The Catholic Convention of 1792, in which Mr. Teeling took a leading part, was a turning point in the history of the family. We know from Tone’s account of the proceedings that Luke Teeling was the man of the Convention. When the counsels of the more pusillanimous seemed likely to prevail, his commanding spirit and ability won the day for the bolder measures advocated by Tone, and it was due to him that there went forth from the great assembly a Petition to the King demanding (instead of the partial relief for Catholic disabilities to which the Sub-Committee that drew up the Petition had originally limited their request) Total Emancipation. “My instructions from my constituents,” said Mr. Luke Teeling in a speech which produced the most profound impression on his audience, “are to require nothing short of total emancipation; and it is not consistent with the dignity of this meeting and much less of the great body which it represents, to sanction by anything which could be construed into acquiescence on their part, one fragment of that unjust and abominable system, the penal code. It lies with the paternal wisdom of the Sovereign to ascertain what he thinks fit to be granted, but it is the duty of this meeting to put him fully and unequivocally in possession of the wants and wishes of his people.” The effect of Mr. Teeling’s attitude was to win to his views even the most cautious—not to say timid—members of the assembly, and his amendment was passed unanimously. We cannot help feeling, as we read Tone’s “Diary,” and follow the events subsequent to the return from London of the Delegate who had gone from the Convention with the Petition to the King, that if Mr. Teeling had been living in Dublin, instead of in distant Antrim, things would have taken a different course for the Catholic Cause, and the whole Cause of Ireland. His influence would have prevented the spirit of compromise which had such disastrous results.
The years that followed the Catholic Convention were marked by a great increase in bigotry—fomented with nefarious designs by the Irish Government of the day. The new activities of the new men at the head of the Catholic movement—wealthy and progressive merchants, like John Keogh and E. Byrne; young professional men, fresh from Continental Universities, like Dr. MacNevin—were countered by increased activities on the part of the bigots. The Grand Juries sent in to Parliament Petitions against the Catholic claims, and when these fell flat owing to the clever pamphleteers like Tone and Emmet, other methods were resorted to. The chief was the fostering of party spirit, which was first evidenced in the enormous increase in sectarian associations. Against the aggressions of the “Peep o’ Day Boys” (who got their name from their custom of repairing at that hour to the houses of their Catholic neighbours, dragging them from their bed and otherwise maltreating them, while they searched their houses for arms) the Catholics, who not only had no protection from the law or the armed forces of the crown, but saw, on the contrary, both these mights used against them, formed themselves into an association called “Defenders.” In those quarters where the contending parties were nearly balanced, the peace was kept by their wholesome fear of each other, but where the Catholics were in the minority they were obliged to adopt a system of nightly patrols, each townland or parish furnishing its proportion of armed men. But this system was intolerably burdensome, and at length some of the young men decided that there was nothing for it but to meet their opponents in the open field, and have done with the matter there and then.
News of this impending conflict came to the ears of young Charles Teeling, and although he was only a lad of seventeen at the time, he determined to try and prevent it. He was well aware, he tells us in his pamphlet on “The Battle of the Diamond,” that whether the Catholics won or lost in the fight the result would be equally disastrous for them; if they lost, they would be still more at the mercy of their savage opponents than before; if they won, Government, which was undisguisedly in favour of their enemies, would exact the severest penalties from them. He hoped that the influence which his family enjoyed both with the Catholics and the Protestants would make the opposing parties ready to listen to his proposals for peace between them. Without saying a word to anyone he set out therefore from Lisburn to the disturbed districts, but he had not gone far when he saw that the task was too serious and responsible for his seventeen years. He sent, therefore, to Belfast for Samuel Neilson, then editor of the Northern Star, who for many years had been the warm friend of his father in the causes of Reform and Catholic Emancipation.
Before Neilson could reach him, the Battle of the Diamond had been fought and won by the Protestants, and the Catholics were, as he anticipated, in a worse condition than before.
The “Peep o’ Day Boys,” on the very day of the Battle of the Diamond (September 21st, 1795) formed themselves into the famous association of “Orangemen,”[[49]] and these immediately set themselves to exterminate the Catholics. “They would no longer permit a Catholic to exist in the county.[[50]] They posted up on the cabins of these unfortunate victims this pithy notice, ‘To Hell or Connaught,’ and appointed a limited time in which the necessary removal of persons and property was to be made. If after the expiration of that period, the notice had not been complied with, the Orangemen assembled, destroyed the furniture, burned the habitations and forced the ruined families to fly elsewhere for shelter.... While these outrages were going on, the resident magistrates were not found to resist them, and in some instances were even more than inactive spectators.” Many fearful murders were committed on the unresisting Catholics, and it is estimated that seven thousand Catholics were either killed or driven from their homes by the Orangemen in the County Armagh alone. But the unhappy outcasts, even when they escaped with their lives, had no shelter to fly to. In most cases they could only wander on the mountains until either death relieved them, or they were arrested and imprisoned; while the younger men were sent without ceremony to one of the “tenders” then lying in various seaports, and thence transferred on board British men-of-war. During the years 1796 and ’97 the Orange magistrates, aided by troops, established a reign of terror over the greater part of Leinster and portions of Ulster and Munster. They arrested and imprisoned, without any charge, multitudes of innocent persons, and many of these were only removed from prison to be sent to serve in the navy.
[49]. The first Orange lodge was formed on September 21, 1795, at the house of a man called Sloan, in the village of Loughgall, Co. Armagh.
[50]. James Hope says that in reality what the Orangemen aimed at was to get the farms of the Catholics who had recently, by their industry in the linen trade, acquired the means of renting desirable farms.
Parliament—the famous Irish Parliament, Grattan’s Parliament, came to the rescue of the oppressed by passing the Insurrection Acts and the Indemnity Acts—the objects of which were to give the magistrates a free hand to commit the most illegal outrages against the people without fear of any unpleasant consequences for themselves. It is true that Grattan fought gallantly against these measures, and to his splendid speech in opposition to them we owe much of our information concerning the outrages perpetrated by the “banditti of persecution.”
It was felt by the most far-seeing and patriotic of the Irishmen who deplored this appalling state of affairs that the one hope of the country lay in the system of the United Irishmen, which aimed at a real union of Irishmen of all denominations in the bonds of love and loyalty to their common country. In the North, especially, the urgency of this union of hearts was keenly felt, and hence we find the younger men of the advanced party like Henry Joy MacCracken and Lowry, working strenuously with Charles H. Teeling and his brother-in-law, John Magennis, to get “the Defenders” into the ranks of the United Irishmen.
Government showed its appreciation of their labours by an unexpected coup. The most active protagonists of the policy were suddenly arrested on a charge of high treason and clapped into prison in Dublin.