Ulster-Scot Samuel Neilson was a devoted United Irishman right until his death

​An Ulster-Scot, Samuel Neilson was the third son of the Rev Alexander Neilson, minister of Ballyroney Presbyterian Church, near Rathfriland, and was born on September 17 1761.
Samuel Neilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was imprisoned twice for his beliefsSamuel Neilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was imprisoned twice for his beliefs
Samuel Neilson, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was imprisoned twice for his beliefs

​Aged 16, he was apprenticed to his brother John, a woollen draper in Belfast. In due course he went into business on his own account with premises on the site of the present Northern Whig Building in Bridge Street.

In 1785 he married Anne Bryson, the daughter of one of Belfast’s wealthiest citizens. His wife’s inheritance, combined with his own business acumen, made Neilson a very wealthy young man.

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Like many Presbyterians who felt excluded from political power by the Protestant [ie Anglican] Ascendancy, Neilson developed a keen interest in radical politics. He acted as Robert Stewart’s election agent in the celebrated Co Down contest of 1790. However, the future Lord Castlereagh’s sympathy for radical ideas did not begin to match Neilson’s enthusiasm.

Neilson was one of the original founders of the United Irishmen in October 1791 and one of the most influential and fervent. Lord Edward Fitzgerald thought he was ‘the life’s blood of the endeavour’. In his Journal Tone referred to him as ‘the Jacobin’. He was a key figure in creation of the Northern Star which began publication on January 4 1792.

Neilson became its editor and eventually sole proprietor. Packed with a wide range of news stories and biting satires, the Northern Star was so successful that by 1797 it was selling 4,000 copies. The Rev James Porter’s dialogues between ‘Billy Bluff and Squire Firebrand’ were extremely popular.

When Porter was hanged in front of his own meeting house at Greyabbey, many believed that Porter’s satirical depiction of Castlereagh’s father, Lord Londonderry, as ‘Lord Mountmumble’ had cost him his life.

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After the outbreak of war with revolutionary France in 1793 a fearful government clamped down on those espousing the ideals of a country with which it was at war. Neilson was not cowed by repression but was one of those ready to transform the United Irishmen into a clandestine revolutionary and military organisation.

In June 1795 Neilson, along with Wolfe Tone, Henry Joy McCracken, Robert Simms, and Thomas Russell, climbed the Cave Hill above Belfast and at McArt’s Fort they vowed not to desist in their efforts until they had subverted the authority of England and asserted Ireland’s independence.

The government, viewing the activities of the United Irishmen with alarm, rounded up a number of leading figures, including Neilson, who were imprisoned in Kilmainham gaol, in September 1796.

At the end of May 1797 the Northern Star ceased publication when members of the Monaghan Militia smashed the Star’s presses.

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In prison a ‘deep and cutting quarrel’ developed between Neilson and McCracken. The United Irish prisoners had vowed not to seek individual release but Neilson’s health deteriorated rapidly and he began to drink heavily. Efforts were made to secure Neilson’s early release and this provoked the quarrel. Ironically, McCracken was released on December 6 1797, before Neilson. Neilson was freed from prison on February 17 1798 – as the result of the intervention of the much-maligned Castlereagh – subject to the condition that he did not join any treasonable committee.

Disregarding the terms of his release, Neilson and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, one of the few United Irish leaders with a military background, immersed themselves in planning an armed rebellion. Neilson was responsible for suggesting that the signal for the rebellion should be the stopping of mail coaches.

On May 18 the authorities arrested Fitzgerald. On May 23, the day scheduled for the beginning of the rebellion, Neilson was arrested outside Newgate gaol, plotting Fitzgerald’s escape. Recognised by a gaoler, in the ensuing struggle Neilson was seriously injured.

Neilson appeared in court on June 26 but refused to plead or name his counsel. Neilson’s life was spared because of a compact between the government and some of the leading state prisoners whereby they provided the authorities with information about the origins and activities of the United Irishmen. Neilson was one of those examined by Secret Committees of the Irish Lords and Commons.

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In his testimony Neilson claimed that ‘The original object [of the United Irishmen] was solely that contained in the test – namely equality of representation without distinction of religion; the ideas of a republic and separation grew out of the severities practised by government upon the people’.

Perhaps Neilson was striving to demonstrate that he and his colleagues were essentially political moderates, anxious for reform not revolution, and were forced by repression into rebellion but for some United Irishmen this would have been a fair and reasonable explanation for the evolution of the Society of United Irishmen from an open and legitimate organisation with constitutional aims to a clandestine revolutionary and military organisation.

In March 1799 Neilson was transferred to Fort George in Scotland where the prison regime was not harsh but ‘as liberal as can be expected’.In July 1799 Neilson appeared to welcome the prospect of the Union: ‘I see a union is determined on between Great Britain and Ireland. I am glad of it. In a commercial point of view it cannot be injurious, and I can see no injury the country will sustain from it’. While some United Irishmen genuinely welcomed the Union, the sincerity of Neilson’s profession is open to question.

Following the Peace of Amiens of March 1802, Neilson was released from prison in June, subject to the condition that he go into exile in the United States.

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Neilson’s time in America was brief. Already suffering from severe rheumatism, he contracted yellow fever and died at Poughkeepsie, New York, on August 29 1803.

A letter to Archibald Hamilton Rowan, shortly before Neilson’s death, suggests that Neilson died an unrepentant United Irishman: ‘Neither the eight years hardship I have endured – the total destruction of my property – the forlorn state of my wife and children – the momentary failure of our national exertions – nor the still more distressing usurpation in France – have abated my ardour in the cause of my country and of general liberty. You and I, my dear friend, will pass away but the truth will remain.’