Local Experience of the 1798 Rebellion: a Comparative Context
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Local experience of the 1798 rebellion: a comparative context by Ciarán Priestley THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PhD DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH HEAD OF DEPARTMENT Professor Marian Lyons SUPERVISOR OF RESEARCH Professor Raymond Gillespie August 2013 Table of contents Page Acknowledgments ii Abbreviations iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Ballymoney, County Antrim 30 Chapter 2: Clonsilla, County Dublin 92 Chapter 3: Killala, County Mayo 143 Chapter 4: Bantry, County Cork 205 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 271 i Acknowledgments I would like to thank all those at NUI Maynooth, who have helped me both as an undergraduate and a postgraduate and who offered me the opportunity to embark on this thesis. In particular, I would also like to thank the Department of History, Maynooth, for their invaluable support and understanding over the past few years. I must express my utmost gratitiude to my supervisor, Professor Raymond Gillespie, for his advice and patience. The information and sources provided by Keith Beattie were helpful and insightful. I would like to acknowledge the various librarians and archivists who have been most helpful in my research. I wish also to sincerely thank the Irish Research Council for their financial assistance during this project. Finally, it remains for me to thank my wife, Maria, for her support during these years of research and writing. ii Abbreviations BN Belfast Newsletter CG Cork Gazette CJ Connaught Journal DEP Dublin Evening Post FJ Freeman’s Journal LG London Gazette NAI National Archives of Ireland NCEP New Cork Evening Post NLI National Library of Ireland NS Northern Star PRONI Public Record Office of Northern Ireland RCB Representative Church Body Library TLG The London Gazette TNA The National Archives, London UCC University College Cork iii Introduction In order to reconstruct four local worlds in late eighteenth-century Ireland, this thesis will investigate the differing effects the Rebellion of 1798 had upon them. In order to assess how religious, political, social and key demographic factors may have influenced a locality’s experience of the Rebellion of 1798, the study engages with a cross section of contemporary population centres and examines events in their locality under a number of themes that will allow for comparison across regions. The objective of this research is not to investigate the Rebellion of 1798 in a local context in exhaustive detail per se, rather it is intended to examine the structure of the selected areas in the late eighteenth century and to evaluate, at a time of conflict, the nature and workings of these societies. By investigating these societies as they came under strain, it is anticipated that the ensuing tensions will reveal aspects of these societies which may have not been otherwise discernible. By extension, this thesis will develop a research framework through which local societies may be considered in a regional context; a theme that has been somewhat lacking in studies of late eighteenth-century Ireland. The theoretical framework is influenced by the chapter structure of Margaret Spufford’s work Contrasting communities: English villages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.1 This work is a detailed history of the economic, educational and religious life of three contrasting communities, Chippenham, Orwell and Willingham in Cambridgeshire from 1525 to 1700. The three villages had very difference economic settings, in which the pattern of landholding changed over this period and the general and particular reasons for these changes that took place are investigated. The study also covers the educational opportunities open to the villagers, examines religious affairs, the effect on peasant communities of the Reformation and the disturbance in the devotional life of the ordinary villager, which often 1 Margaret Spufford, Contrasting communities (Cambridge, 1974). 1 culminated in dissent and disruption under the Commonwealth. The comparative aspect of Spufford’s work is a notable feature of this study. By developing a comparative framework through which her subjects are considered, Spufford ensures that more definitie conclusions can be reached. Although this thesis is considerably more focused in terms of timeframe, it will adopt many of the methods deployed in Contrasting communities. By developing a research strategy for late eighteenth-century Ireland, similar in approach and objective to that which Spufford applied to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Cambridgeshire, it is hoped to provide a new perspective by which the motivations, intentions and manipulations which occured in contemporary society can be considered. Wim Klooster’s Revolutions in the Atlantic world offers an example of a comparative history that is more relevant in terms of content and time frame to this thesis than Spufford’s work. However, analysing in a comparative context the late eighteenth- early nineteenth- century revolutions of America, France, Haiti and Spanish America, Klooster does not develop a comparative model but rather treats each revolution as a separate entity and includes a comparative chapter on the causes, patterns and legacies of all four.2 To adopt a similar model for this thesis would add little to the existing body of research on the topic. In order to investigate the mechanics of a local society in context it is neccessary to provide a comparative template through which each case study will be measured. In this instance, each case study is contemporaneous, centred on events leading up to 1798, so the research is focused on identical themes. There are some shifts in emphasis in each case study in terms of available evidence and dominant themes. For example, it proved neccessary to devote more attention to economic change in Killala, County Mayo than was the case for 2 Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic world (New York, 2009). 2 Ballymoney, County Antrim where an ideological conflict was articulated within the locality and led to a fall out that could not be imagined in the former context. Source: John Rocque’s map of Ireland, 1790 3 It was decided to select one locality from each province and investigate the effect of the 1798 rebellion in each locality. This should allow for the emergence of ‘human units’ or serve as evidence of community interaction on a significant scale. The localities, chosen on the basis of their their suitability in terms of research categories and overall aims and objectives are Ballymoney, County Antrim, Clonsilla, County Dublin, Killala, County Mayo and Bantry, County Cork. These localities were selected after considering their suitability in terms of available sources, relevant events and whether they provided contrasting demographic categories to compare. All of the localities played at least some role in a theatre of conflict and, to varying degrees, were instrumental in the outcomes of that conflict. This ensures, at a basic level, that a narrative could be constructed on each locality and an analysis of that narrative could be carried out. In the case of Ballymoney, prominent members of the community were involved in a tit-for-tat political debate which was linked to the violence of 1798 in a very direct manner. As a result, this study allows for an analysis of political clubs in late eighteenth- century Ireland, as well as an investigation of the Volunteer presence in the town and the political dynamic of this body. In Clonsilla, the sources provided by the various societies and associations of the Church of Ireland gentry allow for that aspect of a localities experience of the rebellion to be investigated in further detail. The gentry of Clonsilla adopted an inventive, two-pronged approach to dealing with the disturbances in their locality. The same body of men who addressed security concerns and prosecuted offenders in one guise helped to alleviate hardship and tackle the root cause of dissent in another. In some respects, this section details the success of the establishment at a local level in containing the rebellion and maintaining the existing social order. While the comparative aspect of this thesis can be addressed by the studies of Ballymoney and Clonsilla, it should come to the fore when considering the situations of 4 Killala and Bantry. Both localities rose to national and international prominence due to the activities of French invasion fleets at their coastlines, albeit only in Killala did they land successfully. While this thesis seeks to make comparisons across the four localities selected for study, there are obvious comparisons to be made between Killala and Bantry in terms of the inhabitants reaction to the intended invasions. This is not the case for Ballymoney or Clonsilla. As this work is already placed in an extensive histiography, it was decided to select these localities as each offered an opportunity to achieve different aspects of the overall obejctives. In concentrating on north Leinster and not south Leinster, it is aimed to open up a different dynamic to that which has already been established by historians of 1798. The local studies of Louis Cullen and Kevin Whelan on Wexford, in particular, were considered in the writing of this thesis and it was felt that by choosing an under-studied locality like Clonsilla, this work could better add to exisiting knowledge on the subject. Overall, this thesis seeks to establish a rational and set of criteria by which different localities of the late eighteenth- century in Ireland can be considered in a comparative manner. In order to do so, it is necessary to identify categories across the four localities that warrant comparison. An analysis of occupations in the 1821 census provides one such example of these categories for analysis. 5 Occupations in 1821 Census 1400 1200 1000 Agriculture 800 600 Trades, Manufacturers, 400 Handicraft 200 Otherwise Employed 0 Source: an act to provide for taking an account of the population of Ireland ... 1824 As can be observed, by 1821 the localities offer sharp contrasts in terms of the two main employment categories of agriculture on the one hand and trades, manufacturers and handicrafts on the other.