Irish Volunteers (18th Century) - Dungannon Conventions

Dungannon Conventions

On 28 December 1781, members of the Southern Battalion of the County Armagh Volunteers (who formed the First Ulster Regiment) convened and resolved for a meeting in the "most central town of Ulster, which we conceive to be Dungannon", in which delegates from every volunteer association in the province of Ulster were requested to attend. The date of this meeting was pencilled in for "the 15th day of February next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon."

On the arranged date, 15 February 1782, delegates from 147 Volunteer corps arrived at the Presbyterian church, at Scotch Street, Dungannon for what would became known as the "Dungannon Convention of 1782". This church has formerly been the favourite meeting place of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster and later the supreme ecclesiastical court of Irish Presbyterians. After the Volunteer convention it was afterwards known as the "Church of the Volunteers".

This church was used for the next three conventions of Ulster Volunteer corps: 21 June 1782, with delegates from 306 companies attending; 8 September 1783, with delegates from 270 companies; and almost a decade later on 15 February 1793, when the "fires of patriotism that marked the birth of the movement were burning low", which the meeting "failed to kindle them anew".