:
That considering the French Revolution as one of the most important and universally interesting events which the world ever saw, and as particularly such to the inhabitants of these islands as it promises to lead the way to an orderly and gradual reform of these abuses which have maimed and disfigured the constitution we shall, as men, as Whigs – as citizens of this empire, meet on the 14th of July next, to celebrate that astonishing event, which constitutes a glorious era in the history of man and of the world.13
When the day of commemoration arrived the Northern Whig Club formed part of a great procession, with tableaux, organised by the Volunteers, and on this occasion “a green cockade, the national colour of Ireland, was worn by the whole body.”14 At a splendid banquet afterwards in the south wing of the White Linenhall 354 members of the Volunteer companies sat down at a single long table. Among the twenty-seven toasts appear the names of Mr. Paine, John Locke, Doctor Franklin, and Monsieur Mirabeau. In spite of the citizens’ love of bonfires none were permitted on this occasion’ “it having been the idea of the town that not intemperate joy but dignified, rational and deliberate rejoicing should close the scene.”15 It was magnificent: with all allowances for the flamboyant language of such reporting, one can feel the revived enthusiasm that animated once more the old confidence and desire, and recalled the achievements of 1782.
But when the first glamour departed, difficulties set in. The Catholic issue was now dominant in Ulster, and for many there was the bewildering problem of how to do what seemed right and fair to Catholics as fellow-citizens, and maintain at the same time other cherished ideals – the 18th century version of a recurring problem.
As discussions increased opinions hardened, and the complexities of the situation were not lessened by the arrival in Belfast in October 1791, on his first recorded visit, of Theobald Wolfe Tone, then secretary of the Catholic Committee in Dublin.
Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald are perhaps the best known leaders in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Fitzgerald because of his courage and of his family background, and Tone because through his Autobiography we come into unusually intimate contact with the man and the events in which he was involved. Briefly, Tone was born in Dublin, in 1763, the eldest son of a successful coachbuilder. His father made strenuous efforts to give him a good education with the fixed intention that his first born should become a lawyer. So, at the age of seventeen, Tone rebelliously entered Trinity College, Dublin, having already given every possible indication that what he really desired was a military career. While still at College, he eloped with Matilda Witherington, “not yet sixteen, and as lovely as an angel” and after a few days of married bliss at Maynooth, the pair returned to Dublin, “were forgiven on all sides, and settled in lodgings near my wife’s grandfather.”16 After various vicissitudes Tone set off to pursue his studies at the Middle Temple, leaving his wife and baby daughter with his father, who had recently sustained considerable financial losses. In spite of this sobering situation the brilliant and attractive Theobald found humdrum study in London, or elsewhere, eminently distasteful, and “as I foresaw by this time that I should never be Lord Chancellor”, he and some companions devoted a great deal of time to devising a scheme for colonizing “one of Cook’s recently discovered islands in the South Seas on a military plan, for all my ideas ran on that track.”17 They embodied their scheme in a memorial to Mr. Pitt which Tone delivered with his own hands to “the Porter in Downing Street,” but Mr. Pitt took “not the smallest notice of it” and, writes Tone, “in my anger I made something like a vow that if ever I had an opportunity I would make Mr. Pitt sorry, and perhaps fortune may yet enable me to fulfill that resolution.”18 To say that Tone was in fact the stuff of which the professional revolutionary is made is not to minimise the earnestness with which he later carried out his schemes, but it accounts for an early lack of a sense of responsibility.
After two years in London, this restless young man returned to Dublin, collected his wife and child, commenced once more the study of law, and was called to the Irish Bar in the fateful year of 1789. Try as he might, and there is evidence that at this time he did put his mind to his work, Tone could not settle to a barrister’s routine. Instead he haunted the gallery of the Irish House of Commons, and for the first time became interested in Irish politics, with the result that he shortly produced a pamphlet entitled “A Review of the last Session of Parliament”, a defence, in effect, of the recently established Whig Clubs. When the pamphlet reached Belfast it was hailed with delight by the northern club, who “reprinted and distributed a large impression at their own expense, with an introduction highly complimentary to the author, whom at that time, they