How you awake the deeping sword of war;
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed!
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood.
—Shakspeare.
THE CRADLE OF THE REBELLION
The rebellious movement which, in 1798, openly burst into the horrors of civil war, had for years been maturing. The success of the American colonists in defeating the mother country, and the upheaval in France, the great Revolution, proved fatal precedents, and the easily excited minds of the Irish people led the disloyal and disaffected of the sister kingdom to contemplate the forcible carrying out of a similar policy. As will be seen, this fratricidal struggle largely resolved itself into a religious campaign between the Catholic and Protestant sections of the community.
At an early stage of the coming struggle the ulterior objects of the discontented Catholics became perfectly apparent, and some of their warmest advocates took alarm. Sir Hercules Langrish, in his place in the Irish Parliament, thus addressed the House: ‘Notwithstanding my prepossessions in favour of the Roman Catholics, I was checked for some time in my ardour to serve them, by reading of late a multitude of publications and paragraphs in the newspapers, and other public prints, circulated gratis with the utmost industry, purporting to convey the sentiments of the Catholics. What was their import? They were exhortations to the people never to be satisfied at any concession till the State itself was conceded: they were precautions against public tranquillity; they were invitations to disorder, and covenants of discontent; they were ostentations of strength, rather than solicitations for favour; rather appeals to the power of the people, than applications to the authority of the State; they involved the relief of the Catholic, with the revolution of the Government; and were dissertations for democracy, rather than arguments for toleration.’
APPEAL TO FORCE OF ARMS
Acting, however, on the resolutions they had published, the Committees determined to summon a Convention in imitation of the proceedings which were at the time violently revolutionising France, where the horrors of the great French Rebellion had already unsettled everything in 1789. Circulars were issued by their leaders—representatives elected in the counties—and on the 3rd of December 1792 the ‘Back Lane Parliament’ commenced its first session in Tailor’s Hall.