Ballynahinch presentation of 1790s Revolutionaries

Ballynahinch presentation of 1790s Revolutionaries

18 April 2018

BALLYNAHINCH Market House is the setting next Wednesday evening, April 25, for an intriguing insight into how in the 1790s, local political reformers challenged the power of the landlords.

Entitled ‘Green Shoots of Democracy,’ the event is being hosted by the Rowallane and Slieve Croob Twinning Group with the eagerly awaited illustrated presentation delivered by widely acclaimed local historian Horace Reid.

In particular, Horace will focus on Wolfe Tone and the Orangemen at Spa in 1792 during the event arranged by the recently formed twinning group which aims to twin with seven other Celtic regions across Ireland, and in the UK and Europe. 

Horace will reveal how the Saintfield and Mourne districts in particular shared a momentous era of history in the 1790s, a period which had wide-ranging resonances across the Celtic regions and elsewhere, indeed as far away as America.

His story begins with the great Co Down philosopher, Francis Hutcheson, grandson of the Rev Alexander Hutcheson, the first ever Presbyterian minister in Saintfield.

Hutcheson was among several influences which triggered the American Revolution which, in turn, triggered a demand for equivalent political reform in Ireland.

Foremost amongst the Ulster political activists then were Presbyterians the Rev Dr William Steel Dickson of Portaferry (Moderator in 1793), Rev James Porter of Greyabbey, Rev Samuel Barber of First Rathfriland (Moderator in 1790) and the Rev Thomas Ledlie Birch, who built the present First Presbyterian Church in Saintfield in 1777.

“During the American War of Independence, the British Isles were stripped of army and navy forces, leaving the country at risk of attack by the French,” explained Horace ahead of next week’s talk.

“To counter this threat, the Irish gentry recruited a local self-defence corps, named the Volunteers. Uniquely, these soldiers received no salary, paid for their own equipment and elected their own officers. To the alarm of governments in Dublin and London, the Volunteers – in Ulster most of them Presbyterians — developed political ambitions. 

“They held their own elections and party conferences and demanded parliamentary reform. At the time, parliament was the preserve of the aristocracy and gentry, to the exclusion of most Presbyterians and all Catholics.”

Horace explained that simultaneously with these developments in Ulster, in Dublin, a group of prosperous merchants formed the Catholic Committee to lobby for the admission of Catholics as MPs to the Irish Parliament. Prominent among its members was Luke Teeling, a linen merchant from Poleglass near Lisburn. The committee employed Wolfe Tone, a Protestant barrister, as their full time secretary.

“Another Ulster textile merchant, Samuel Neilson originally from Ballyroney near Rathfriland, befriended Teeling with the intention of coordinating Catholic and Presbyterian political lobbying, north and south,” the historian continued. 

“In a daring strategy, in 1792 Wolfe Tone came north to Belfast and Co Down. He sought to encourage the Volunteer corps in their efforts to secure political emancipation for both Presbyterians and Catholics.”

Horace said many Presbyterian volunteers in Ulster were opposed to liberating Catholics as Tone soon discovered when he visited Ballynahinch on  August 16. 

“With some exaggeration, he described the Spa volunteers as initially being like ‘peep of day boys, in other words, prototype Orangemen. However, thanks to the influence of Joseph Clokey, their lieutenant, they were quickly won over to Samuel Neilson’s strategy of Catholic/Presbyterian cooperation,” he continued.

Tone recorded their process of conversion in his diary, writing: “Introduced to M’Clokey, a proper man. That neighbourhood almost totally converted, though very bad some little time back. A new corps raised there on peep of day boy principles, converted by M’Clokey, who, in return, is chosen their lieutenant. All well.

“The Catholics and they are now on such good terms that the Catholics lend them their arms to learn their exercise and walk to see them parade and both parties now in high affection with each other, who were before ready to cut each other’s throats. All this done in about two months or less.”

Horace says Tone and Neilson encountered similar and much more formidable difficulties in the Slieve Croob district, revealing that around Rathfriland, armed groups of Catholics and Protestants were in active conflict, resulting in a number of deaths.

“Luke Teeling’s son-in-law, John Magennis of Balleely, was active in the Mourne area and in concert with Alexander Lowry, tried to keep a lid on these disturbances,” he said. “Tone and Neilson convened a successful peace conference in Rathfriland on July 18, 1792, but the local gentry were suspicious of their efforts. 

“On his second visit to the town on  August 11, Tone was abruptly refused service by the innkeeper Mr. Murphy. However he did receive generous hospitality from sympathisers in the vicinity, Catholic and Protestant. Among his hosts was the Lowry family, Presbyterians living at Linen Hill near Katesbridge.”

Horace continued: “Thomas Russell, ‘The Man From God Knows Where,’ was a more unobtrusive presence in the Mournes. General-elect for the United Irishmen, he and Charles Teeling were trying to effect a paramilitary alliance between Catholics and Protestants in the district.

“Under pretence of conducting a geological survey on Slieve Donard, Russell was busy gathering military intelligence on the religious denomination and political leaning of the locals and their proficiency in smuggling. It was said that French ships were lurking off the Mourne coast and that 4,000 muskets had found their way into the hands of Rathfriland Catholics.

The historian said Russell’s diary entry read: “September 3, 1793. Bryansford. Lord Clanbrassil’s gate gothic, elegant. Mourne rises sublime. Here live by smuggling. Ask if the people here were against the French. ‘Not the man says, for they are principally Catholics. September 4: From Bryansford to Kilkeel 11 miles. In the boat to see the caves. The boatmen all avow themselves smugglers.”

Horace said it was no surprise that the first effort at rebellion in Co Down occurred, not in June 1798, but 12 months earlier under the auspices of John Magennis, on Dechomet Mountain in the foothills of Slieve Croob near his home.

“Lord Annesley, Yeoman Colonel, leading Orangeman and resident of Mount Panther, was the implacable opponent of the United Irishmen. In 1797 he burned John Magennis’ house in Balleely and in Rathfriland threatened to jail the Rev Samuel Barber.

“On the eve of rebellion, he sent the Castlewellan Yeomen to arrest the Rev Steel Dickson in Ballynahinch. In the words of Charles Teeling, he was a ‘noble peer who possessed little of the internal or external polish of the court.’

“The political reforms mooted by the Presbyterian Volunteers and the Catholic Committee actually came to pass quite quickly, within the next 40-odd years, with Catholic emancipation delivered in 1829. The Great Reform Act was passed in 1832, opening parliament to the commercial classes of Belfast and other growing industrial cities.”

Horace said most of Co Down’s would-be reformers in the 1790s came to an unfortunate end, with Russell, Neilson and Steel Dickson interned in Fort George in Scotland and Russell executed in Downpatrick in 1803, while Neilson died young in exile in America. On release, Dickson was demoted to a much smaller congregation, eventually dying in poverty. 

The historian added: “The Rev Birch twice eluded the hangman and was forced into exile in Philadelphia, while the Rev Barber was sentenced to two years in Down Gaol. The Rev Porter was hanged on a scaffold outside his own church in Greyabbey, while Bartholomew Teeling was hanged in Dublin and buried in Croppies’ Acre near Collins Barracks. 

“Charles Teeling was detained for a time in the newly-built goal at Kilmainham, while his father Luke was confined for almost four years, first in a prison ship on Belfast Lough and then in a freezing cell in Carrickfergus Castle.”

Next Wednesday night’s presentation starts at 7.30pm and admission is free.