Sir,—I greatly enjoyed your Summer 1998 edition dedicated to the 1798 rebellion. I discovered aspects new to me and interpretations which challenged my conceptions based as they were on,
In the county of Wexford those
rebels did rise,
All brave Orangemen they thought
they’d sacrifice….
To find that Scullabogue barn is little known in (local) popular history and that Church of Ireland members were prominent rebels is refreshing as well as informative but highlights one of the major problems when dealing with Irish political history – too many people want to force yesterday’s events into today’s neat compartments, a trait touched on by John Turpin.
One organisation which played a prominent part in this rebellion, and which today has still not been acknowledged, are the freemasons. Their doctrine of universal brotherhood seems to have inspired the United Irishmen, while that of allegiance due to the sovereign would appear to have provided the raison d’être behind the Orange Order. From my, albeit distant, viewpoint it would appear that all parties have colluded, perhaps (probably) not consciously, to downplay their part in preparing the intellectual climate for what ensued. The Roman Catholic Church, republicans, Orangemen, and not least the freemasons themselves have all had their own agenda to pursue which is not that of the historian.
That freemasonry was a battlefield of political thought can not be denied from the various public utterances of the protagonists:
Garvagh Lodge 730—’that fictious truths such as monarchy, royalty,…are oppressive mountains…under which poor Erin sinks’;
Dungannon, after a meeting of thirty lodges—’Let every lodge…be a company of citizen soldiers’.
Thereare others of a contrary viewpoint such as a newspaper advertisement of 5 July 1797 when eight lodges professed their loyalty to government. There are at least twenty-four occasions on which political statements or rejoinders were published.
It was also round about this period that a number of masonic lodges adopted titles which would have been more at home on Orange banners although whether these were adopted before or after the crisis period of 1797/98 would have a bearing on their significance. There were True Blues (6), Orange (7), Ancient Boyne (Bandon), and Glorious Memory Orange Lodge of Dungannon. From what I have been able to ascertain most of these lodges now no longer operate and those who might still be in existence will probably have changed their titles.
In Freemasons’ Hall, London, there is a manuscript copy of minutes of the Grand Lodge of Ireland committee for this period, which are a masterpiece of understatement and diplomacy. One of the chairmen was a certain Daniel O’Connell. One can see that there were tensions and undercurrents, especially in Armagh, while Tyrone and Armagh were responsible for 40 per cent of the new lodges during the period 1792-98. The political tension was also reflected by the number of lodges given permission to operate in regiments: 1792(1), 1793 (2), 1794 (0), 1795 (1), 1796 (3), 1797 (2), 1798 (5).
The Grand Lodge committee did not meet from May until November of 1798 and then in a spirit of retribution. A month later it was stated that religious and political dissension was against its fundamental principles and two months after that a motion was made that an act of oblivion of the differences of the conduct in Grand Lodge on 6 December1798 that had taken place, which was passed.
From more than two hundred miles and centuries away I wonder who were these disputing freemasons. I wonder too, what was the fate of Southwell McClude Master of Lodge No.5 (Waterford?) or James McNulty of No.10 (Belfast?) both of whom were specifically mentioned as taking part in the rebellion. Subsequently when did freemasonry and Orangeism, as related by Plowden and Senior, cease their, often violent, rivalry.
Nowadays I have heard and read of freemasons vilified as if they and Orangemen were interchangeable. This is a mid-nineteenth-century agenda which took root, still flourishes in certain quarters, and deserves to be confronted so that Irishmen, north and south, can enjoy, or deplore, their common history.—Yours etc.,
DAVID RUDLAND
5 Digdens Rise
Epsom
Surrey KT18 7DL