The 1798 Rebellion in Ulster

In Ulster the 1798 rebellion, or "Turn Oot" in Ulster Scots, occurred in the Presbyterian heartland of Antrim and Down. Presbyterians provided the leadership. Presbyterian tenant farmers and labourers provided the movement's rank and file. More than a score of Presbyterian clergy were directly implicated in the rising, and of these, four were executed, most notably the Revd James Porter of Greyabbey, hanged in front of his own meeting house, and the rest, like the Revd Thomas Ledlie Birch, were banished to France and America. This is not to suggest that all Presbyterians supported the United Irishmen. Many did not.

Originally an open organisation with aims that were perfectly constitutional, driven underground by Government repression, in May 1795 the Society of United Irishmen met secretly in Belfast and reconstituted itself as a clandestine revolutionary and military organisation.

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