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Death of William Steel Dickson, Minister & United Irishman

William Steel Dickson, Irish Presbyterian minister and member of the Society of the United Irishmen, dies on December 27, 1824, in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland.

Dickson is born on December 25, 1744, the eldest son of John Dickson, a tenant farmer of Ballycraigy, in the parish of Carnmoney, County Antrim. His mother is Jane Steel and, on the death of his uncle, William Steel, on May 13, 1747, the family adds his mother’s maiden name to their own.

In his boyhood, Dickson is educated by Robert White, a Presbyterian minister from Templepatrick and enters University of Glasgow in November 1761. Following graduation, he is apparently employed for a time in teaching, and in 1771 he is ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Until the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he occupies himself mainly with parochial and domestic duties. His political career begins in 1776, when he speaks and preaches against the “unnatural, impolitic and unprincipled” war with the American colonies, denouncing it as a “mad crusade.” On two government fast-days his sermons on “the advantages of national repentance” (December 13, 1776), and on “the ruinous effects of civil war” (February 27, 1778) create considerable excitement when published. Government loyalists denounce Dickson as a traitor.

Political differences are probably at the root of a secession from his congregation in 1777. The seceders form a new congregation at Kircubbin, County Down, in defiance of the authority of the general synod.

In 1771 Dickson marries Isabella Gamble, a woman of some means, who dies on July 15, 1819. They have at least eight children, but he outlives them all. One of his sons is in the Royal Navy and dies in 1798.

Dickson enters with zest into the volunteer movement of 1778, being warmly in favour of the admission of Roman Catholics to the ranks. This is resisted “through the greater part of Ulster, if not the whole.” In a sermon to the Echlinville volunteers on March 28, 1779, he advocates the enrolment of Catholics and though induced to modify his language in printing the discourse, he offends “all the Protestant and Presbyterian bigots in the country.” He is accused of being a papist at heart, “for the very substantial reason, among others, that the maiden name of the parish priest’s mother was Dickson.”

Though the contrary has been stated, Dickson is not a member of the Volunteer conventions at Dungannon in 1782 and 1783. He throws himself heart and soul into the famous election for County Down in August 1783, when the families of Hill and Stewart, compete for the county seat in Parliament. He, with his forty-shilling freeholders, fails to secure the election of Robert Stewart. But in 1790 he successfully campaigns for the election of Stewart’s son, better known as Lord Castlereagh. Castlereagh proves his gratitude by referring at a later date to Dickson’s popularity in 1790, as proof that he was “a very dangerous person to leave at liberty.”

In December 1791, Dickson joins Robert White’s son, John Campbell White, taking the “test” of the first Society of United Irishmen, organised in October in Belfast following a meeting held with Theobald Wolfe Tone, Protestant secretary of the Catholic Committee in Dublin. According to Dickson himself, he attends no further meetings of the Society but devotes himself to spreading its principles among the volunteer associations, in opposition to the “demi-patriotic” views of the Whig Club.

At a great volunteer meeting in Belfast on July 14, 1792, Dickson opposes a resolution for the gradual removal of Catholic disabilities and assists in obtaining a unanimous pledge in favour of total and immediate emancipation. Parish and county meetings are held throughout Ulster, culminating in a provincial convention at Dungannon on February 15, 1793. He is a leading spirit at many of the preliminary meetings, and, as a delegate from the Barony of Ards, he has a chief hand in the preparation of the Dungannon resolutions. Their avowed object is to strengthen the throne and give vitality to the constitution by “a complete and radical reform.” He is nominated on a committee of thirty to summon a national convention. The Irish parliament goes no further in the direction of emancipation than the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, which receives the royal assent on April 9, and remains unextended until 1829. While the passing of Lord Clare‘s Convention Act, still in force, makes illegal all future assemblies of delegates “purporting to represent the people, or any description of the people.”

In March and April 1798, Dickson is in Scotland arranging some family affairs. During his absence plans are made for an insurrection in Ulster, and soon after his return he agrees to take the place of Thomas Russell, who had been arrested, as adjutant-general of the United Irish forces for County Down. A few days before the county is to rise, he is himself arrested at Ballynahinch.

Dickson is conveyed to Belfast and lodged in the “black hole” and other prisons until August 12 when he is removed to a prison ship with William Tennant, Robert Hunter, Robert Simms, David Bailie Warden and Thomas Ledlie Birch, and detained there amid considerable discomfort. On March 25, 1799, Dickson, Tennant, Hunter, and Simms join the United Irish “State Prisoners” on a ship bound for Fort George, Highland prison in Scotland. This group, which includes Samuel Neilson, Arthur O’Connor, Thomas Russell, William James MacNeven, and Thomas Addis Emmet, arrives in Scotland on April 9, 1799. He spends two years there.

Unlike the more high-profile prisoners like O’Connor and MacNeven who are not released until June 1802, Tennant, Dickson, and Simms are permitted to return to Belfast in January 1802.

Dickson returns to liberty and misfortune. His wife has long been a helpless invalid, his eldest son is dead, his prospects are ruined. His congregation at Portaferry had been declared vacant on November 28, 1799. William Moreland, who had been ordained as his successor on June 16, 1800, at once offers to resign, but Dickson will not hear of this. He has thoughts of emigration but decides to stand his ground. At length, he is chosen by a seceding minority from the congregation of Keady, County Armagh, and installed minister on March 4, 1803.

Dickson’s political engagement ends with his attendance on September 9, 1811, of a Catholic meeting in Armagh, on returning from which he is cruelly beaten by Orangemen. In 1815 he resigns his charge in broken health and henceforth subsists on charity. Joseph Wright, an Episcopalian lawyer, gives him a cottage rent-free in the suburbs of Belfast, and some of his old friends make him a weekly allowance. His last appearance in the pulpit is early in 1824. He dies on December 27, 1824, having just passed his eightieth year, and is buried “in a pauper’s grave” at Clifton Street Cemetery, Belfast.


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Death of James “Jemmy” Hope, United Irishmen Leader

James “Jemmy” Hope, Society of United Irishmen leader who fights in the Irish Rebellions of 1798 and 1803 against British rule in Ireland, dies on February 10, 1847 at his son Henry’s home, 1 Lancaster St., Belfast.

Hope is born in Templepatrick, County Antrim, on August 25, 1764 to a Presbyterian family originally of Covenanter stock. He is apprenticed as a linen weaver but attends night school in his spare time. Influenced by the American Revolution, he joins the Irish Volunteers, but upon the demise of that organisation and further influenced by the French Revolution, he joins the Society of the United Irishmen in 1795.

Hope quickly establishes himself as a prominent organiser and is elected to the central committee in Belfast, becoming close to leaders such as Samuel Neilson, Thomas Russell, and Henry Joy McCracken. He is almost alone among the United Irish leaders in targeting manufacturers as well as landowners as the enemies of all radicals. In 1796, he is sent to Dublin to assist the United Irish organisation there to mobilise support among the working classes, and he is successful in establishing several branches throughout the city and especially in The Liberties area. He also travels to counties in Ulster and Connacht, disseminating literature and organizing localities.

Upon the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion in Leinster, Hope is sent on a failed mission to Belfast by Henry Joy McCracken to brief the leader of the County Down United Irishmen, Rev. William Steel Dickson, with news of the planned rising in County Antrim, unaware that Dickson had been arrested only a couple of days before. He manages to escape from Belfast in time to take part in the Battle of Antrim where he plays a skillful and courageous role with his “Spartan Band,” in covering the retreat of the fleeing rebels after their defeat.

Hope manages to rejoin McCracken and his remaining forces after the battle at their camp upon Slemish mountain, but the camp gradually disperses, and the dwindling band of insurgents are then forced to go on the run. He successfully eludes capture, but his friend McCracken is captured and executed on July 17. Upon the collapse of the general rising, he refuses to avail of the terms of an amnesty offered by Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis on the grounds that to do so would be “not only a recantation of one’s principles, but a tacit acquiescence in the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on thousands of my unfortunate associates.”

Hope lives the years following 1798 on the move between counties Dublin, Meath and Westmeath but is finally forced to flee Dublin following the failure of Robert Emmet‘s rebellion in 1803. He returns to the north and evades the authorities attentions in the ensuing repression by securing employment with a sympathetic friend from England. He is today regarded as the most egalitarian and socialist of all the United Irish leadership.

After suffering poor health for some years, Hope dies on February 10, 1847 at his son Henry’s home, 1 Lancaster St., Belfast. He is buried in the Mallusk Cemetery, Newtownabbey, County Antrim. The headstone is raised by his friends, Henry Joy McCracken’s sister Mary Ann, and the Shankill Road United Irishman Isreal Milliken. The historian Richard Robert Madden, who had encouraged Hope to write his memoirs, supplies the inscription. The headstone features the outline of a large dog, which supposedly brought provisions to him and his compatriots when they were hiding following the Battle of Antrim.


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Birth of James Hope, United Irishmen Leader

james-hope

James “Jemmy” Hope, Society of United Irishmen leader who fights in the Irish Rebellions of 1798 and 1803 against British rule in Ireland, is born in Templepatrick, County Antrim on August 25, 1764.

Hope is born to a Presbyterian family originally of Covenanter stock. He is apprenticed as a linen weaver but attends night school in his spare time. Influenced by the American Revolution, he joins the Irish Volunteers, but upon the demise of that organisation and further influenced by the French Revolution, he joins the Society of the United Irishmen in 1795.

Hope quickly establishes himself as a prominent organiser and is elected to the central committee in Belfast, becoming close to leaders such as Samuel Neilson, Thomas Russell, and Henry Joy McCracken. He is almost alone among the United Irish leaders in targeting manufacturers as well as landowners as the enemies of all radicals. In 1796, he is sent to Dublin to assist the United Irish organisation there to mobilise support among the working classes, and he is successful in establishing several branches throughout the city and especially in The Liberties area. He also travels to counties in Ulster and Connacht, disseminating literature and organizing localities.

Upon the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion in Leinster, Hope is sent on a failed mission to Belfast by Henry Joy McCracken to brief the leader of the County Down United Irishmen, Rev. William Steel Dickson, with news of the planned rising in County Antrim, unaware that Dickson had been arrested only a couple of days before. He manages to escape from Belfast in time to take part in the Battle of Antrim where he plays a skillful and courageous role with his “Spartan Band,” in covering the retreat of the fleeing rebels after their defeat.

Hope manages to rejoin McCracken and his remaining forces after the battle at their camp upon Slemish mountain, but the camp gradually disperses, and the dwindling band of insurgents are then forced to go on the run. He successfully eludes capture, but his friend McCracken is captured and executed on July 17. Upon the collapse of the general rising, he refuses to avail of the terms of an amnesty offered by Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis on the grounds that to do so would be “not only a recantation of one’s principles, but a tacit acquiescence in the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on thousands of my unfortunate associates.”

Hope lives the years following 1798 on the move between counties Dublin, Meath and Westmeath but is finally forced to flee Dublin following the failure of Robert Emmet‘s rebellion in 1803. He returns to the north and evades the authorities attentions in the ensuing repression by securing employment with a sympathetic friend from England. He is today regarded as the most egalitarian and socialist of all the United Irish leadership.

James Hope dies in 1846 and is buried in the Mallusk cemetery, Newtownabbey. His gravestone features the outline of a large dog, which supposedly brought provisions to him and his compatriots when they were hiding following the Battle of Antrim.


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The Battle of Ballynahinch

The Battle of Ballynahinch is fought outside Ballynahinch, County Down, on June 12, 1798, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 between British forces led by Major-General George Nugent and the local United Irishmen led by Henry Munro.

Munro is a Lisburn linen merchant and Presbyterian United Irishman who has no military experience but has taken over command of the Down organisation following the arrest on June 5 of the designated leader, Rev. William Steel Dickson. Upon hearing of the victory at Saintfield on June 9, Munro joins the rebel camp there and then moves to Ednavady Hill, Ballynahinch to join the thousands who have gathered in support of the rebellion. The response of the British garrisons is to converge on Ballynahinch from Belfast and Downpatrick in two columns accompanied by several pieces of cannon.

The battle begins on the night of June 12 when two hills to the left and right of Ballynahinch are occupied by the British who pound the town with their cannon. During a pause when night falls, some rebel officers are said to have pressed Munro for a night attack but he refuses on the grounds that it is unchivalrous. As a consequence many disillusioned rebels slip away during the night.

As dawn breaks the battle recommences with the rebels attacked from two sides and although achieving some initial success, confusion in the rebel army sees the United Irishmen retreat in chaos, pursued by regrouping British forces who quickly take advantage by turning retreat into massacre. Initial reports claim four hundred rebels are killed, while British losses are around forty.

Munro escapes the field of battle but is betrayed by a farmer who he has paid to conceal him and is hanged in front of his own house in Lisburn on June 16. Ballynahinch is sacked by the victorious military after the battle with sixty-three houses being burned down. Cavalry scours the surrounding countryside for rebels, raiding homes and killing indiscriminately, the 22nd Dragoons being guilty of some of the worst atrocities. The most famous victim is Betsy Gray, a young female rebel who, with her two brothers, is slaughtered in the post-battle massacre, ensuring her place in legend to this day.

Because of his family’s involvement in this event, Robert Stewart, the future Lord Castlereagh, is made Chief Secretary for Ireland.