Irish Volunteers (18th Century) - Legacy

Legacy

It was the Volunteers of 1782 that launched a paramilitary tradition in Irish politics, a tradition, whether nationalist or unionist, has continued to shape Irish political activity with the ethos of "the force of argument had been trumped by the argument of force".

The Volunteers of the 18th century set a precedent for using the threat of armed force to influence political reform. George Washington, also a member of the landed gentry, had written about them: "Patriots of Ireland, your cause is our own". While their political aims were limited, and their legacy was ambiguous, combining future elements of both Irish nationalism and Irish unionism, among early 20th century Irish nationalists the Volunteers were represented as a proto-nationalist organisation.

Renowned Irish historian and writer James Camlin Beckett, stated that when the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland was being debated in the Parliament of Ireland throughout 1800, that the "national spirit of 1782 was dead". Despite this, Henry Grattan, who had helped secure the Irish parliament's legislative independence in 1782, bought Wicklow borough at midnight for £1,200, and after dressing in his old Volunteer uniform, arrived at the House of Commons of the Irish parliament at 7 a.m., after which he gave a two hour speech against the proposed union.

Denis McCullough and Bulmer Hobson of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) established the Dungannon Clubs in 1905..."to celebrate those icons of the constitutionalist movement, the Irish Volunteers of 1782"

MacNeill stated of the original Volunteers, "the example of the former Volunteers (of 1782) is not that they did not fight but that they did not maintain their organisation till their objects had been secured".

One of the mottos used by the Volunteer's Quis Separabit, meaning "who shall separate us", which was in use by them from at least 1781, is also used by the Order of St. Patrick (founded in 1783), and is used by several Irish British Army regiments such as the Royal Dragoon Guards, Royal Ulster Rifles (previously Royal Irish Rifles), 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers) and its successor the Connaught Rangers. It was also adopted by the anti-Home Rule organisation, the Ulster Defence Union, and is also the motto of the paramilitary Ulster Defence Force.