The Irish Volunteers revived
This act, which exasperated the moderate men, convinced the majority of the Committee that Keogh's aggressive policy was the only one worth adopting. Parliament had been declared independent of its English prototype, but everybody knew that it was wholly subject to the bureaucrats who reigned in Dublin Castle. Simultaneously with the rise to prominence of John Keogh came the revivification of the Volunteers. Since their great victory of 1782 they had been allowed to degenerate and dwindle, but the success of the French Revolution was not without its influence on Irish affairs, and the years between 1789 and 1792 witnessed a revival on national lines. Froude wrote eloquently of a Belfast Volunteer Review in 1791. 'The ceremonial commenced with a procession. The Volunteer companies, refilled to their old numbers, marched past with banners and music. A battery of cannon followed, and behind the cannon a portrait of Mirabeau. Then a gigantic triumphal car, bearing a broad sheet of canvas, on which was painted the opening of the Bastille dungeons. In the foreground was the wasted figure of the prisoner who had been confined there thirty years. In the near distance the doors of the cells flung back, disclosing the skeletons of dead victims or living wretches writhing in chains and torture. On the reverse of the canvas Hibernia was seen reclining, one hand and one foot in shackles, and a Volunteer artilleryman holding before her eyes the radiant image of Liberty.... In the evening three hundred and fifty patriots sat down to dinner in the Linen Hall. They drank to the King of Ireland. They drank to Washington, the ornament of mankind. They drank to Grattan, Molyneux, Franklin, and Mirabeau—these last two amidst applause that threatened to shake the building to the ground.'
Struggle for Catholic relief
The proposed co-operation of the Catholic Committee with the Volunteers, the latter being a Presbyterian organization, alarmed the viceroy and the ministers in London. Westmoreland was advised to prevent the amalgamation of the forces by concessions to Catholics, and eventually a measure, granting everything save the franchise to Catholics, was passed by the Irish Parliament. The Castle influence, however, was too strong for John Keogh to win the vote for his followers, but it was something to gain for his fellow-religionists admission to the magistracy, to the rank of King's Counsel, and to become solicitors and to open schools without the permission of the Protestant bishop. Beyond that the Government would not go. But the great Catholic Convention in 1792 won the vote for the majority, although Westmoreland and his secretary, Hobart, wrote imploring Pitt and Dundas not to give way to the importunities of the five Commissioners sent by the Catholic Convention to demand the franchise from the king. The Commissioners convinced the ministry that if their mission failed English rule in Ireland would be at an end, and the Lord-Lieutenant's advice was ignored. In February, 1793, the Chief Secretary moved in Parliament the first reading of a Bill admitting Catholics to the parliamentary franchise, to the magistracy, to the grand jury, to the municipal corporations, to Dublin University, and to several civil and military offices. But an amendment proposing the admission of Catholics to Parliament was defeated by 136 to 69 votes.
Lord Westmoreland was personally a fanatical opponent of Roman Catholicism, and the weakness of Pitt, as he termed it, made his position in Dublin unbearable. He would have resigned in 1792 but for a certain vanity that made him unwilling to admit defeat. Besides, he was ever hoping that the natural passion for schism which permeates every Irish politician would dissever the alliance of the Presbyterians with the Catholic Committee. In the North, while the Belfast Volunteers were welcoming with open arms the leaders of the Catholic movement, and making fervid speeches about liberty of conscience, two organizations in adjacent villages were 'cutting one another's throats for the love of God.' The 'Defenders' was the name given to the Roman Catholic band, while the Presbyterians, or Orangemen, called themselves 'Peep-o'-Day Boys.' In September, 1795, when Camden was viceroy, the two factions came into conflict at a village called the 'Diamond,' and the battle that followed takes its name from the scene of the contest. Forty-eight Defenders were killed, and to commemorate the victory the first Orange lodge was founded.
Westmoreland knew that there could be no genuine alliance between the Catholics and the Protestants, and so he clung to office; but Pitt, alarmed by the state of Europe and the isolation of England, was for favouring the Catholics, and the viceroy, as one utterly at variance with the Home Government, resigned.
Lord Westmoreland's term was purely a political one. He came to Ireland at a most critical period in its history, and, although little more than thirty years of age, he showed a courage worthy of a man with better ideals. He was not without his good qualities, and the Castle bureaucrats found in him a stanch friend. He entertained lavishly, but the death of Lady Westmoreland towards the close of 1793 abruptly ended the gaieties of the Castle. He lived until 1841, and held the post of Lord Privy Seal from 1798 to 1827—a period covering nearly thirty years and without precedent or example in the history of politics.
It is interesting to recall that one of Lord Westmoreland's staff in Dublin during the early years of his viceroyalty was a young officer named Arthur Wellesley. While attending a ball at the Castle he made the acquaintance of a girl of great beauty, Miss Catherine Pakenham, a daughter of Lord Longford. They became engaged almost immediately, but Wellesley's family opposed the match, his mother, a haughty and severe woman, being very prominent in the matter. The future Iron Duke, however, maintained the engagement, and when he was in India he kept up a regular correspondence with his fiancée. During his absence she was attacked by smallpox, and wrote to Wellesley releasing him, but he refused to do so, and on April 10, 1806, they were married in the church of St. George, Dublin.
A sensational viceroyalty
The removal of Westmoreland, the friend of the Protestant minority, was followed by the brief but sensational viceroyalty of the second Earl Fitzwilliam. Pitt's avowed policy was to win the sympathies of the majority, and Lord Fitzwilliam was considered the best man to give effect to the policy of the Government. He was gazetted, therefore, to Ireland in December, 1794, and a month later appeared in Dublin. His wife was a daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, and both were very popular in Court circles. Possessed of great wealth, it was thought that Fitzwilliam would be the less independent of the support of the Castle bureaucracy, which was fighting with venom the battle for its existence. No sooner was Fitzwilliam in Dublin than he received instructions to continue Westmoreland's policy. But he had started the work of reform before these reached him. One morning Beresford, who had married Barbara Montgomery, a sister of Lady Townshend, was dismissed from his post of Commissioner of the Customs; Toler, Attorney-General—afterwards the notorious Lord Norbury—Wolfe, the Solicitor-General, and Cooke, the Military Secretary, also received notice that their services were no longer required. The Castle people were panic-stricken; their occupations seemed to be gone, but even Fitzwilliam, with all the prestige of great birth and wealth, could not overwhelm the bureaucracy. Beresford appealed to Pitt and the king, and within a few days the dismissed officers were all reinstated. This was too much for the viceroy, and on March 25, 1795, he left Ireland, to the accompaniment of a demonstration of mourning absolutely unique in the history of the country. Dublin proclaimed it a day of humiliation; all the shops were closed, and the citizens lined the streets. Grattan gave voice to the general regret, and fiercely denounced the treachery of Pitt, who had assured him that Lord Fitzwilliam was to adopt an essentially Catholic policy.