Society of The United Irishman
Hamilton Rowan returned to Ireland in his thirties, in 1784, to live at Rathcoffey near Clane in north County Kildare. He became a celebrity and, despite his wealth and privilege, a strong advocate for Irish liberty. He joined the Killyleagh Volunteers (a militia group later associated with radical reform) under his father's command, also in 1784. Hamilton Rowan first gained public attention by championing the cause of fourteen-year-old Mary Neal in 1788. Neal had been lured into a Dublin brothel and then assaulted by Lord Carhampton. Hamilton Rowan publicly denounced Carhampton and published a pamphlet A Brief Investigation of the Sufferings of John, Anne, and Mary Neal in the same year. An imposing figure at more than six feet tall, Hamilton Rowan's notoriety grew when he entered a Dublin dining club threatening several of Mary Neal's detractors, with his massive Newfoundland at his side, and a shillelagh in hand. The incident won him public applause and celebrity as a champion of the poor.
In 1790 Hamilton Rowan joined the Northern Whig Club, and by October had become a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, working alongside famous radicals such as William Drennan, and Theobald Wolfe Tone. Hamilton Rowan was arrested in 1792 for seditious libel –a political charge –when caught handing out "An Address to the Volunteers of Ireland", a piece of United Irish propaganda. Unknown to him, from 1791 the Dublin administration had a spy in the Dublin Society, Thomas Collins, whose activity was never discovered. From February 1793 Britain and Ireland joined the War of the First Coalition against France, and the United Irish movement was outlawed in 1794.
Hamilton Rowan’s reputation for radicalism and bluster grew during this time when he left Ireland to confront the Lord Advocate of Scotland about negative comments made in respect to his character and that of members of the Society of United Irishmen. As a prominent member of the Irish gentry, Hamilton Rowan was an important figure in the United Irishmen and became the contact for the Scottish radical societies as a result of his visit. Upon his return to Dublin, he was charged and was found guilty of seditious libel, even though he was excellently defended by the famous John Philpot Curran. Hamilton Rowan was sentenced to two years imprisonment, received a fine of ₤500, and was forced to pay two assurities for good behavior of ₤1,000 each. In January 1794 Hamilton Rowan retired to his apartments in Dublin’s Newgate Prison.
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