The Trajectories of Loyalty and Loyalism in Ireland, 1793-1849
It is a truism to say that Irish loyalism has received less historical scrutiny than nationalism. Unlike nationalism, which has been anatomised to reveal its multifarious strands, loyalism is assumed to be uniformly reactionary and homogenous. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, loyalism, when viewed contemporaneously, actually embraced a diverse range of standpoints. Loyalism was not confined to the British and Irish islands but occurred throughout the British Atlantic worldin, for example, America, where its wide appeal is now recognised.[1]Overall recent research notes loyalism’s multifarious nature and examines it in its own right.[2]British loyalism can be seen as fitting an historical pattern of responses to threats stretching back at least to the seventeenth century, at the same time, the counter-revolutionary loyalism of the 1790s is seen, not as a reactionary reflex, but as a broadly-based phenomenon empowering its plebeian adherents, whose participation was negotiated not assumed.[3]
In Ireland, when war with revolutionary Francebegan in 1793, three distinctive strands of loyal opinion are visible.An Anglican neo-conservative strand promoted loyalty to the whole political system and the ‘Happy Constitution’, a structure of governance established in 1688 perfected in ‘Protestant Ascendancy’.Secondly there was a liberal,enlightenedstrand whichevinced by moderate Presbyterians and some Anglicans which saw loyalty as compatible with constitutional adjustments including parliamentary reform and even Catholic emancipation. A Volunteer corps from Magherafelt, county Londonderry, pledged loyalty to the King while demanding reform and emancipation.[4] Thirdly there was Catholicloyalty, eager to demonstrate their entitlement to emancipation by being loyal to the existing system and opposing the French.[5] This strand of loyalty had been growing during the eighteenth century as the likelihood of a Stuart restoration receded and Britain eyed Ireland’s military manpower,[6]Catholic aristocrats gradually sought accommodation. Indeed the measure of Catholic relief of 1793 was accompanied by an oath of allegiance denying the Pope’s deposing power and pledging support for the Protestant constitution in church and state.[7]Though historians debate the bone fides of plebeian Catholic loyalty, sufficient evidence exists to consider it a strand of counter-revolutionary loyalism.[8]In short loyalty to the existing system was the lowest common denominator uniting these strands of opinion and many loyal resolutions were published and some associations formed in 1793. Yet, in another revolutionary year, 1848, loyalty meant something entirely different. At the time of Queen Victoria’s visit to Ireland in 1849, armed Orange marchers clashed with Catholics at Dolly’s Brae in county Down, resulting in around 30 fatalities.[9] Though the 1793 loyalists and the Dolly’s Brae Orangemen both proclaimed zealous loyalty, the contrast could not be more marked. This chapter investigates the trajectories of loyalty between these dates. A critical distinction must be made between loyalty and the organized phenomena or movement known as loyalism.[10] It will be argued that the processes by which loyalty was converted into loyalism only fully applied to the neo-Conservative, exclusively Protestant stand and the mechanisms by which this was accomplished investigated.
The later 1790s were a major turning pointin converting loyalty into loyalism. The security situation, particularly in Ulster, deteriorated. The United Irishmen, now allied with the Defenders, a plebeian Catholic secret society, planned an insurrection with French help.[11]Attacks on magistrates were routine. Ireland was threatened by, as one loyal association declared, ‘foreign enemies and domestic traitors’.[12]Then effects of this can be seen in the way loyalty was expressed. Previously loyalty involved the expression of sentiments, making it hard to distinguish between a genuine commitment to action and routine posturing. The situation now necessitated measurable distinctions but the authorities were faced with the problem of how to achieve active loyalism without resurrecting old divisions. In 1795 Earl Fitzwilliam, a Whig favouring emancipation, thought if Catholic relief was granted, a yeomanry includingloyal (and presumably grateful) Catholics was possible, but he was recalled.[13] His successor, Camden, opposed emancipation, but also agonised over mobilisation.He initially considered various loyal associationmodels, some armed, some not, some exclusively Protestant, others multi-denominational; but hesitated, worried about creating a force like the Volunteers of the 1780s, which might challenge the government.[14]But the growing internal threat brooked no hesitancy and, the ramifications threat were felt most severely at local level, from this quarter came two organisations with a major influence on future trajectories of loyalism.
Plebeian Protestant formed Orange lodges in mid-Ulster in September 1795 after a victory over the Defenders.These lodges were anti-Catholic in a local sense but also embodied neo-conservative attitudes about the Protestant constitution. The landed gentry only joined substantively later and the Orange movement not nationally until the establishment of Dublin Grand Orange Lodge in March 1798.[15]These early lodges were not sanctioned by government, though Camden’s advisers tacitly tolerated them.[16] Secondly, in October 1796,after much deliberation, a yeomanry was formed, controlled, paid and armed by government, but locally-organised as ‘a rallying point for loyalists’.[17]Initially these official and unofficialmobilisations were separate.[18] However by 1797, with Orangeismspreading,Orangemen joined the yeomanry.Although there were always some Catholic and liberal yeomen, overall the force embodied a militant Protestant loyalty which marginalised other varieties. Crucial to this mobilisation process was the bearing of arms. North Antrim Catholics pledged cooperation with Protestant loyalists against revolution and their support for ‘this happy constitution, the welfare of His Majesty’s government ... and in ... loyalty towards his sacred person’.[19]Their loyal professions met the approbation of some Orangemen, but they were not armed. Conversely the growing parallel between the yeomanry and the Orange lodges meant that Protestant loyalism tended to be armed loyalism, especially when army officers encouraged it.[20] General Lake rejoiced that ‘plenty of orange ribbons’ displayed at an Armagh yeomanry review while General Knox reviewed yeomen with his horse bedecked in orange ribbons.[21]
Catholic loyalty was dealt another blow in early 1798 when government policy towards Presbyterians changed. As founder United Irishmen,Presbyterians were once seen as the most disloyal element in society; but now government sought to detach them from revolutionthrough their instinctive fear of Catholics.[22]Though as the numbers of Presbyterian United Irishmen who rose in rebellion in 1798 indicates[23] this was far from complete it did have the effect of widening the constituency of exclusive loyalism while restricting opportunities for Catholics.Ex-radical Presbyterians saw yeomanry membership, rather than the mainly Anglican Orange lodges, as a passage into acceptance as loyalists.[24]Eager to be on the right side of government, the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster produced loyal addresses in 1798 and 1799, disowning rebellious ministers, and recalling how their ancestors had ‘resisted Cromwell’.[25]
The extent to which Protestants monopolised armed mobilisation of loyalty can be seen in the offer of the Grand Orange Lodge of March 1798 to supply the government with thousands of men for armed service.[26]Though the actual use of Orange loyalists in 1798 was patchy,[27]and some Catholic militiamen fought for the government, nevertheless, the rebellion, by involving yeomen, Orangemen or hastily-armed loyalists,completed the mobilisation process. As loyalism militarized it narrowed to its exclusively Protestant component and in so doing, politicized.
Pitt initially intendedCatholic emancipation to follow Union, but stopped when George III refused hisconsent. Catholics continued to stress loyalty as a guarantor for emancipation but the grip neo-conservatives had on the political expression of loyalty tightened. Rival loyal addresses came from Newry to the viceroy, Lord Cornwallis. One from 4,000 Newry Catholicswas instantly trumped by another from the ‘Loyal Protestant Association of Newry distinguishing themselves as Orangemen.’[28] This contretemps epitomises the different trajectories of loyalty. The former was unorganised while the latter, as the Newry nomenclature suggests, was organised, permanent and associational and could point to 1798. Perceptions of 1798 as a Catholic plot continued into the nineteenth century, nourished and legitimised by Sir Richard Musgrave’s extensively-circulated work reinforced notions of exclusively Protestant loyaltyas the only genuine loyalism.[29] Historians note how access to public space and the rituals of authority conferred legitimacy.[30] With law and order dominated by Protestant magistrates who could call the yeomanry out, parallel yeomanry and Orange membership and the access each organization had to public space through Boyne commemorations and official ritualsreaffirmed exclusive loyalism as the visible face of loyaltyand marginalised other forms.[31]Though Irish historians rightly treat the ’98 rebellion as nationally significant,it also formed part of the wider Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Yet, these wars constituted an ideologically driven international conflict on a vast scale and one, therefore, which admitted of a loyalty which did not conform to the zero-sum game of Irish politics.
The collapse of the Peace of Amiens in 1803 and the possibility of French invasion necessitated a patriotic response.The Irish yeomanry, like the English Volunteers, was substantially augmented. Loyal declarations flooded into Dublin Castle, including many from Catholic parishes.[32] The invasion threat offered a way of demonstrating fitness for political rights through loyal yeomanry service. In Britain non-partisan patriotism characterised the response to the renewed war but, while the Irish government may have had Catholic loyalty as an ideal, the chief secretary,Wickham, admitted that ‘the less that is said about it [exclusive loyalism] the better’ and admitted that ‘we must either reject the service of loyal Catholics altogether, or create a Catholic corpsa procedure so unacceptable to Protestants that it ‘would not be cried, but roared out against throughout all Ireland’.[33]However, non-acceptance was not non-existence. Denys Scully, a Catholic lawyer and relief campaigner several of whose family had served in the yeomanry, whose father offered to raise a Catholic regiment under his ‘active, energetic and loyal’sons.[34] But the tide ran against them. Emmet’s abortive rebellion of July 1803 allowed ultra-loyalists to claim that the Catholic hierarchy had advance knowledge of the rising, [35]and after Emmet’s rising propagandised their case even more assiduously. Ballads about 1798 contrasted Protestant loyalty with Catholic disloyalty. New identifiers distinguishedpretenders to loyalty from genuine loyalists. Catholics were ‘Erin-Gauls’due to their putative Francophilia; liberal loyalty was also given short shrift. Those liberals who claimed loyalty but disavowed the exclusive variety were called ‘Bonaparte Protestants’. Only Orangemen were ‘true loyalists’.[36]Moreover, attempts, like Scully’s, to link loyalty with emancipation were deliberately misinterpreted.Sir Edward Newenham evoked historical demonsclaiming that Catholics really wanted to reverse the land settlement.[37]
The wars generated other potential outlets for Catholic loyalty. Catholics could join the militia but militia regiments, particularly from southern counties, were seen as a Catholic counterpart to the yeomanry,[38]thus drawing what could otherwise be seen in the context of war patriotism, within the sectarian polarities of Irish politics. Regular military or naval service was another possibility. However, as a later ballad indicates,secondary treatment persisted beyond the shores of Ireland:start ‘We fought [at Waterloo] for our king to uphold his crown, Our only reward was “Papists lie down”’.[39]The monarchy was a further potential focus for Catholic loyalty, particularly as it was believed that the future George IV favoured emancipation. Dublin Catholics shared in the patriotism accompanying George III’s 1809 jubilee and the 1814 Hanoverian succession centenary,but the corporate elite which organised these events was overwhelmingly Protestant.[40] Thus visible loyalism in Ireland was largely shaped by indigenous factors rather than the apolitical imperatives of British war patriotism.[41] Orange Protestants actively turned battle commemorations into a statement about Irish loyalty,by marking their presence andmaking their opponents seem disloyal or less loyal.The chronologic proximity of the battle of Vittoria in 1813 (21 June) and the battle of Aughrim (1 July) politicised the victory celebrations. On another occasion the windows of Catholic houses in Westmeath were smashed on the pretext of not being illuminated.[42]The different configurations of loyalty are very noticeable, with the dominant exclusive variety so concerned to maintain Protestant Ascendancy that it interpreted the international situation through an Irish lens. This hiberno-centric pattern was at odds with another by-product of the French wars: the Irish Union the governmental ramifications of which also offered periodic opportunities for the subsidiary Catholic and Liberal strands of Irish loyalty. One of the union’s longer term effects was to make the government of Ireland a hostage to the fluctuations of British party politics, thus undermining the ultimate goal of Protestant Ascendancy, control of parliament. Exclusive loyalism aimed at the perpetuation of this ascendancy and some Orangemen and yeomen had opposed the Union fearing that it would lead to emancipation.[43]The first pro-Catholic administration was Grenville’s ‘Ministry of all the Talents’ in 1806-7, complicated the foci of exclusive loyalism by unsettling loyalty to the present government or their laws,key pillars of allegiance in the 1790s. Instead there were signs of a more strident loyalty to the monarch and, especially, a readiness to defend Protestant Ascendancy at local level during this time.[44]
The impact of post-union government on Presbyterianand liberal Protestant loyalty was more ambiguous. As we have seen, at a popular level, some Presbyterians gravitated towards exclusiveloyalism,even before the Talents. Those in Londonderry and Donegal joined yeomanry corps due to fears of Catholics gaining power while Down and Antrim Presbyterians placed ‘their loyalty on a rather unsatisfactory basis’ of anti-Catholicism.[45]Many Presbyterians had supported emancipation and this stance still found favour at synodical level.[46]The Talents’ Irish viceroy, Bedford, was assured of ‘inviolable attachment to His Majesty’s person and government.’ In 1811 loyalty to the Regent (who had once supported emancipation[47]) recalled the distinctive Presbyterian experience by acknowledging his ‘liberal and constitutional’ principles which inspired ‘all classes of His majesty’s loyal subjects.’ The 1813 declaration avowed ‘unshaken attachment to ... the British Constitution’ and aware of suggested that Catholics should equally enjoy the same ‘blessings of civil and religious liberty’ as Presbyterians and that abolishing political distinctions was consistent with constitutional principles and against ‘party spirit.’ The outward-looking nature of this loyalty was evidenced in rather premature congratulations to the Regent and his father, who had waged war to ‘maintain the rights and liberties’ of peoples throughout Europe.[48]Yet here too, compared to exclusive loyalism, the loyalty of Presbyterians and liberal Protestants had no access to public space to legitimise itself, though attempts were madeto loosen the Ascendancy grip on loyalism as Orangeism came under parliamentary scrutiny.
A Newry-published pamphlet of 1814 claimed that Orangemen actually ‘impeached’ the loyalty of most Irishmen, and that Orangeism was only conditional loyalty, being hedged behind secret oaths and focussed on partisan politics not war patriotism.[49] Judge Fletcher, a liberal Protestant, exposed this gap between loyalism and patriotism, telling the Wexford Grand Jury that if an Orange yeoman indicted for rioting uttered the magic words ‘I am a loyal man’ he was acquitted.[50]A liberal Protestant emancipation petition from Killyleagh, county Down claimed that the Orangemen ‘arrogate large claims for loyalty, of which they boast exclusive possession’ but made the law subservient to their partial interests, whereas ‘to be truly loyal is to obey the laws.’[51]
Yet neither the Catholic nor the Liberal Protestant variety of loyalty could make the transition into full blown loyalism. The associational foundations of exclusive loyalism (the Irish yeomanry remained in existence to 1834) ensured that it continued as a ‘movement’ during and long after the French wars. The demarcation between its unofficial and indigenous elements and its official aspects was blurred by the reality that Orange calendar commemorations could be subsumed into military and royal rituals. Yeoman simply had to pin an orange ribbon to their uniforms. Exclusively Protestant loyalism and national allegiance could appear mutually reinforcing, regardless of whether the country was at war, if the real threat was seen as coming from Catholics. Externally the emancipation campaign gained purchase in Westminster, indeed in 1821 a Catholic relief bill passed the Commons but was blocked in the Lords.[52]Internally, a physical threat came from southern Rockite protesterswho believed Pastorini’s ‘prophesy’ that Protestant heretics would be overthrown in 1825, and from Ulster’s Ribbonmen who contested public space with Orangemen.