Origins of the United Irishmen

There is a lively debate currently on how Scots Calvinism in particular adopted itself so readily to the new revolutionary enlightenment ideals unleashed upon Europe by the American War of Independence. Three books recently "Scripture Politics", by Ian McBride, "Dissent into Treason", by Feargus Whelan & "A Deeper Silence" by A.T.Q. Stewart all purport to deal head on with this issue in the Irish context (the vast majority of the original United Irishmen coming from an Ulster Presbyterian background) but I've had to put them all back down again with a niggling & vague sense of dissatisfaction.

Insofar as dissenters of all stripes were excluded in numerous ways from participating fully in the civil & political life of the 18th century Anglican 'confessional state' we have of course an instant explanation for their discontent (in England and Ireland at least) but this exclusion was being slowly ameliorated by legislation particularly after the onset of the American crisis where their loyalty on both sides of the British Channel was solicited by Government (on account of French invasion fears etc.). Secondary status within the Union, in other words, cannot be a wholly sufficient explanation.

Now, the American argy-bargy when it did arrive (Stamp Acts etc.) and especially later when war broke out had a seismic impact on British domestic politics; it was a game-changer of huge proportions which instantly radicalised opposition to government - nowhere more so then Belfast and Dublin where a nationwide Volunteer movement was mobilised (ostensibly to protect against French invasion fears) but in actuality a lever to extract concessions of wide-ranging parliamentary reform. For example, I read recently that Locke's second treatise of government which had been out of print for decades suddenly went through several new editions in the late 1760's; radical English Whiggery formerly dormant and acquiescent was resuscitated and given a keener edge.

As to the provenance of the revolutionary ideas themselves until someone comes up with a more comprehensive study of Enlightenment thought I'm happy to follow Jonathan Israel's general tripartite schema for America here, namely;

(a) Classical Republicanism; Aristotle, Plato, Cicero i.e. the entire Graeco-Roman tradition as exemplified by Washington's self-conscious modelling of his public life in accord with the virtues of the ideal citizen particularly Cincinnatus in laying down his command & Madison's tortuous excavations of the Republican tradition from early classical models through to the Italian city-states, the Dutch Republic, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Geneva and beyond in preparation for the Federalist Papers.

(b) the 'Newton-Lockean construct' which embraces the entire Whig radical tradition including that of the 'Commonwealth men' (Gordon, Trenchard etc.) & moderate 'Old Light' Presbyterians. This was the type of moderate Enlightenment which was generally happy to seek incremental change within the broad confines of the Williamite settlement; the "Glorious Revolution's" constitutional settlement - parliamentary monarchy with Bill of Rights - was generally venerated & upheld as exemplary and in America's case the principles evoked in contention for colonist's rights (by Adams, Franklin et al) were done so in respect to perceived infringements of those rights which they held to be duly theirs under the very same British constitution. This was in contrast to;

(c) the radical Paineite rejection of aristocracy & monarchy and the entire British constitution; 'people-centered' and universalist (with respect to democratic rights i.e. it abhorred slavery, treatment of Amerindians etc.) he drew from Dragonetti (anti-feudalist, anti-aristocratic), Helvetius ('greatest happiness of the greatest number') & the French Encyclopaedistes, particularly Raynal's Histoire Philosophique des Deux Indes, probably the most widely read and comprehensive assault on imperialist exploitation of colonised peoples yet written.

Israel of course locates this radical Enlightenment strand ultimately as an outshoot of Spinoza's atheistic monism where rejection of biblically derived codes of ethics in tandem with divine right monarchy sets the stage for an assault on the entire European ancien regime edifice, a position radically at odds with moderate enlightenment's conservative emphasis on reason-centred incremental change (e.g. Hume, Voltaire, Burke & probably the bulk of American rebel colonists prior to Paine's Common Sense and Jefferson's Declaration). Spinoza, too, it could equally be argued (apart from the peculiarly flawed but democratic milieu of the United Provinces) derived much of his own republicanism from Lilburne & the English levelling tradition so it's very much a chicken and egg conundrum perhaps best viewed as mutually interlocking and self-synergising strands of thought with no particular, favoured locus.

However, regionally specific material conditions in America; geography, property & wealth distribution, relative social mobility, absence of entrenched feudal aristocracy etc. the actual lived experience of hammering out a new destiny, all combined to give these ideas an original & particular intonation all the more earth-shattering and real as they were currently transpiring, not resting idly, like Harrington's utopia, on paper and parchment. And it was in Ireland at least that the 'New Light' Presbyterians, not the Seceders or Covenanters, who grasped more assuredly the nettle of America's radical Enlightenment & republican apotheosis without which it's perfectly conceivable they would have continued to blend themselves anaemically into the generalised Whig opposition background.

With respect to the latest literature, Feargus Whelan's book Dissent into Treason: Unitarians, King-Killers & the Society of United Irishmen is the only one of the three that attempts to delve back into the 17th century in seeking 'connective synergies' between early Leveller/Commonwealth republicanism & republican Presbyterianism; chiefly at first along the lines of their shared rejection of episcopacy. The struggle of the Bishop's Wars and the crackdown on the non-conformist sects can all be viewed readily within a libertarian prism and the points of convergence are duly noted & emphasised in terms of liberty of conscience & freedom of worship. It's a crudely drawn schemata however given that the orthodox Calvinists in the Long Parliament were arguably the worst enemy the Levellers ever had e.g.; the attacks on Overton, Walwyn & Lilburne in Thomas Edwards infamous Gangraena - not to mention the Presbyterians own rather autocratic and undemocratic attempts to have the kirk universalised via an imposed Covenant.

Whelan makes the further mistake throughout of conflating Leveller republicanism with the worldview of Cromwellian ideologues such as Owen & Milton, utopian theorists like Harrington, the Rye House plotters (Russell and Sidney) and even the doomed Monmouth (as if!), bracketing them all forthwith as proponents of the "Good old Cause" - Lilburne & co. however, before Cromwell destroyed them, were the only real deal; advocating separation of Church & State via tithe abolition, deep-rooted redistributive land reform with an obvious view to terminating aristocracy, end of monopolies (Merchant Adventurers etc.), abolition of the Lords and a democratic representative Commons via universal manhood suffrage; all underpinned by the 'people's sovereignty', a theory and practice of genuine republican social contract predating Locke's more ambiguous version by more than a generation. Such were the Levellers and their true story & real impact were practically written out of Civil War history by orthodox English historians at least up until Chartist times (see David Hume's dismissive account in his classic multi-volume History). Far as I can see it's only the Marxist historians like Brailsford or Christopher Hill who can ever summon up enough energy to give them the type of study they deserve.

This is neither here nor there either with respect to the development of 'republican sentiments' within Ulster Presbyterianism which all three authors locate as emerging as a consequence of the non-subscribing controversy over the Westminster Confession made compulsory by the General Synod of Ulster when it was formed just after the Williamite Settlement. Ultimately, it boiled down to 'liberty of conscience' with objectors like Abernathy who declined to take the oath confirming their adherence to orthodox Calvinism (double predestination etc.) being labelled, probably correctly, as at best closet Unitarians, at worst outright deists or atheists. Francis Hutcheson, "Father of the Scottish Enlightenment" & tutor to Alison is said to have subscribed with 'his fingers crossed' while taking the chair of moral philosophy at Glasgow. What emerges clearly at least is that the 'New Light' philosophy taken as a whole (emphasis on "reason", tone and tenor of pulpit addresses, sanctity of one's personal conscience, high regard for tolerance, individual civil & political liberties) all predisposed them to gravitate more readily towards 'progressive' political literature and ideas (Locke, Harrington, Sidney, Ludlow etc.); the Molesworth circle in Dublin for instance was a 'New Light' haven & seems to have been the force behind the only real attempt to reach a rapprochement with Catholics during the Penal Era - Dublin priest Cornelius Nary's famed public dialogue with Anglican Bishop, Edward Synge.

As yet I've failed to come across any particular interest among the 'New Lights' with Leveller literature quite possibly because (a) it was far too radical and considered by then wholly beyond the pale or (b) it simply wasn't readily at hand bearing in mind the pioneering efforts of John Toland to get even Harrington's Oceana and Ludlow's Memoirs into print.

When considering the growth of republican sentiment across 'the Isles' at this point it is impossible to avoid the importance of the religious dimension as in order for the material conditions to be articulated within a rights framework the principal supporting cornice of aristocracy & monarchy had to be initially whittled away. For much of Europe this was the papal dictats emanating from Rome and for England it was represented by the Anglican Church establishment. The greatest ally everywhere to the entrenched privileges of the ancien regime were the legitimising narratives of conservative theological dogma - once you have this centralised locus of power; a symbiotic relationship between ruler & ecclesiastics whilst they might differ on numerous matters of overlapping concern their essential mutual interest is best served by orchestrating a united front. The dissenting sects pass under the radar of this dual observance of Church and State and their autonomy undercuts and delegitimises their authority - freedom of speech and conscience naturally flows from this initial separation from the dual centralised power.

The 17th century world is still very much mediated by biblical injunctions, 'belief' is still almost universal & control of the pulpit is all-important hence you have that great struggle over the extension of the episcopacy which sparked the English Civil War. The Sunday sermon for the dissenting sects is the one great public arena wherein everyday concerns of the community can be thrashed out (every other outlet; public gatherings, the theatre and so on can be officially circumscribed and transgressors packed off to the Star Chamber) - so they are explicitly used by dissenters to float political grievances hence Charles I's and Archbishop Laud's concern to gather them all within the ambit of a single episcopacy which can be centrally controlled and directed. Early Scots Calvinism offered no viable alternative to this top-down model of Church-State authoritarianism (apart from the it's own Covenanting ideal) until the Westminster Oath was rejected by the non-subscribers thereby opening a viable arena for proper 'reason-centred' political discourse predicated on the all-important primacy of one's individual conscience.

It is this development, when thinkers are freed utterly from the shackles of their religious leaders censure which gives them this capacity to range widely & with a more critically trained eye over the entire gamut of social and political grievances. Simply put, they are unblinkered and unbridled and in a position to construct a materialist ethics based on the rational appraisal of society's outstanding faults all from a vantage point outside the dominant locus of power; the king which upholds the Church's right to collect tithes for it's own sustenance and the Church which sanctions the legitimising myth of divine right monarchy.

In Ireland, the clan-based attachments of monastic and later continental Gaelic scribes & bards were an ill-suited intelligentsia to present an alternative radical ideology consonant with Leveller 'republicanism' (the Confederates were dead to any alliance in this respect during the War of the Three Kingdoms, Old English included) and in early Stuart times indeed were busy drawing up fantabulous Irish lineages to legitimise James' succession - power and patronage were still caught up in the warp and whoof of land-based tribal affiliations, underpinned by 'royal' or 'chiefly' power, English if necessary. What did it matter as long they still held title to the land?

The first and only serious republican to emerge from this clan-based Gaelic Catholic cultural milieu during the entire 17th and early 18th century was John Toland and he wound up a deist after rejecting in turn Anglicanism and Presbyterianism. There is though evidence of Owen Roe O' Neill developing republican sentiments at a remarkably early stage. It comes in a letter to the Spanish Crown in 1627 soliciting aid for an Irish invasion and signed by himself and John O' Neill (son of Hugh, the great Earl). Basically, on account of the ongoing rivalry between the O' Donnell and O' Neill factions - a rivalry well known to the Spanish court who are employing descendants of each in Irish continental regiments - a proposed new form of government is being discussed which would obviate these clan-based complications; " in the name of the liberty of the fatherland, and of oppressed religion, and by establishing as the government a republic, which should be so called on its flags and its commissions; and all other public ordinances should be in the name of the republic and kingdom of Ireland". [Jerrold I. Casway, Owen Roe O' Neill and the Struggle for Catholic Ireland, Pennysylvania Press, p.33]. The Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Madrid came soon after and thus scuppered any hopes of a Spanish-backed invasion attempt but it is interesting to see what way Owen Roe's thinking was evolving here.

But most of the English radicals who prepared the ground for Paine's reception; Price, Priestley, Godwin etc. i.e. reformers cleaving after an abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts in which process they acclimatised themselves to deeper issues such as cleansing rotten boroughs, were Unitarian dissenters. Again, essentially free-thinkers operating outside the recognised & sanctioned 'official' centres of power. Michael Durey in his discussion of 'Transatlantic Radicals' from England in fact takes the dissenters, in particular the Unitarians, as his obvious starting point in treating of the phenomenon; as of course did E.P. Thomson in his Making of the English Working Class.

Only those radical Whigs attached more to the Bill of Rights dimension of the Williamite settlement as opposed to the constitutional injunctions which bound the king to the 'Protestant interest' were especially susceptible to entreaties from American secessionists; the central plank of the Rockingham and Foxite Whigs had long concerned itself with denuding the ceaseless attempts of George III to appropriate to himself more power than he was constitutionally entitled. But they never toppled over into French-style republicanism simply because as aristocrats themselves (or patronised by such) their destiny was tied to an unreformed parliament. Grattan's Whigs behaved likewise sponsoring responsibility, place and pension bills (essentially wheedling out in-house corruption sponsored by Castle patronage), with a small minority advocating full Catholic emancipation but always drawing the line at borough reform.

This was pretty much the programme of the old Catholic Committee too led by the Jacobite Earls Kenmare and Fingal (again the conservatism is linked to the old Gaelic myth of Stuart beneficence, sponsored by Rome and supportive of absolutism) while Keogh and McCormick's post-split populist version spear-headed by the restless merchant classes still couldn't align itself publicly with the Presbyterian Belfast radicals demand for proportional representation - one of the incessant moans of William Drennan who became convinced that 'the Catholics' were going to "stab us in the back" in the negotiations over the 1793 Relief Act, which of course they did in a sense via their anaemic capitulation.

The Levellers and all that they had represented were thoroughly swept under the carpet throughout the 18th century (such was the totalising power of Glorious Revolution's grand narrative) and seldom featured in radical circles even as a minor discursive reference point; their history and significance was thoroughly lost to the people as it seems to me and could only be 'reclaimed' via the new and immediate significance of first American and then French revolutionary principles. It is a fact that the principle vehicles to bring home that fresh revelation ("Wilkes & Liberty" aside) were mainly drawn from a dissenting background; in Ireland most clearly.

Ian McBride's study gives a brief sketch of three Covenanting ministers in particular who were drawn into the United Irish fold; William Stavely, Joseph Or & William Gibson. Samuel McSkimin, an Ulster antiquarian, has preserved for us his impressions of Gibson in action;

"on entering upon his mission .. at times so forgot himself as to relapse for a moment into his holy hatred of popery, by introducing the antiquated dogmas of his sect, in allusions to the men of sin, and even to an old jade dressed in scarlet, dyed with the blood of the saints, said to reside near Babylon. These untimely slips of his reverence were overlooked by his hearers with a truly Christian forbearance, for which kindness he was afterwards sure to make amends by pointing out the immediate destruction of the British monarchy"

Bearing in mind the contradictions implicit in the inclusive programme of the United Irishmen - at  the very least the need to defuse sectarian tension - his verbal gymnastics must have been strained to the limit at times trying to bend Covenanter ideology into it's compass; one of the many paradoxes of a fascinating age.