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280 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
On 14 October, 1791, a young Dublin-born Anglican barrister named Theobald Wolfe Tone, along with another Anglican and former soldier, Thomas Russell from Cork, famed in song and story as ‘The Man From God Knows Where,’ in the company of 26 others, mostly Presbyterians and former members of the Volunteers, including Thomas Nielson, William Drennan, and Henry Joy McCracken, amongst other notables, came together in ‘the liberal and enlightened town of Belfast, the Athens of Ireland,’ for the innaugral meeting of the newly formed, Masonic-based Society of the United Irishmen.
Enbracing ‘Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter,’ and with the mantra to ‘go further than speculate or debate,’ the society was formed for the purpose of effecting Parliamentary Re- form and the removal of the Penal Laws. That same year Tone was also elected Secretary to the Catholic Committee-an association which had existed in Dublin since 1759 for the purpose of removing Catholic disabilities. There are many of the opinion that Tone’s dual position clearly shows that an alliance was in place between the two bodies
“We think it our duty, as Irishmen, to come forward, and state what we feel to be our heavy grievance, and what we know to be its effectual remedy. WE HAVE NO NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; and we are ruled by Englishmen, and the servants of Englishmen, whose object is the interest of another country, whose instrument is corruption, and whose strength is the weakness of Ireland....
[We] require a cordial union among ALL THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND [and a complete and radical reform of the representation of the people in Parliament... [We acknowledge] that no reform is practicable, efficacious, or just, which shall not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion.”
(Theobald Wolfe Tone)
The Society of United Irishmen, though it later developed into a secret revolutionary association, was at first open and constitutional and chiefly confined to Ulster; it would later spread throughout Ireland.
It had four main objectives:
1. To establish unity among all Irishmen, irregardless of religious beliefs, so that they might work together for Ireland’s benefit-hence the name United Irishmen.
2. To secure that every household in Ireland, poor or rich, and irregardless of reli- gion, should have a vote.
3. To secutre voting by ballot-instead of the practice of open voting, through which
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