Disaffected urged to rebel by radical press as French revolt
IRELAND was in a frenzy reported the News Letter this week in 1848. "Malcontents" across the country had been "excited" by the revolution in France which had seen King Louis-Philippe I forced into exile in England with his prime minister, Francois Guizot, racing to the Belgian border to affect his own escape.
The News Letter remarked: "There is nothing new to us in this outburst of Irish fraternisation with Republican France. It is only what has occurred before, and what might have been expected to occur at any time, among a people deeply and determinedly bent upon proving a thorn in the side of England in the time of peace, a treacherous dagger at her heart in the hour of her peril."
Radical Irish newspapers exploited the mood of revolution to rabble rouse in Ireland and urge the disaffected Irish to take up arms against the British. "Now or never," was the rally call of these newspapers, the News Letter at time was critical of such agitation.
One such 'Jacobin' newspaper which looked to excite revolution in Ireland was The United Irishman which was edited by the Co Londonderry born radical John Mitchel and the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev John Mitchel, he also spent many years living in Newry too.
Notably, Mitchel was also married in the parish church Drumcree to Miss Jane Verner, the only daughter of Captain James Verner by the Reverend David Babington on February 3, 1837. The Mitchel family also lived for some time in Banbridge where they were "peaceful and happy" and where two of his children, Henrietta in October 1842, and William in May 1844, where born. By 1845 the Mitchel family were living in Dublin.
Commenting on what The United Irishman had said the News Letter declared: "While reading the ferocious atrocities which appear in the organ of this section, one feels the same sensation of sickness and loathing that the hot and reeking steam of gore from the shambles is said to create."
The News Letter's condemnation of The United Irishman continued: ". . .there never was a public incendiary whose antics were so wretched, or whose vices were so fiendish, that a crowd or a gang would not congregate around him; and so it may be that the insane ravings of desperate men may stimulate to sin or crime the ignorant. . .and excitable."
Concluding its rebuke of the republican paper the News Letter remarked: "The recent Revolution in Paris seems well nigh to have unsettled the wits of the person who edits the United Irishman. He sees nothing but blood and battle; he hears nothing but the clash of steel and the roar of artillery."
The News Letter then published the blood thirsty rant which had emanated from the pen of The United Irishman's editor.
With "a rebel's frenzy," remarked the News Letter, The United Irishman had urged the peasantry of Ireland: "Oh! My countrymen, look up, look up! Arise from the death-dust where you have long been lying, and let this light visit your eyes also, and touch your souls. Let your ears drink in the blessed words – 'Liberty! Fraternity! Equality! which are soon to ring from pole to pole. Clear steel will, ere long, dawn upon you in your desolate darkness; and the rolling thunder of the people's cannon will drive before it many a heavy cloud that has long hidden from you the face of heaven."
In a clear call to the Irish peasant to take up arms The United Irishman declared: "Pray for that day; and preserve life and health, that you may worthily meet it. Above all, let the man amongst you who has no gun, sell his garment, and buy one."
And it was the view of The United Irishman that it has a central role to play in the coming revolution remarked the News Letter. The United Irishman had published elaborate instruction on how an insurgent populace should carry on "a bloody slaughter" through the streets and lanes of a city "such as Paris, and such as Dublin".
The United Irishman stated: "Every street is an excellent shooting gallery for disciplined troops. . . prepare for window-pots, brick-bats, logs of wood, chimney-pieces, heavy furniture, light pokers."
It continued: "The propelling forces – viz, ladies, or chambermaids, or men who can do no better – have the additional advantage of security; and the narrower the street, and the higher the houses, the worse the damage, and the greater the security."
Next The United Irishman suggested that: "Bottles, delph and such missiles. . . not only knock down and wound infantry, but render the streets impassable to cavalry and artillery."
In jest it added: "A horse may dance on eggs, but no squadron can charge over broken bottles. Artillery cannot ride over them, nor indeed, can disciplined footmen keep the step, or tread among them with ease."
Finally, reflecting on the methods employed by the French revolutionaries The United Irishman declared that the best plan was to: "Draw the soldiery into the narrow streets, where they can only advance a few abreast; and where lanes, alleys, and streets, running at angles, afford excellent opportunities of taking them in (the] flank or rear. Street-lighting is most harassing on disciplined troops, especially when subject to the attentions of heads of families from house-tops and windows."
Concluding its advice on nineteenth urban guerrilla warfare The United Irishman declared: "And so we may have a Republic nearer home ere long; for in these events lies our fate!"
Having recounted the rebellious instructions the News Letter hit out at The United Irishman's subversive war cry. The News Letter remarked: "It would be impossible to conceive a more hardy, reckless, or undisguised exhibition of treason and savage blood-thirstiness than the foregoing."
The United Irishman was not alone in its subversive rhetoric. The News Letter noted that the language had more or less been identical The Nation, its "collaborateur" (sic].
Calling the disaffected to revolt he reassured them: "Do not fear that France is exhausted. Event will lead on event, as hour ushers in hour. See how they have followed each other already: within a week the minister's resignation, the king's flight, and the Republic's birth. No Republic can stand in France which is not aggressive; neither can war take place in Europe without England. The first gun England fires will he the sun-set gun of her dominion in Ireland."
In conclusion The Nation declared: "The consideration is not now of when, but of how, Irish independence is to be won. The time is at hand; it comes with the deep founding of a sea filling its channel. Are the people ready? They must – they must be ready. Now or never."
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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