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8

A BENEVOLENT CONSPIRACY

Drennan’s negative views of the Whig Club hardened as he observed its activities in Dublin. He dismissed it as ‘an eating and drinking aristocratical society without any fellow feeling with the commonality. When the people come forward these men draw back, and when they come forward, the People are lifeless and there is no strength in them’.1

Theobald Wolfe Tone also derided what he called ‘the puny efforts of the Whig Club’ and lamented that they had turned their faces against parliamentary reform.2 In the winter of 1790, Tone invited Drennan, Joseph Pollock, Thomas Addis Emmet, Thomas Russell, John Stack and Whitley Stokes to form a political club which met in Trinity College. Stack and Stokes were Fellows of the College. However, there was a lethargy amongst the radicals at this point and the ‘great things’ which Tone hoped for from his club did not materialise.3

However, the unfolding dramas in France and reaction to those events in Ireland soon breathed life, energy and a new-found enthusiasm into the radicals. Tone tells us that when ‘the French Revolution was “about twelve months in progress” [autumn of 1790] ... at length Mr. Burke’s famous invective appeared; and this in due season produced Paine’s reply which he called “Rights of Man”. This controversy and the gigantic events which gave rise to it changed in an instance the politics of Ireland’.4

In May 1791, Drennan revived his plan for a club of conspiratorial radicals. He wrote to Sam McTier in the hope that Sam would discuss the idea with his friends in Belfast. Drennan told Sam that he much desired that a society be instituted having much of the secrecy and somewhat of the ceremony of freemasonry. He envisaged:

A benevolent conspiracy – a plot of the people – no Whig Cub. No party title – the Brotherhood, its name – the rights of man and the greatest happiness of the greatest number its end5 – its general end real independence to Ireland and republicanism its particular purpose ... Communication with the leading men in France, in England and America so as to cement the shifting sand of republicanism into a body.6

Sam showed this letter in confidence to several gentlemen in Belfast, most of whom approved very much of it. The people with whom McTier consulted were not just a random group of friends or acquaintances. Nancy Curtin tells us McTier’s discussions were with men of substance as they were ‘a secret committee of Volunteers who constituted an advance democratic party in the radical town of Belfast. The leader of this group of eleven radical Dissenters was Samuel Neilson a prosperous linen merchant and also the son of a Presbyterian minister’.7

One person not associated with the secret committee, whom McTier brought into his confidence, was the newly arrived assistant Minister to Rosemary Lane, William Bruce. Bruce did not at all approve of the idea. He told Sam that he had argued against secrecy when Drennan first proposed the idea years earlier. Sam decided not to show the letter to Dr Haliday because he believed he would pass it on to Charlemont who most likely would not like the proposal. In Sam’s view, Haliday merely ‘wished to stand well with Charlemont and was greatly prejudiced against the Catholics’.8

In the same letter, Sam reported the rejoicing in Belfast at the news of the arrest of the King of France. Drennan felt that Martha, despite her illness, must be interested in this development. For his part, he was delighted to see ‘the sovereign in the common sewer, and [as] Burke would say the fish woman in the sovereignty’.9

At about this time, preparations were underway in Belfast for a celebration of the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille on 14 July 1791. The secret committee had asked Sam to draw up declarations or resolutions to be considered for what they hoped would be the most numerous gathering of Volunteers ever in Belfast. He knew that he had been asked only in the hope of getting something from his brother-in-law’s pen. He begged Drennan to let him know if he would oblige and how soon they could expect it.10 The last line in Sam’s letter must have encouraged Drennan for it read, ‘if your club, brotherhood takes place we will immediately follow your example’.11

Drennan replied with a draft resolution which he felt might be ‘too spirited’ for Sam and his group to assent to. However, he warned that he would not agree to any alteration to his draft. He was sorry that he had not room to express the necessity of conciliating the interests of Catholics and Protestants at present. He told Sam that the aristocratic Catholics, led by Lords Kenmare and Fingal, were in a treaty with the government. They had been told that ‘if they kept their fellow Catholics quiet that they would eventually get similar indulgences as the English Catholics had been given’. Drennan believed this was designed to divide the two great bodies, the Catholics and the Presbyterians, ‘particularly at this time when Burke had foolishly licked up such a spirit and the “French disease” seemed so catching’.12 If the government were to deliver on its promises Drennan suggested:

‘In giving a sop to Cerberus13 he will fall asleep’. If they do not, then the democratic part of the Catholics will have double energy and it is probably [sic] they will carry the whole body with them ... If therefore the Presbyterians come forward by drawing up some articles as a base, as it were, of amity and alliance between the two bodies in a common cause, this common agreement, this point of union, would shock government more than anything.14

He suggested that ‘14 July would be a good occasion for the northerners to show the Catholics that they were liberal enough to allow them their rights of entering the bar, of being justices of the peace and magistrates, their right to carry arms and also the right to the franchise.’15 As he reminded Sam, ‘when the Catholics were armed in the Newry Volunteers, they were at the mercy of any rogue or rascal who could have them subject to a fine of £50 or £100 and imprisonment for six months, if a firelock be found in their houses’.16

Drennan was not the only Dublin-based writer who was solicited to provide resolutions and a declaration for the Belfast celebration. Thomas Russell, a Cork-born army officer, had recently moved to Belfast and had so impressed the local radicals that he had been co-opted into Neilson’s secret committee. He was asked to contact his friend Wolfe Tone to request draft resolutions. Tone was happy to oblige but he was careful when dealing with the question of Catholic rights.17 Despite the hard work of Neilson’s group, even this vapid resolution did not meet with the approval of most of the Volunteers. Tone was bitterly disappointed and within a short space of time began to work on his pamphlet, An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, which appeared in September 1791.

Sam McTier was so disappointed by the turn of events that he could not bring himself to write to Drennan with the bad news. However, the dark cloud had a silver lining in that Drennan received a short report from Martha, the first direct correspondence he had from her in more than two years. Martha informed him that though the Catholic question had gone badly for the radicals, Drennan’s declaration to the French National Assembly had been adopted.

Sam has neither the time or the temper to write at present, immediately after the grand procession and the reading [sic] the declaration where Harry Joy18 has foiled him as he did in the committee last night. Your last paragraph in regard to the Catholics was lost by the previous question.19 The declaration is adopted, and the Chairman Mr. Sharman is requested to transmit a copy to the National Assembly’s president in French and English.20

Despite the failure of the resolutions regarding the Catholics, Drennan was not particularly discouraged. Over the next few weeks, he busied himself suggesting ways for the more progressive Volunteers to influence their conservative comrades. He advised that positive responses from Catholic Committees in various towns should not be published until ‘the number was sufficient to form a goodly representation’. Otherwise he worried, if the aristocratic part of the Roman Catholics knew what was happening, they might try to ‘damp down the proceedings’.21

In early October, Drennan, Tone, Russell and their Dublin network made plans to produce a twice weekly paper which they would call the National Journal. Russell was to be the editor. Tone was tasked with writing the prospectus which he produced on 4 October 1791:

The great object of the paper shall be to unite and emancipate all the people, to abolish those unjust, invidious and ruinous distinctions which bigotry in religion and politics have raised amongst us, distinctions which, however they might once have appeared justifiable by necessity, cannot longer maintain their ground against truth and reason. To accomplish this purpose little more need be done than to make the great sects which divide this country, and by dividing, ruin and degrade it know each other; and what means as an honest unbiased Paper which shall ever be fully and freely open to the abilities of all parties.22

Drennan was, of course, prepared to contribute his writing skills to the new venture and felt that there was room for two new newspapers, one in Dublin and the other in Belfast. He was, however, anxious not to write anything that might injure Harry Joy who often published his work in the Belfast Newsletter and had always been civil to him as a gentleman and a friend.

Tone’s pamphlet made a big impression on the Belfast radicals and resulted in him being invited to Belfast in early October. He arrived there on 11 October 1791 and, next day, he dined with Sam McTier, Thomas McCabe, Thomas Russell and other members of the Secret Committee. He found that the resolutions, which had not met with approval three months earlier, were now too tame and required revision and strengthening. Two days later, the Secret Committee met formally and opened their proceedings with a declaration of secrecy. Tone and Russell gave a report on the activities of the Catholic Committee in Dublin. It was agreed that the revised resolutions should be sent to Tandy in Dublin and he should be asked for his and his fellow citizens’ co-operation. When Tone recorded this meeting in his diary, he suggested that the activities of the Secret Committee would reflect great credit on the United Irishmen of ‘Belfescu’. Thus was the birth of the Society of United Irishmen and at last Drennan’s concept of a secret society of radical reformers had become a reality. Tone and his friends had just created the first political organisation in the history of Ireland which was open alike to Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter. The new society was dedicated to non-sectarian democratic politics, parliamentary reform and civil liberty for all. Tone had been much impressed with the Secret Committee and found them all to be steady, sensible, clear men and extremely well adapted to serious business. This was indeed fortunate, for it was serious business they were embarked on and before it was over, many of them would suffer long terms of imprisonment and Tone and Russell would lose their lives.

On 9 November 1791, Drennan attended a meeting convened by Tandy at the Eagle Tavern, Eustace Street in Dublin, where eighteen men, Protestant and Catholic, formed a club. They called themselves the Society of United Irishmen of Dublin. They adopted the resolutions which Tone and Russell had brought from the Belfast United Irishmen. At the first meeting, a committee of six was established to draw up regulations for the new society. Tandy and Drennan were among the six appointed. Drennan proposed a solemn declaration or test, which was to be taken by every new member on admittance. We have noted already that Drennan was a great proponent of tests and that a decade earlier, he had proposed a test for the Volunteers. He had obviously come to this meeting with a well-prepared script for he succeeded in getting unanimous agreement to the following:

I, – AB in the presence of God, do pledge myself to my country, that I will use all my abilities and influence in the attainment of an impartial and adequate representation of the Irish nation in parliament: and as a means of absolute and immediate necessity in accomplishing this chief good of Ireland, I shall do whatever lies in my power to forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of every religious persuasion, without which every reform must be partial, not national, inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insufficient for the freedom and happiness of this country.23

Tone and Russell had not attended this first Dublin meeting but when they attended a later meeting, they both expressed their opposition to Drennan’s test which they saw as too rhetorical and argumentative. When they pushed the question to a vote, they lost by a large margin.24 Drennan felt that they were both imprudent and had made themselves unpopular and tended to treat the fellow members as instruments rather than partners. Neither Tone nor Russell was prepared to let the matter drop and they continued at a later meeting to argue against the test saying it was dangerous to exclude many who might, but for the test, wish to become members. Tandy vigorously defended the test and argued:

If the test kept them away we should do better without such men, and that it was better to have a society knit together and braced by a strong obligation, than to admit these scrupulous half-way men who would soon damp the zeal and spirit of the meeting and perhaps in some time, outvote the original members and defeat the purpose of the institution.25

However, Drennan was pleased that many of the Catholics were zealous to take the test which he thought was an indication of their sincerity, though he observed that ‘the solemnity is a thing they like, perhaps from their religion’.26 The membership of the Dublin Society grew quickly and by the end of December, it had grown from its original eighteen to ninety-six members.