William Drennan - Cultural Activities

Cultural Activities

He settled in Belfast in 1807 after inheriting a large fortune and in 1810 was a co-founder of the non-denominational Royal Belfast Academical Institution. As a poet, he is best remembered for his poem The Wake of William Orr, written in memory of the executed United Irishman, who was widely regarded as a martyr at the time. Some of its most famous lines went;

" Here our murdered brother lies,

Wake him not with women's cries;

Mourn the way that manhood ought,

Sit in silent trance of thought.. "

Despite Drennan's links with revolutionary republicans, he gradually became alienated from the post-Union Nationalism of the period. His abiding concern for Liberalism and post union realities made him contemplate his political ideas anew. If political integration was irreversible, it was necessary to create a more liberally inclined notion of Britishness and British nationhood. In his words this must be; 'a FAITHFUL UNION, a real assimilation of the countries, in spirit as well as in form, not merely in virtue of parchment'. He died in 1820 and showed his non-sectarian outlook was unchanged by stipulating that his coffin be carried by an equal number of Catholics and Protestants with clergy from different denominations in attendance.