LITMIR.BIZ

      First published in 2020 by

      Irish Academic Press

      10 George’s Street

      Newbridge

      Co. Kildare

      Ireland

       www.iap.ie

      © Fergus Whelan, 2020

      9781788551212 (Cloth)

      9781788551229 (Kindle)

      9781788551236 (Epub)

      9781788551243 (PDF)

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved

      alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or

      introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

      means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),

      without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the

      above publisher of this book.

      Typeset in Garamond Premier Pro 11/14 pt

      Jacket front: William Drennan’s sketch of Blaris executions.

      Courtesy of the National Archive of Ireland.

      Jacket back: William Drennan (c.1790), Robert Home, 1752–1834

      © National Museums Northern Ireland, Collection Ulster Museum.

      Cover design: edit+ www.stuartcoughlan.com

      CONTENTS

       Acknowledgements

       Introduction: Brazen Walls of Separation

       1. Son of the Manse

       2. Non-Subscribing Presbyterian

       3. Drennan’s Religious Outlook

       4. The Volunteers

       5. If You Sleep You Die!

       6. Of Pigs and Papists

       7. Amongst the Dublin Dissenters

       8. A Benevolent Conspiracy

       9. The Faithful Wounds of a Friend

       10. Edmund Burke

       11. The Hounding of Priestley and Paine

       12. Drennan, Burke and the Penal Laws

       13. Belfast: A Nest of Republicans

       14. Citizen Soldiers to Arms!

       15. The Merits of Personal Courage

       16. The Secret Committee

       17. ‘There Never was a Belfast Mob’

       18. Earthquake in the Mercantile World

       19. Love and Matters of Honour

       20. A Heart as Dangerous as His Pen

       21. Spies, Entrapment and Gaol Break

       22. The End of the Dublin Society

       23. ‘My Heart Does Not Tremble’

       24. Cruel and Ignoble Calumnies

       25. Death in the Highlands

       26. The Smell of a Great Gaol

       27. ‘Frigid Neutralist’

       28. Remember Orr!

       29. Martial Law

       30. Man of Letters

       31. A Personal Union with England

       32. Let Irishmen Remain Sulky

       33. The Emmet Family Tragedy

       34. Letter to Charles Fox

       35. The Natural Leaders

       36. Belfast Monthly Magazine

       37. Last Letters and Death

       Conclusion: Revolution, Reform and Violence

       Sources

       Bibliography

       Endnotes

       Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      I wish to thank Sheila Hanley, Theresa Moriarty, Dr Sylvia Kleinman, Dr Patrick Walsh, David O’Brien, Raymond O’Regan, Aaron McIntyre, Ray Naughton and Dr Jim Smyth for their help. I wish also to thank the staff of the Royal Irish Academy, the National Archive of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland and the staff of Trinity College Library, particularly the very helpful people in Early Printed Books.

INTRODUCTION: BRAZEN WALLS OF SEPARATION

      This is an account of the life of William Drennan (1754–1820) physician, poet and political radical. Drennan was a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen in 1791. The new Society lamented ‘the brazen walls of separation’ which had been erected amongst the inhabitants of Ireland by distinctions of rank, property and religious persuasion.1 Drennan composed the Society’s test which had as its purpose ‘the forwarding of a brotherhood of affection, a communion of rights and a union of power amongst Irishmen of every religious persuasion’.2 Many of the Society’s addresses were drafted by Drennan and he was a prolific writer of prose, poetry and pamphlets. He was by far the most active and able literary propagandist with no equal in the Dublin United Irish Society.

      Drennan began his writing career in 1780 with an open letter to Edmund Burke (1729–1797) condemning the Irish-born English politician for his hostile reaction to the trade concessions Lord North’s government had made to Ireland. Time and again for the rest of his career Drennan used the device of an open letter to prominent public figures as

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