Fermanagh Militia
Masonic Lodge
| Fermanagh Militia Regiment |
5th April |
1798 |
864 |
1816 |
At Enniskilling 1816. Cancelled
1834 |
Bailey – August 11 [1905] at
55, Northumberland Road, Dublin, Major Alexander Wm. Bailey, late Fermanagh
Light Infantry.
[Obit follows]
BNL 11 August, 1905
NP Vol. A p. 164
Lodge No, 300 Newtownbutler
Cavan
Militia.
In 1810 Joseph Halliday, the bandmaster of the Cavan militia, patented the keyed
bugle, with five keys and a compass of twenty-five notes, calling it the "Royal
Kent Bugle" out of compliment to the duke of Kent, who was at the time
commander-in-chief, and encouraged the introduction of the instrument into the
regimental bands.
Battle of
Arklow - 9th June 1798
Did you know that more people died in the 1798 Revolution
than in the six year French Revolution? Arklow was the scene of some losses.
The Rebel Forces made up from the combined Wicklow and
Wexford forces led by the Ballyman Division under Billy Byrne of Ballymanus,
Anthony Perry of Inch, Wexford, Edward Fitzgerald of Newpark, Wexford and
Fr.Michael Murphy of Ballycanew. The Government Forces consisted of 1,360
Infantry, 125 Cavalry, six Yeomanry Corps under Major General Francis Needham,
Durham Fencibles under Colonel Skerret, Cavan Militia.
The Battle took place as the Rebels advanced on Arklow in two
columns. Rebel Pike charges on emplacements received stiff opposition from
battalion guns and infantry. The Rebel attack faltered due to lack of
ammunition. The second column stood ground against the cavalry, but failed to
break the town's defences. The Rebels withdrew to Gorey Hill.
Heavy casualties followed the pike charges. Fr.Michael Murphy
was killed. Rebel prisoners were hanged in the Protestant Churchyard. On the
Government side, many Durham Fencibles were killed during the pike charge and
one Government cannon was destroyed.
The Battle of Rebel Hill
Tyrone Militia
Ballymore Eustace
Captain Beevor and soldiers of the 9th Dragoons, the Tyrone, Antrim and the
Armagh Militias arrived at Ballymore on the 10th May at free-quarters. In days
following many arms were surrendered and letters of protection issued. On the
23rd May, Beevor sent 120 soldiers away, leaving a garrison of around 40-50
men.
At around 1 o’clock in the morning, Thursday the 24th May, the United Irish
forces attacked the town. The rebel signal for an attack was a shot to be fired
from the churchyard. All 8 houses, containing troops of the 9th Dragoons and the
Tyrone Militia, were to be attacked simultaneously. Captain Beevor was attacked
in his own bedchamber by two rebels. Lieutenant Parkinson and some dragoons came
to his aid and both rebels were slain. 28 dragoons rallied in Beevor’s house
which was attacked for nearly two hours, before the rebels were repulsed and
many killed. Some of the other soldiers quarters were attacked and some set on
fire – 7 dragoons were killed and 3 wounded; 4 of the Tyrone Militia were killed
and 2 wounded. Beevor and 12 dragoons charged the rebels and routed them, Lt.
McFarland of the Tyrone Militia was killed. The rebels lost 3 captains and
around 100 men.
While the hierarchy of the Freemasons in Ireland abhorred the seditious
tactics of the United Irishmen, many Free-masons’ lodges – particularly in
Ulster – rallied to the radical cause.
Freemasonry developed in parallel with the Volunteers and later the United
Irishmen and it is an undeniable truth that many Freemasons were implicated in
the insurrection. It is also a fact that many Freemasons assisted in the
quelling of the revolutionary fires in 1798.
The first meeting of the Belfast Society of United Irishmen took place on
14 October 1791 and the list of those present reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of
Belfast civic and economic life, not just its radical undercurrent.
Those present included the merchants Henry Haslett, William Tenant and the
clock maker Thomas McCabe. These three men were all Freemasons – Haslett and
Tennant were members of Lodge 257 and McCabe a member of Lodge 684.
The meeting was chaired by Sam McTier, also a Freemason. Other members of
Lodge 257 who became United Irishmen included William McCracken (brother of
Henry Joy McCracken) and George and Thomas Sinclair, whose brother William was
another founder member of the United Irishmen.
George Sinclair would briefly be Adjutant General of the United forces of
Co Down in June 1798, shortly after the arrest of Reverend William Steel
Dickson on the eve of the Battle of Ballynahinch.
James McGuickan, the Belfast solicitor and United Irish legal supremo
(later an informer), was another member of Lodge 257 as was the ship broker
Robert Hunter, later a member of the Provincial Committee of the United
Irishmen who was arrested in 1798 and incarcerated at Fort George in
Invernesshire.
When the Dublin society assembled, it included Freemasons like James Napper
Tandy and Archibald Hamilton Rowan, and the United Irishmen met at the
Tailor’s Guild Hall near Christchurch which was, incidentally, the
headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Ireland.
After 1795 the United Irishmen – now suppressed because of its pro-French
sympathies at a time when England was at war on the continent – embarked on a
more subversive and revolutionary course.
Some of its leading emissaries were Freemasons – people like William Putnam
McCabe, Henry Joy McCracken and Bartholomew Teeling and it is highly likely
that they used Masonic lodges as a cover for their clandestine activities and
that lodges provided fertile ground in terms of United Irish recruitment.
The first United Irish martyr was William Orr, from Farranshane, near
Carrickfergus, who was sentenced to hang after being found guilty – on dubious
evidence – of having administered the United Irish oath. After Orr’s hanging
in October 1797, he was given a Masonic funeral. His solicitor was James
McGuikan and his defending counsel John Phiplott Curran – both fellow Masons.
The year 1797 was one where government repression was having its desired
effect on the structure and morale of the United Irishmen. Key arrests
punctured the movement, as General Lake’s dragooning of Ulster rendered the
cradle of the United Irish movement much less capable of forming the vanguard
of any future revolutionary project.
In Armagh, 37 Masonic lodges admitted that some of their members had been
United Irishmen and they published a resolution denouncing this practice in
the hope of “wiping away the stigma”.
Before we see Freemasonry and the United Irishmen being linked too closely,
let us remember that a great number, probably a majority, were opposed to the
rebellion. Lord Donoughmore, Grand Master of Ireland who had long championed
the cause of Catholic Emancipation, was horrified at the excesses of the
insurrection – Lord Downshire was the reactionary governor of Co Down and a
member of Masonic Lodge 257 and the Orange Lodge of Belfast.
Major Charles Sirr, the chief of Dublin police who would in 1803 arrest
Thomas Russell at 29 Parliament Street, was a Freemason. The Monaghan Militia,
which fought ferociously against the insurgents in Bridge Street, Ballynahinch,
on June 13 had its own Masonic lodge, the warrant being issued only in 1797.
Daniel O’Connell, an outspoken opponent of the rising, was a member of
Lodge 413 in Limerick, and the Grand Lodge, remember, did reassert its control
over errant lodges after the rebellion.
So it would be wholly erroneous to pronounce that Freemasonry was solidly
behind the United Irish project or that lodges had official sanction to be so.
Persuasive individual Masons in certain lodges were able to dictate the
direction of those lodges and use the tenets of Freemasonry to their own
political ends.
Despite the protestations of the Grand Lodge, it is easy to see how the
principles of the Masons were entirely compatible with many of those of the
United Irishmen.
To conclude, we need to consider exactly what role the Freemasons played in
the momentous events of the 1790s.
Despite the unambiguous position of the Grand Lodge, individual lodges were
involved in the intellectual, political and military climate that produced the
United Irishmen.
The emergence of the Volunteers and the United Irishmen revealed strong
Masonic influences because all these organisations promoted the removal of
sectarian divisions, the equality of the different denominational groups and
the creation of ties of brotherhood.
Many leading United Irishmen were Freemasons and lodges were used as cover
for the clandestine activities of the former.
A number of leading Masons can be implicated in the rising itself, but it
is important to remember that many dominant figures on the conservative side
were also Masons and that brethren confronted each other during the battles
and skirmishes of 1798.
