Page 269 - Demo

Chapter eight 269
the command of Admiral Hubert de Brienne, the Count de Conlans. Furthermore, to bolster the little armada, a squadron of ive vessels which lay at Dunkirk under Commodore Francois Thurot (his real name was thought to be O’Farrell as one of whose grandfathers was an O’Farrell from Ireland) was ordered to join with Conlan’s leet.
On 14 November, Conlan departed Brest, but his leet was quickly engaged and de- feated so soundly by the British Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, at Quiberon Bay, that during the hostilitiesConlan burned his lagship, the Soleil Royal. On the other hand, Thurot, was driven by storms towards the Norwegian coast, and forced to winter at Bergen.
In the spring of 1760, Thurot headed for Ireland, and landing with 1,000 men he easily took Carrickfergus Castle, which was garrisoned at the time by a force of one hundred and ifty men, and immediately levied contributions of provisions from the terriied merchants of Belfast, under threat of burning the town. But after ive days’ occupation of the castle, Thurot put to sea again without acting on his threat and a short time afterwards he was killed in an action with some British vessels of the Isle of Man. The reason for including this little vingnette here is to highlight the terror felt by the citizens of Belfast at Thurot’s raid and the real threat of further French invasions, and as a result, when the Volunteer move- ment began in 1778, the irst companies formed were those which were enrolled at Belfast. The raid of Thurot would not be forgotten for a long time.
Now, during the early part of the eighteenth century among a portion of the Anglo- Irish, or Protestant Irish, a ierce antipathy towards England, the English Parliament, and English Government oicials in Ireland surfaced and speedily grew. These individuals who came to be known as ‘the Patriot Party,’ held the opinion that the Irish Parliament in Dublin, and not the English Parliament in London, should make the laws for and govern Ireland. We should remember at this point, that the impotent, so-called Irish Parliament, was in reality nothing more than an Anglo-Irish Parliament, and only acted for the English planters and settlers in Ireland. The Irish, the Catholic portion of the population, was not represented in the Parliament at Dublin, so they had no votes, no rights of citizenship, and no representation whatsoever, and were placed outside the pale by the Penal Laws. Yet, this Catholic portion of the population, which by this time numbered about three-quarters of the people, supported their Protestant neighbours in their eforts.
First enacted in1494, the wicked and unjust Poynings Law crippled the Irish Parliament, and rendered it useless, because if we recall, in the aftermath of the passing, the Irish Parlia-