Defenders (Ireland) - Society of United Irishmen

Society of United Irishmen

The Society of United Irishmen had early identified the Defenders as potential allies and leading members such as James Hope had regularly travelled throughout the country organising cells and distributing propaganda such as the Northern Star newspaper. Defender cells were easily transformed into United Irish cells and those who held dual membership were often referred to as being "up and up". The precise role of the Defenders as an organisation during the rebellion is therefore hard to assess but Colonel Foote, commander of the British force and one of its few survivors of the battle of Oulart Hill referred to the victorious rebels as "Defenders" as opposed to United Irishmen in his official account of the defeat.

The Defenders of County Down withdrew support before the United Irish defeat at the Battle of Ballynahinch on 12 June 1798, as their leader John Magennis had received good local information on the size and placing of the British forces. Magennis had also suggested a night attack which Munro would not allow. The Defenders were also absent as a group from the earlier Battle of Antrim.

The Defenders were usually depicted as subject to residual sectarianism, ultra-Catholic, guilty of anti-Protestantism and having only paid at best lip service to the non-sectarian ideals of the United Irishmen. While this was undoubtedly true of a proportion of Defenders, Catholic priests were not immune to their wrath as in Athlone in 1793 where a priest who preached in favour of the Militia Act was almost hanged to death.

The fortunes of the Defenders were closely tied to the United Irishmen by the outbreak of the rebellion in 1798 and they did not survive its failure; however their influence endured in the later formation of similar groups like the Ribbonmen in the 1830s.

Read more about this topic:  Defenders (Ireland)

Famous quotes containing the words society, united and/or irishmen:

    The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)