Anonymous

“ But let the voice of the great common people whose hearts still beat as true to Republican principles as those of Tone and McCracken themselves, pay tribute to the brave Irishmen and women who, from Antrim to New Ross and Castlebar, poured out their heart's blood for the unity and independence of our country. ”

“ Belfast was, in 1791, ablaze with enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and according to Tone, Paine's book—"The Rights of Man"—was the Koran of the citizens. Tone named the United Irish organisation and outlined its general aims. While he and most of those present were convinced that a Republic must be the ultimate issue, their address voiced ideals of reform broad enough to secure immediate unity for a national advance. ”

“ In short, the rebellion was neither Catholic nor Protestant; not a war for the predominance of any particular creed but a National rising of the great common people of Ireland, Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, for full civil and religious liberty as a principle of the rights of man in an Irish Republic. ”

“ The Irish nation could not sustain a greater misfortune in the person of one individual than befell it at the loss of Fitzgerald at this critical moment. ... With unquestionable intrepidity, republicanism, and devotion to Ireland, with popularity which gave him unbounded confidence, and integrity which made him worthy of the highest trust, had he been present in the Irish camp to organise, discipline, and give to the valour of his country a scientific direction, we would have seen the slaves of Monarchy fly before the Republicans of Ireland as they did before the patriots of America. ”

“ In the present great era of reform, when unjust governments are falling in every quarter of Europe, when religious persecution is compelled to abjure her tyranny over conscience, when the rights of man are ascertained in theory and that theory substantiated by practice, when antiquity can no longer defend absurd and oppressive forms against the common sense and common interests of mankind, when all government is acknowledged to originate from the people, and to be only so far obligatory as it protects their rights and promotes their welfare ”

“ We declare that the will of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people is loyal to the principle of an Irish Republic, and just as the United Irishmen called to English democracy we call on friends of liberty in Britain to demand the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland and the termination of subsidies to the Craigavon junta in Belfast. ”

“ William Jackson came from Paris to confer with some United Irish leaders in Dublin on the prospects of an armed revolution in Ireland, if the French government sent help. Tone furnished him with a report on the state of Ireland outlining the dispositions of the people generally. The Presbyterians were "the most enlightened body of the nation, and enthusiastically attached to the French revolution," and "the Catholics, the great body of the nation, are in the lowest degree of misery and want; ready for any change, because no change can make them worse." ”

“ We must pledge ourselves anew to resist the whittling down of Ireland’s claim to anything less than that. And we must pledge ourselves to maintain those liberties of organisation that have been won by us and by our fathers, and to resist all attempts, from no matter what quarters they may come, to hamper our advance to freedom. ”

“ In briefly sketching the political and social causes which produced the Societies of United Irishmen, we do so in the belief that history, the story of our struggles and failures in the past, provides the key to our future successes. ”

“ We have no National Government; we are ruled by Englishmen and the servants of Englishmen, whose object is the interest of another country, whose instrument is corruption, and whose strength is the weakness of Ireland ”

“ In 1792 the people of Belfast celebrated the third anniversary of the opening of the French Revolution, with a great parade of Volunteers. Banners were carried in procession bearing such slogans as "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," "The Union of Irishmen without which we can never be free," "The Rights of Man—may all nations have wisdom to understand and spirit to assert them." In December of the same year the Convention of the Catholics of Ireland, the "Back Lane Parliament," met in Dublin with 244 delegates present. ”

“ The Whiteboys in time gave place to the Defenders, and the Steelboys were swallowed up in the Volunteers (or in the American Army in the war of independence across the Atlantic) , both to merge in a great degree into one in the Societies of United Irishmen.
The Defenders were an object of close attention to the United Irishmen from the very foundation of the latter organisation. As they were composed almost entirely, at first, of the poorest class of Catholics, the United Irish leaders thought their minds would be fertile soil for doctrines of social revolt. ”

“ We see in the rebellion the inevitable* outburst of a freedom-loving people against the execrable tyranny of British rule.
To-day, in a series of great hostings, the Irish people are paying homage to the struggle and to the ideals of '98. They cannot do that worthily unless they understand the purpose of the heroes of the insurrection, and determine from that knowledge to apply themselves to the fulfilment of their tasks. ”

“ Acts of the Imperial Parliament crippling Irish trade in the interests of British commerce, the shameful denial of civil and religious rights to Catholics and Dissenters, together with the imposition of tithes on people of all religious persuasions for the upkeep of one, and general feudal oppression, rapidly prepared the ground for far reaching changes. ”

“ When the Rising was crushed in Wexford, the principal leaders were executed. The Catholic priests, Fr. John Murphy and Fr. Roche, and the Protestant leaders Keogh and Bagenal Harvey were among the number. The heroic struggle of the men of Wexford, who held their county so long for the Republic, and who matched with such brilliant success, their home-made pikes and sporting guns against the military might of England, will be remembered as long as the Irish nation lasts, and will be an inspiration to their sons of to-day to complete the task to which they set them¬ selves. ”

“ Let no one deceive you by wretched impracticable speculations on the rights of man and the majesty of the people; on the dignity and independence of the human mind; on the abstract duties of superiors and exaggerated abuses of authority—fatal speculations, disastrous theories not more subversive of social order and happiness than destructive of •principle of the Christian religion ... submission to established authority and obedience to the laws are amongst the duties prescribed by religion; every violation of these duties is highly criminal. ”

“ Meanwhile, at home, the United Irishmen had reorganised the system and had adopted a secret military form in preparation for armed rebellion. Ulster was still the centre of expressed discontent. Statistics illustrate the strength of the movement and the depth to which Republican propaganda had penetrated.
In 1797 a glorious opportunity presented itself when at a Convention in Dublin of representatives of every milita regiment in Ireland, those speaking for the Dublin garrison pledged themselves to take the city without the assistance of the citizens. ”

“ The Directory perceived in Tone's plan an effective way of attaching this important enemy in the rear through a democratic revolution in Ireland. Accordingly, early in December, 1796, the white sails of a French fleet tossing in Bantry Bay sent Irish aristocrats fleeing in terror from all parts of Munster to the capital. The Castle junta was desperate, everything was in confusion, prisons crowded with republican leaders, the nation seething with revolt, troops disaffected; even the artillery was useless as bullets had by mistake been supplied which were unfitted to the calibre of the guns. ”

“ Apart from Wexford where the war assumed more formidable dimensions the fiercest fighting took place in the Counties of Kildare, Dublin, Wicklow, Meath and Carlow, but, although the people’s arms carried the day on several battlefields, the general lack of co-ordinated plans and a central command made it impossible for their heroism to succeed. ”

“ In 1762 an outbreak of cattle-disease on the Continent had produced a huge demand in Britain for Irish live stock, which in turn resulted in the wholesale conversion of arable lands to pasture, the enclosure of commons, and wholesale evictions. The dispossessed peasantry formed secret societies, such as the Whiteboys, and exercised primitive justice on their oppressors. ”

“ They were all Presbyterians except Tone and Russell who belonged to the established Protestant Church. The eleven Presbyterians were the leading democrats in Ulster, and determined advocates of reform and Catholic emancipation. MacCabe had struck a blow for liberty and humanity some years earlier when, in 1786, he stopped the formation in Belfast of a company of merchants to take part in the Negro slave trade. ”

“ Its present unfortunate state is entirely owing to treachery. The rich always betray the poor."
The orders from the Directory in Dublin, although delivered to the commander-in-chief in Ulster, Robert Simms, were never transmitted to the Societies, and so precious days elapsed after hostilities had opened in the South. At length, forced by Henry McCracken and Jemmy Hope to confess his treachery, Simms resigned and this example was followed by other vitally important merchant leaders. ”

“ They were inclined to be sceptical of the disposition of the Irish Catholic peasants, so long deprived of any but secret education, towards the benefits of Republican freedom, and had doubts also about the influence of men of property in Ireland.
In his autobiography Tone paints these hesitations of the French leaders very clearly. They questioned him as to the attitude of the nobles and clergy.
"I replied ... that he might expect all the opposition they could give ... the revolution was not to be made for the people of property ”

“ This class-religious distinction prevailed for the greater part of the 18th century, and formed an impediment to national progress until a new economic alignment, no longer corresponding to sectarian moulds, expressed itself in the demand for national democratic unity to overthrow foreign rule and colonial feudal despotism. ”