Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  The meeting began at midday and was addressed by the Marquess of Abercorn, Earl Belmore, Viscount Corry, the Earl of Caledon and Lord James Alexander, all of them placed on a hustings allegedly capable of holding 700 people, along with the nineteen signatories of the meeting declaration and many other figures from the gentry and the clergy,29 among them the magistrates A. W. Cole Hamilton, Gilbert King, Charles Irwin, George Lendrum, A. H. Irwin, Rev. J. G. Porter, Thomas Gervois, James Galbraith, Mervyn Stewart, George Vesey, Samuel Vesey, Hind Cryan, George Hill and Edward Litton KC.30 The language in the speeches could not be considered extreme or inflammatory. Belmore evoked local pride by reminding his audience ‘how unnecessary either argument or eloquence must be, to induce the men of Tyrone to come forward in support of their King’, while Abercorn called on the assemblage ‘not to break the laws but to preserve them; not to invade property but to secure their own; not to intimidate, but to respond to the gracious summons of their sovereign’.31

  The speeches were well received by the crowd, indeed wildly cheered and applauded, but how attentively they actually listened and whether they could hear what was said is debatable because, according to the police, ‘the principal part of [the crowd], contrary to his lordship’s expectation, marched in regular procession through the town, and also past the hustings, with scarves, flags, music playing party tunes, and firing shots’.32 Caledon later complained that ‘they [the Orangemen] kept marching backwards and forwards very much to the annoyance of the meeting, and this continued during the time it lasted’.33 Stoven considered that ‘Orangemen bore a most conspicuous and indecorous part’ at the meeting. The scale of their presence is indicated by the fact that the police could identify only three of them owing to the quantity of flags and banners, the display of which was of course illegal under the Party Processions Act which forbade party colours in public.34

  The meeting ended at 3 p.m. without any major incident. However, when the gentry left the platform, one of them, J. C. Stronge, was forced to leave by a back entrance, such was the level of abuse he received from a section of the crowd. Stronge, a magistrate known to be vigorous in enforcing the law and a supporter of Caledon, had ordered the removal of an Orange arch from the town the previous year and had gained the nickname ‘Papist’ Stronge for his trouble; his presence on stage was not well received.35 The crowd was further excited by the impromptu action of Lord Claud Hamilton, who allowed himself to be sworn into the Orange Order in a local public house and was then chaired through the town in triumph by the mob, much to the disgust of Caledon. Hamilton’s speech from the platform in defence of Protestant rights had been more provocative than that of his brother:

  Let us look back to a time when similar efforts were foiled by the glorious King William – when our ancestors bled and died in defence of the Protestant religion (cheers) and let us prove worthy of the rich boon which they left us, by showing that we are ready to die rather than yield to it.36

  Following his initiation, Hamilton promptly left the scene, with Abercorn and Sir Hugh Stewart, and proceeded to Stewart’s residence at Ballygawley House leaving the excited mob to act as it pleased. Cronin argues that the elite could determine whether mob assemblies ended in violence or not, depending on whether they procrastinated or intervened before matters got out of control and on whether or not they displayed a conciliatory attitude towards the crowd.37 In this case the actions of Hamilton and the indifference of the magistrates – officials appointed by the government to uphold law and order, who viewed the events from the hustings – very much contributed to the actions of the mob.

  Although the meeting had ended, the marching continued until a late hour. As Caledon had not seen the need to bring reinforcements to the town, and because much of the Dungannon police force had attended the monthly market in Moy, there were simply not enough police in the vicinity to deal with the crowd.38 This left the constabulary relatively powerless, which allowed the mob the freedom to parade and march as they pleased until they finally dispersed at their own leisure. While there was no riot, it was the opinion of the head of the local constabulary, Captain Duff, that ‘nothing could possibly be worse than the taunting and irregular conduct of the Orangemen going home, by their continued firing in the streets’.39 One of the shots fired was aimed at Stoven, who was observing from a high vantage point, missing him by a narrow margin. Stoven, as head of the police in Ulster, was a much despised figure because his job entailed applying the law against Orangemen, a duty he carried out robustly. Captain Duff was regarded in a similar light, judging by a threatening notice placed in the prayer book of his wife the previous Sunday, warning him not to interfere in the rally:

  Sir, as this is the last day to be in this rotten town, I send you this advice, tell Robinson that he and that damned scout Stronge will do very little on Friday at the Protestant meeting; that Duff and Sir F. Stoven had better stay in the house or they may get an Orange ball which may cause them to stay at home on the 12th July. Tell Duff that he and Stronge, that they will not be able to stop the meeting, nor the walking on the 12th; tell them to kiss my ... and suck my ... I remain yours, Dodd, Amen.40

  The fact that certain individuals entered a place of worship, of which they were possibly members, and had the audacity to place this note inside a lady’s prayer book, shows that the perpetrators were willing to ignore the norms of respect and decency of upper-class society, which suggests lower-class involvement. As the note was placed five days before the meeting, it also suggests that the lower classes were already briefed about it and fully intended to be there. There was always a risk of the lower classes behaving in such a manner, yet the elite who planned the meeting obviously considered they needed to bring the lower classes on board to swell numbers and provide a Protestant show of strength to the government.

  This meeting did not result in any serious rioting and it is worth asking why. In many cases where riots occur, a focal point is needed on which the crowd can vent its anger. This crowd comprised Protestants and Presbyterians; no Catholics were present, or at least none willing to announce their presence, and this eliminated one possible flashpoint, as did the fact that the town’s Catholic church was in the eastern suburbs, well outside the visible focus of the crowd.41 One other potential source of contention in Orange circles was absent, and this may also explain why no riot took place. This missing element was the police force which, because of changes in its make-up in the previous years, had become much more centralised and therefore efficient in its dealings with assemblies which broke the law. Many Orangemen loathed the police because of their enforcement of the Party Processions Act, which banned political processions and displays of party colours, and there had been clashes on many occasions. But because the police were not present in great numbers, those who were there kept a low profile. This absence of a force to oppose the law-breaking elements of the crowd removed another possible focus for the crowd’s anger.

  Nonetheless, though there was no riot, the actions of the mob did form a precedent for trouble at future elections in the county. The Orange Order became a political force locally because it offered those candidates prepared to use its numbers and intimidatory strength the ‘muscle’ required to secure victory. In the elections the following month, the first election contest in Tyrone in sixty-eight years, Hamilton – with the backing of the Orange mob – defeated Alexander in a bitter campaign between the conservative candidates. The 1839 election, too, saw serious clashes between Hamilton’s supporters and those of the Liberal candidate James Alexander Boyle, and the Liberal candidate in the 1841 Dungannon borough election, John Falls, was forced to pull out of the contest after the first day’s voting in the interests of his supporters’ and his own safety after an Orange mob wrecked the properties and businesses of his supporters.42

  6

  COLLECTIVE ACTION AND THE POOR LAW

  The political mobilisation

  of the Irish poor, 1851–78

  MEL COUSINS

 
It is now over three decades since the publication of Clark’s seminal article on the political mobilisation of Irish farmers.1 Yet many aspects of the political mobilisation of different social classes in Ireland remain uninvestigated (or under-investigated). One issue in particular, which has received little study, is the political mobilisation of the Irish poor.2 I examine one aspect of this issue: collective action by ‘poor’ people in relation to the operation of the Poor Law in mid-Victorian Ireland, circa 1851 to 1878, the period bounded by the Famine and the Land War.

  My interest in this area arose from a study of the Poor Law in Ireland in the nineteenth century. What struck me about the available sources was that none of them allowed me to hear the voice of the ‘paupers’ themselves or their views on the Poor Law. The sources, whether the official files of the chief secretary’s office, the private archives of key politicians or the newspapers of the time, all reflect the views of the governors of the system. One can carry out extensive analysis of the data on the number and type of people availing of indoor and outdoor relief or investigate the material on dietary standards or mortality in workhouses, yet none of this tells one anything directly about how people in workhouses or on outdoor relief themselves felt about the operation of the Poor Law. However, incidents of collective action by the poor in relation to the Poor Law do allow us to get some insights into their views.

  It is of course difficult to define the term ‘poor’ strictly. In nineteenth-century Ireland, much of the population could be considered poor. In this chapter, I use a narrower sense of the term, specifically to mean the pauper classes: those eligible for or potentially eligible for poor relief under the Irish Poor Law acts. The term ‘political mobilisation’ is also not unproblematic when applied to examples of collective action by the poor in relation to the operation of the Poor Law. Collective action may be defined as ‘any goal-directed activity jointly pursued by two or more individuals’.3 Political mobilisation may be defined as ‘the actors’ attempts to influence the existing distribution of power’.4

  Unlike the situation in England, there was no national system of Poor Laws in Ireland before 1838.5 Although houses of industry existed in a number of Irish towns and cities, there was no system of outdoor relief in Ireland. Following the introduction of the 1834 Poor Law in England, the British Government decided to introduce a broadly similar system in Ireland, based on a report by Sir George Nicholls, a Poor Law commissioner. The Irish Poor Law was, if anything, a purer version of the 1834 model and was, at least initially, confined solely to indoor relief.6 Given the absence of any previous Poor Law, there was no equivalent in Ireland of the anti-Poor Law protests seen in England and Wales. Indeed, the initial protests in Ireland during the early 1840s were against the collection of rates.

  During the period I am looking at here – from the 1850s to the 1870s – collective action by the poor in relation to the Poor Law tended not to overlap with the violent activities of organisations like the Ribbonmen and Whiteboys. For example, Beames’ study of peasant assassinations in Tipperary in the decade after the introduction of the Poor Law does not indicate that any cases were Poor Law related.7 Nor did collective action by the poor normally involve parliamentary or Poor Law elections. Given the state of the franchise then,8 very few poor persons had a vote in such elections.9 Studies to date indicate that, though there was a limited degree of politicisation of Poor Law elections in this period, poor people did not act collectively in the context of these elections.10 Hoppen’s study indicates that poor people were certainly involved in collective action around parliamentary elections, but there is again little indication that this collective action sought to advance any particular view on the Poor Law.11

  My research in official publications (such as annual reports of the Poor Law commission and local government board), public archives and local newspapers identified two main types of collective action:

  Large-scale protest marches or demonstrations by poor persons (generally not currently receiving poor relief) concerning – in a broad sense – poor relief and often including a march to the local workhouse.

  Small-scale protests by inmates of workhouses including fires, assaults, riots and the like.12

  Given the incomplete state of the archives it is not possible to say that this chapter offers a representative sample of such collective actions, but it does include all the events of this kind (excluding individual actions) that I have identified. The events are set out in more detail in appendices 1 and 2.

  Depiction of a food riot in Ireland, c.1845 © Getty images

  There is a perhaps surprising absence of literature specifically on the issue of collective action and poor relief. There is of course an extensive literature on collective action,13 and particularly on collective action by poor people, for example, food riots.14 I have not, however, located any study that looks specifically at collective action as it relates to Poor Law institutions. In the Irish context, the literature is even more limited. It is clear that food riots did occur in pre-Poor Law Ireland. Wells discusses the number of food riots during the famine of 1799–1801.15 Magennis looks at food riots in 1756–7.16 Kinealy’s study indicates that, as one might expect, food riots, attacks on workhouses and soup kitchens, and related violence were common during the Great Famine.17 However, there appears to have been very little study of such collective action in the post-Famine period.

  Looking first at large-scale protests, the events identified here took the form of an assembly and/or march by several hundred persons seeking employment and/or outdoor relief. Four specific events have been identified – in Belfast (1858), Galway (1865),18 Limerick (1861) and Westport (1863)19 – and there was considerable commonality among these four events. All took place in or around the period of the agricultural depression of 1859–1864 and all (except Belfast) were in the west of Ireland, which was most severely affected by the depression. All involved an absence of employment and food. In Belfast, Limerick and Galway, the people involved were urban labourers and artisans. In contrast, the Westport demonstration was by rural tenants who had travelled a considerable distance to seek outdoor relief from Westport workhouse. All the demonstrations included a formal approach to the authorities seeking relief: to the Poor Law guardians in Westport and Galway, to the mayor in Limerick. Only in Limerick was there any degree of violence and even here this was very minor, though the response of the authorities in drafting in extra troops indicated their concern that protests might develop further.

  Newspaper and other reports are unfortunately vague about those participating. It appears the protestors were predominantly male but this may be a function of the reporting, which may have tended to downplay the participation of women and children. Only in Limerick were there a small number of arrests (all men). In Belfast, Galway and Limerick the leaders of the protest came from the groups affected.20 In Westport, in contrast, the protest was led by a Roman Catholic curate.

  What was the response to the protests? In all cases there was a combination of repression and conciliation by the local authorities. In all cases except Belfast, the police or army forces were significantly reinforced despite the absence of (or very minor nature of) violence. At the same time, however, in all four cases the local authorities attempted to provide employment for the demonstrators and/or to raise charitable relief. One interesting point is the extent to which the local bourgeoisie played multiple roles in local governance. In Limerick, for example, we find the mayor – whom the demonstrators had approached in the course of their march – on the following day sitting as a magistrate on the local bench and sentencing some of the demonstrators to a term in prison.21 On the same day, the mayor travelled to Dublin and met the lord lieutenant and a number of senior officials to seek finance for public works in Limerick. Given a delay in receiving state support, a number of weeks later we find the Limerick magistrates guaranteeing the cost of public works.

  Looking at the aims and objectives of the protest, in general the protestors s
ought employment and/or outdoor relief. At the time, outdoor relief was very sparingly provided by Irish Poor Law unions. It could only be provided to able-bodied poor on the order of the Poor Law Commission and such an order would only be granted where the workhouse was full or unable to receive inmates due to the existence of contagious disease. In none of these cases was outdoor relief provided; the protestors were instead offered a place in the house (which they generally refused). However, it is clear that the protestors did succeed in advancing their position by their protests, and that public works and charitable donations were provided as a response.

  The question of protests in workhouses is clearly linked to the literature on protests in other institutions like gaols22 and psychiatric institutions.23 However, though historical accounts of workhouses and similar institutions in the nineteenth century often referred to riots or related issues,24 with the exception of Green’s recent study25 I have not come across any comparative study of such protests. It is clear that friction between inmates and officials was a common feature of workhouse life in Ireland in the period. How far such friction led to collective action varied greatly in the examples found here. Given that these events are, by definition, smaller in scope, it is more likely that others exist that did not show up in state papers and related documents. On the one hand, there was a long-term pattern of resistance by a large number of young women in the South Dublin Union (workhouse).26 This resistance went on from 1857 to at least 1862 and consistently involved at least fifty young women in their late teens or early twenties.27 Their activities varied greatly, from breaking windows or assaulting workhouse officials or other inmates, to setting fire (or attempting to set fire) to the workhouse. Without wishing to overstate this series of events or exaggerate the intentions of its participants, it is arguable that the struggles in the South Dublin Union represent the most sustained opposition to the Poor Law in this period.