Earl Fitzwilliam’s Failure

'There cannot be a permanency in the Constitution of Ireland unless the Protestants of Ireland will lay aside their prejudices, forego their exclusive pre-eminence, and gradually open their arms to the Roman Catholics…'

This was the view of Henry Dundas, Minister of War and right-hand-man of the British Prime Minister, William Pitt. It was an opinion certainly shared by Earl William Fitzwilliam, who arrived in Dublin as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on 4th January 1795.

Fitzwilliam gave every encouragement to Henry Grattan, the Patriot Party leader, to bring forward a Bill to repeal the last of the Penal Laws, that which prevented Catholics being elected as Members of Parliament. Fitzwilliam wrote back to London:

'I have little doubt the Catholic business will be carried easily…'

He was wrong. Leading members of the Irish government made loud protests and, above all, King George III declared that anyone who supported Catholic emancipation he would regard as his personal enemy.

Pitt, who privately supported emancipation but had no wish to be put out of power, firmly refused Fitzwilliam permission to back Grattan’s Bill. Fitzwilliam was so furious that he published his private correspondence on the issue:

'I am at a loss to conjecture what benefits will accrue to the British Empire by deferring consideration of this question.'

For his defiance, Fitzwilliam paid the penalty: he was removed as viceroy of Ireland. Dr Thomas Hussey, Catholic Bishop of Lismore, noted grimly:

'The disastrous news of Earl Fitzwilliam’s recall is come, and Ireland is now on the brink of civil war.'

Huge crowds of Dubliners lined the Liffey quays as far as Ringsend to bid Fitzwilliam farewell, as the Belfast News-Letter reported:

'At length the trying hour of separation arrived. Every sensation that could wring the heart, was experienced by all ranks and conditions. The multitude saw the yacht ride proudly before them, ready to take away with her their darling, and the hopes and prospects of Ireland…They saw his Lordship, ashamed to betray the most amiable weakness, and with his handkerchief, endeavouring to conceal pure tears springing from an undefiled heart…'

Henry Grattan put forward his emancipation Bill and in support, George Knox, the Dungannon MP, warned the Irish Commons:

'Much of the real, and no small share of, the personal' property of the country is in Catholic hands…If we drive the rich Catholic from the Legislature and from our own society, we force him to attach himself to the needy and disaffected…Take, then, your choice; re-enact your penal laws, risk a rebellion, a separation or an Union, or pass this Bill.'

Without government support the Bill was easily defeated. Disgusted and disillusioned, members of the Society of United Irishmen abandoned peaceful methods and began to plan a rebellion. They were joined, too, by members of the Catholic Committee.

Their only hope of success was to persuade Revolutionary France to send them military aid. The United Irishman, Wolfe Tone, had already decided that this was the only option. But he was caught talking to a French spy in a coffee house in Dublin. Tone was fortunate not to be hanged. However, he had relatives in high places and instead he was allowed to exile himself to America.

In May 1795 he took his family to Belfast and, while he was waiting for his ship, he was lavishly entertained by his Presbyterian supporters:

'But, if our friends in Dublin were kind and affectionate, those in Belfast, if possible, were still more so… parties and excursions were planned for our amusement; and certainly the whole of our deportment and reception at Belfast very little resembled those of a man who escaped with his life only by a miracle… I remember particularly two days that we passed on the Cave Hill. On the first Russell, Neilson, Simms, McCracken, and one or to more of us, on the summit of McArt’s fort took a solemn obligation…never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country and asserted her independence.'

On 13th June Tone embarked on board the Cicinnatus and sailed to America. His Belfast friends had raised enough money for him to buy a tobacco farm in New Jersey. But they continued to send him more money to enable him to seek French help. Early in 1796 he set out for France and landed at Le Havre on 1st February. By December Wolfe Tone would be an Adjutant General in the French Army, ready to sail to Ireland with a great invasion fleet.

Meanwhile, the outbreak of bloody sectarian warfare in Co Armagh, ensured that the middle-class businessmen and intellectuals of the United Irishmen would acquire the field army of infuriated peasants they would need to launch their rebellion.