In October 1791 Wolfe Tone and a group of well-educated Protestants formed and established a headquarters in Belfast for the "Society of United Irishmen." Their objective was to unite Irishmen regardless of creed in the cause of lessening British influence and reforming the national parliament so as to be truly equitable and representative. Early associates of Tone included Napper Tandy, a radical with Irish Volunteer roots, Rowan Hamilton, and Thomas Addis Emmet, all from Dublin, and Henry Joy McCracken and others from Belfast. The next year a journal, The Northern Star, appeared in Belfast championing the views of radical Protestantism against the existing establishment. The movement rapidly developed a system to disseminate propaganda, distributing pamphlets, holding meetings, and organizing numerous local chapters. The movement in its earlier stages was not necessarily separatist, or revolutionary. Most of its following came from the Presbyterian lower middle class, that is, shopkeepers, skilled tradesmen, teachers, and clergy. Ideas that it considered, such as equitable representation in parliament, broader franchise, more frequent elections, were similar to ideas being championed by the more radical wing of the Whigs, especially by those who sympathized with what was happening in France.
Things began to take a different tone by late 1794 and early 1795, as the United Irishmen rhetoric began to concern itself with issues such as tithes that had to be paid to the established church, rents to landlords, and general social inequity. The authorities, likewise, grew concerned about the movement, some of whose sections had begun organizing themselves along military lines. In 1794, the organization was made illegal. Approaches by some United Irishmen began to be made to the Defenders, the Catholic popular secret society whose ideology, to the degree it had any, was in ways antithetical to the progressive United Irishmen, as it was romantic and conservative in perspective, idealizing an Ireland of the past.
Allegations developed that Tone was providing information to the French as to the degree of support a French invasion might have in Ireland. The go-between for Tone with the French was an Anglican clergyman named William Jackson, who committed suicide when facing sentence of treason. Tone negotiated with the authorities to be allowed to leave the country, which he did, sailing to America in June 1795, although he departed for France the following year, where he began decisively to advance the prospects of a French invasion in league with an Irish uprising.
World History
