A previous article here at The Irish Story touched on the politics of 19th century Protestants in Dublin. Here, John Dorney looks in more detail at a Dublin working class Protestant and unionist group of the 1840s.

In a colonial situation, a minority group rules a country, exercising power at the expense of a majority. However, even within the ruling minority there are usually hierarchies of class and wealth. Those lower down the social order are usually bound to the ruling class by giving them small privileges over the majority – access to political rights for example.

So it was in Ireland in the 18th century, where the “Protestant Ascendancy” extended to poor Protestants voting rights and access to political and economic power denied to the Catholic majority.

But if you are in this “marginally privileged” group, what do you do when the system begins to be reformed and you risk being dragged down to the ranks of the previously despised majority? What people often do is form militant groups, opposed to reform, who espouse the state’s former ideology even more insistently than the actual ruling class. There are examples of this among poor Afrikaners in South Africa in the 1980s and 90s, in the southern States of America, faced with black civil rights in the 1960s and elements of Ulster loyalism during the Northern Ireland Troubles. The DPOA was formed to “reverse the decline of the Protestant cause, reverse the concessions to Popery and the to defend the Union between Ireland and Britain”.

One such group in 1840s Ireland was the Dublin Protestant Operative Association. This was created by an evangelical Church of Ireland minister named Tresham Gregg in early 1841 to, “reverse the decline of the Protestant cause, reverse the concessions to Popery and to defend the Union between Ireland and Britain”. It wound itself up in 1848, merging with the Orange Order. [1]

In the 1840s they campaigned vigorously against the increasing political power of Catholics in Dublin, against concessions to the Catholic Church and to try to maintain the declining privileges of the Dublin Protestant working class. To the forefront of their rhetoric was desire to convert Catholics to Protestantism. They also organised opposition to Daniel O’Connell’s mobilisation for Repeal of the Union – to the extent of contemplating civil war if it were passed.

The Association held weekly meetings, which were recorded in both the unionist and Repealer press in Dublin. Initially they met at a theatre on Fishamble Street, then in a hall in the Rotunda and towards the end in a former Methodist meeting place on Whitefriar Street.

A turbulent decade

The 1840s was an extremely turbulent decade in Irish history. It saw agitation for self government, rising Catholic political power, reform of local government, widespread rural violence (bordering at times on low intensity rebellion) a catastrophic famine from 1845-47 and a failed nationalist insurrection in 1848. There was also a severe economic recession in 1839-42.

The DPOA was formed in 1841 in reaction to this turmoil by a section of Protestant ‘operatives’ or manual workers in Dublin who felt they were being abandoned by the political establishment in Ireland and Britain. Previously, Protestants, even those of humble background, had been able to feel themselves superior to Catholics in Ireland and also to benefit from patronage in jobs and welfare from the Protestant elite.

With Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and reform of the Corporation in 1840, Catholic nationalists in Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Association took over most of the city corporations in 1841 and the Poor Law committees the following year. The police were also now recruiting Catholics.

In addition, the position of the Protestant Church of Ireland was being undermined. Compulsory tithes paid by all of Ireland’s (70% Catholic) population were being abolished and even Conservative politicians – who hardline Protestants in Ireland saw as their natural allies – in Britain were starting to give grants to Catholic education – especially to the new Catholic University at Maynooth.

To the “ultra-Protestant” view, the reforms and political mobilisation of the 1840s represented an apocalyptic showdown between “Protestant liberty” and “Papist tyranny”.

And always in the background was the national question. Many Irish Protestants took pride in the British Empire. Although Dublin unionists would usually describe themselves as “Irish”, in times of extreme strain their publications would remind their readers that they were the descendants of the victors of the 17th century wars of conquest in Ireland.

Catholics, mobilised by O’Connell towards self government, often characterized themselves as the real natives of Ireland. O’Connell for example said that the English Tories, “hated the Irish people and their religion” – implying that the Irish people were the Catholic people.

A hostile view of “King Dan”. Catholics did not have the same sentimental attachment to the British connection and some were militantly hostile to it. The threat of civil war over this question hung in air throughout these years.

It is too simple to say that Ireland was polarised between Catholics and Protestants in these years – there were Liberal, Repealer and nationalist Protestant activists also. But to the “ultra-Protestant” view, represented by groups such as the DPOA – the decade seemed to threaten an apocalyptic showdown between “Protestant liberty” and “Papist tyranny”.

DPOA Grievances

The DPOA was horrified by the Catholic, O’Connelite, takeover of the Dublin Corporation and especially about the abolition of the rights and privileges of the Freemen of the city – members of hereditary trade guilds. The Dublin Corporation was reformed by Liberal government in 1840. Voting rights were granted on a non-sectarian basis but confined to property holders of 10 pounds or more. Previously, the all-Protestant Freemen, who represented working class Protestants had, along with Protestant property holders, elected Aldermen, who in turn elected a Lord Mayor.

Now working class Protestants lost their voice in the Corporation and Protestants in general lost their control over the City government. Whereas the old Corporation was exclusively Protestant, Catholic votes now outnumbered Protestants 2:1.

In 1841 the Catholic, nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell became mayor of Dublin, the first Catholic to hold the post since 1689.[2] Gregory, a Conservative electoral candidate, told a DPOA meeting in 1842, “The Popish Lord Mayor of 1688 issued an edict forbidding Protestants to assemble. The Popish Lord Mayor of 1842 makes a similar attempt on the Liberties of Protestant Freemen”.[3]

In 1842, there was a somewhat abusive exchange of letters between the DPOA and the Repealers, published in the press, which illustrates what must have been for ultra-Protestants, a galling reversal of roles.

The Secretary of the DPOA, one William Peake, wrote to the Repeal Association, demanding a public meeting with Daniel O’Connell in his capacity as Mayor of Dublin. John O’Connell, the Mayor’s son, wrote back saying they would not agree to a meeting unless they were supplied with the names and addresses of the DPOA delegation. Peake refused, as such a list in hostile hands, “might be turned to the injury of the individuals”.

O’Connell in turn responded that in that case there would be no meeting and in any case, they would under no circumstances meet with Tresham Gregg, “who is utterly incapable of rational discussion”. They might as well, O’Connell wrote, “propose a deputation from the lunatic asylum”.[4]

Betrayal

The DPOA felt they were being betrayed by the British establishment. On January 1, 1842, Tresham Greggs, the evangelical preacher and founder of the DPOA, addressing a meeting in the run up to the 1842 Dublin by-election, denounced the Conservative British Prime Minister Robert Peel as, “the greatest traitor ever”, for giving grants to Catholic education, and said he had, “thrown the ultra-Protestants overboard”.

“Thousands of Papists are eating the bread of the state, which should be given to starving Protestants”, Tresham Gregg, 1842

Gregg told his supporters, “Thousands of Papists [are] eating the bread of the state, which should be given to starving Protestants”[5] At another meeting he underlined the point. When he was young, “there was no such thing as a poor Protestant” but now they were, “among the most destitute in the city”.[6]

An indication of their very real economic concerns was Gregg’s denouncing of the Liberal government for reducing the size and quality of the standard loaf of bread.[7] Another complained of the, “persecution of the Protestant poor in the Dublin Workhouses”, since they had come under O’Connellite control.[8]

The working class Protestants of the DPOA also had hard words for the Protestant Aristocracy, who did not attend their meetings and seemed to regard Catholic advances without concern. One Mr. Yielding rhetorically asked the Aristocracy at a DPOA meeting in 1843, “was it to the Roman Catholics or to their humble Protestant fellow countrymen that they were to look to for aid and defence in the day of trial? Was it to those men whose motto was ‘separation from the British connection’ – to those men who openly gloried and revelled in anticipation of England’s fall? A day might come when they would be heartily sorry for the gross neglect, nay discountenance of their humble brother Protestants”.[9]

Law and Disorder

Another recurring theme was that of law and order, particularly the recruitment of Catholics into the Irish Constabulary – though it was commanded from Britain and its officers were almost always Protestants.

“Why should we have a popish police in Dublin?” Gregg asked. “Why should Peel give Ireland up to the tender mercies of a set of Popish protectors whose protection of Protestants was not worth one straw?” [10] The Police, according to Gregg, did not protect Protestants, who on occasions had been attacked by “furious mob”.[11] The Liberals, he complained, had, “set aside the law, which should be a terror to evil doers”. As a result, the economy had suffered and the “gentry had fled”.[12]

In an open letter to the Repeal Association, the DPOA explicitly linked rural violence against (mostly Protestant) landlords to the nationalist agitation, accusing them of wanting to “overturn the aristocracy and the monarchy”.[13]

The DPOA tended to blame all of Ireland’s political and social ills on the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829, which permitted Catholics to hold public Office. They asserted that they wanted “a repeal of the 1829 Bill” and all Catholic MPs removed from Parliament”.[14] This call, for the reversal of Catholic Emancipation continued throughout the 1840s.

Their other major complaint was that the income of the Church of Ireland was being curtailed and grants given to Catholic education.

“Protestant Ascendancy”

There were three main strands of the DPOA’s ideology; Protestant supremacy in Ireland, religious evangelicalism and British nationalism.

Protestant supremacy was in practice about the Protestants in Ireland as much as the Protestant religion. Many of the DPOA’s published articles complained of political advances by Catholics, especially their taking control of the city corporations and Poor Law committees in the 1840s – thus denying Protestants jobs, political power and welfare.

The sense of Irish Protestant identity was displayed by symbols such as wearing Orange rosettes at meetings. One Methodist minister, at the DPOA’s annual soiree in 1844, said he “rejoiced to see so many who wear upon their breasts the insignia of Orangism”.[15]

The DPOA also took part in Orange Order demonstrations for the anniversary of the Protestant victory over the Catholics at the 1690 Battle of the Boyne on July 12 and at their meetings, songs such as the ‘Boyne Water’ were sung, commemorating the battle.

“We scorn the idea of there existing a physical force superior to our own”. Address to the Protestants of Ireland, 1843

The victories of the Protestant Williamites over the Irish Catholic supporters of James II in 1690-91 were constantly invoked to show God’s favour for the Protestants of Ireland and their right to rule the country.[16] For instance, an “Address to the Protestants of Ireland” in 1843 stated, “we scorn the idea of there existing a physical force superior to our own…the deliverance we Irish Protestants have recorded in the annals of our nation [at the battles of] Aughrim, the Boyne and Derry [show] we are the masters of this land…we hold it for Him [God].[17]

Protestants must also stick together. “It is only by acting in concert with the Protestants of Ireland that the Protestant Church can be maintained and the Repeal of the Union averted”. [18] The DPOA reserved some of its harshest criticism for those Protestants who were also Irish nationalists, “those fraternisers with treason, sedition and rebellion”.[19] They also campaigned energetically for Conservative candidates against Protestant Liberals in election contests.

In pursuit of Protestant unity, the DPOA tried to bridge the gap between followers of the Established Church and “dissenters” like Methodists and Presbyterians. In Dublin itself this seems to have been successful, as their meetings attracted Methodists and indeed were held from 1845 in a Methodist Hall.

Gregg’s attempt to reach out to Presbyterian Ulster, however produced dismaying results. Presbyterians were still discriminated against by law – marriages by their clergy, for instance, still did not have legal status in the early 1840s. Fifty years before, many northern Presbyterian had been attracted to United Irish republicanism.

Tresham Gregg had no better luck at winning over Presbyterian Belfast than Daniel O’Connell.

This had changed by the 1840s as Irish nationalism became more associated with Catholicism. Daniel O’Connell himself discovered this on a visit to Belfast to promote the Repeal cause in 1841 when he was chased away by shower of stones and by some 6,000 Presbyterians shouting, “No Surrender!” and “No Pope!”.[20]

Tresham Gregg, however, a minister of the Established Church, had no better luck in Belfast, which he called, “the most Protestant town in the Kingdom”. He got involved, in a trip in April 1843, in a war-of-words with the Presbyterian Dr Henry Cooke and departed the northern city amid “boos and hisses” from the crowd. “In Dublin”, he lamented on his return, “we never or rarely think of any such thing as a division existing between us and the Presbyterians of the north”. He did however, manage to set up a Belfast Protestant Operative Association during his visit and the group led sectarian rioting against Catholic Repealers in July of that year.[21]

Community defenders or evangelicals?

The DPOA was in truth a representative of the existing Protestant community, but it presented itself as an evangelical force for, “the eradication of Popery” in both Ireland and Britain. Catholics, according to one address were, “unless they repent, doomed of the most high”.[22] One Reverend Ramsay finished his speech to the Association with the rallying cry, “Protestant Ascendancy because Protestantism is truth! And no Popery!”[23].

DPOA speakers, and especially Tresham Gregg, usually cited the continued toleration of “Popery”, for all of both Ireland’s and Britain’s ills. The economic recession in British industry of the early 1840s was blamed on a backsliding from true Protestantism, or “abandonment of religious principles”. Similarly, the contrast between prosperous Ulster and poor south of Ireland, with its, “wretchedness and poverty”, was because, “the north has bibles, the south has Popish priests”.[24]

Even the Great Famine of the 1840s was seen as a punishment from God for the bulk of the population’s adherence to Catholicism. The DPOA’s annual report in 1845 records that they had sent a letter to the Prime Minister, Peel, calling the potato blight that triggered the famine, “a visitation from God”.[25]

A constant in DPOA rhetoric was that to “redeem” Ireland, the Catholics must be converted to the true religion – “the conversion of Ireland by Christian principles”.[26] There were indeed, in the 19th century, concerted efforts made by Protestant missionary organizations to convert Catholics in Ireland to Protestantism, including proselytising in the Irish language, without however, a great deal of success.

The DPOA maintained that their aim was to convert Catholics to Protestantism but many of their pubications were abusive tracts addressed to Catholics MPs

These two strands, representing the Protestant community and advancing the Protestant religion, were in practice contradictory. When DPOA activists called for the “eradication of Popery”, Catholics in the Repeal Association naturally took them to mean they wanted the physical eradication of the Catholics as well as their religion. Although Gregg tried to cool tempers by saying that “every real Protestant” bore, “the kindest of feelings to his Roman Catholic brother” and was only against, “the system of which he is a dupe”,[27] the reality was that the DPOA was an organization representing one community only.

Much of the group’s correspondence, calling for a repeal of Catholic Emancipation and an end to funding Catholic education was in fact addressed to Catholic MPs and to the Repeal Association. One Catholic MP was told that he was duty-bound by the Oath he had sworn on entering Parliament to uphold the Protestant religion.[28] Another address to the Repeal Association started with the sentence, “you have robbed the church”. [29] These kinds of actions make no sense as attempts at persuasion but only as gestures of defiance – a middle finger in modern parlance – from a marginal group to the increasingly powerful Catholics.

The importance of this kind of public defiance in places like the Liberties area of Dublin, where, “working class Catholics and Protestants lived in close proximity to each other and violent sectarian clashes had recurred throughout the 18th century”,[30] can be seen in the following address by Gregg to his followers. Were it not for the DPOA, he told them, “the poor Protestants of Dublin would have sunk into despondency under the unsparing taunts of their Roman Catholic neighbours, whereas it is now they who occupy the vantage ground in every encounter”.[31]

Loyalism

The DPOA was also deeply attached to the connection between Ireland and Britain. Many Irish Protestants had British roots, some recent, some going back to the 1600s. They also argued that it was much better to belong to a worldwide Empire than to a small independent country “What narrow-minded crawling patriotism is that which is lost to an empire, nay a world of compatriots?”[32].

This loyalty to the status quo also extended to the social order. They supported the pillars of monarchy and aristocracy and condemned radicals such as the Chartists (activists for universal suffrage) and socialists.[33] They were also deeply hostile to the radical Irish nationalist group the Young Irelanders.

The Repeal Association, as well as being Papists, were denounced as dangerous revolutionaries, “You want a separation of the two countries [Britain and Ireland], a republic, and confusion and anarchy of every sort”.[34]

But their final loyalty was to the Protestant community Ireland rather than the British Empire. Loyalty to Britain was subject to the authorities there’s support for Protestantism. Should the British Parliament renege on this, Greggs warned, “ we will rally around the standard of our native land and raise the cry ‘Erin go Bragh’ ”.

Who cares one fig for the integrity of the British Empire if it be not the empire of immortal truth?: Treasham Gregg, 1843

Whereas better-off unionists, organised in groups such as the Dublin Metropolitan Conservative Society, based their case for the Union on support for the Empire over “Irish rebellion” and “revolution”, Gregg called the idea of Imperial, as opposed to Protestant, patriotism, “foolish and contemptible”. “What signifies ‘British supremacy’ if it is not identical with the Ascendancy of Protestantism? Who cares one fig for the integrity of the British Empire if it be not the empire of immortal truth?”[35]

Whether the average member of the Association was most concerned about the desire for supremacy of the Protestant religion or the political supremacy of Protestants in Ireland is hard to tell.

Unlike later generations of unionists, they did not maintain that they were British rather than Irish; rather they argued that the Protestants were the real Irish nation; and they resented the assumption by followers of O’Connell that the Catholics could claim this title. “The Repeal Association is nothing more than a Roman Catholic Operative Society”.[36] “They are slaves not to England, nor to us but to a false and lying superstition and to the priests of an apostate church who preside over it”.[37]

Militancy and Pragmatism

Most of the time, relations between the DPOA and the Repeal Association in Dublin were hostile but not very violent.

In 1843, Tresham Gregg led what the Freeman’s Journal described as an “Orange mob” in an attack on Repeal meeting in Cornmarket. Gregg’s followers ousted the Repealers, occupied the premises and began passing their own resolutions. The Repealers responded by going down to the nearby quays and mobilizing the coal porters, who were apparently a bastion of O’Connellite politics, to expel the intruders, who were given, “an exemplary dusting”.[38]

There were, however, two peaks of crisis for supporters of the Union in 1840s Ireland. One was Daniel O’Connell’s ‘Year of Repeal’ in 1843, where the Repeal leader used escalating mass mobilisation to try to force the concession of Irish self-government. Although O’Connell maintained that his mobilisation was peaceful and “loyal”, ‘ultra-Protestants’ such as the DPOA took it to be the prelude to revolution.

The DPOA’s relations with the Repealers were not usually very violent but could have led to civil war in 1843 or 1848.

The second crisis was the attempted insurrection by the Young Ireland movement in 1848. This rising did not come off, apart from a brief skirmish in Tipperary, but was a much more serious proposition than it is often given credit for today. The Young Irelanders’ Irish Confederation had some 50,000 members across Ireland and well-worked out plans for rebellion. On both occasions, 1843 and 1848, the DPOA talked of arming and fighting against its enemies.

In 1843, Tresham Gregg warned that if O’Connell, “succeeds in bullying Great Britain into granting repeal of the Union, it is your duty to rise up in rebellion against his Popish parliament”. Protestants, “would not allow themselves to be ruled over by Papists”. “His [O’Connell’s] Parliament would not have collected until civil war rent the bowels of his native land”.[39]

In 1848, he told a DPOA meeting that they must be prepared to fight for the Union between Britain and Ireland if necessary, against “treason, sedition and rebellion”.[40]

DPOA statements throughout the 1840s maintained that, despite being a minority in Ireland, Protestants should not be afraid of an Irish nationalist rebellion, as, “the God of Battles would be on our side”.[41] In one address, the DPOA reminded the Repeal Association of the Biblical verse, “yea shall chase 1,000 and put 10,000 to flight”.[42]

We know now that there was no civil war in 1840s Ireland. O’Connell backed down from his banned mass meeting at Clontarf, north of Dublin, in October 1843, when British troops were drafted in to suppress the demonstration. The planned insurrection by the Young Ireland movement never came off in 1848. But if things had turned out differently, there is no reason to doubt the assertions of the DPOA that they and their supporters would have come out in arms in defence of the Protestant United Kingdom as they understood it.

Whether groups like the DPOA and the Orange Order also took steps practical steps to prepare for civil war, such as stockpiling weapons and preparing lists of “traitors”, to be arrested or killed, we do not know.

On May 6, 1848, the DPOA, after a motion passed by one Mr. Battersby, voted to merge themselves with Orange Order, after which the Grand Master of the Dublin Orange Lodge took the chair. The meeting resolved to “fight for the Union if necessary” and finished with a prayer.[43]

Conclusion

The DPOA, which probably had about 3-500 members and several thousand more supporters, was the representative of the poorer sections of Dublin Protestants in a period of great social, political and economic change.

While they presented themselves as a religious group and many of their activists and speakers were Protestant clergy, what they in practice represented was the interests of their community rather than, as they claimed, a drive to, “convert Ireland”, to Protestantism. Specifically they wanted a reversion to the privileges Protestants had enjoyed before the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.

They were a Conservative group, both in the sense that they opposed radical political and constitutional change and in that they supported and campaigned for the Conservative Party.

In one sense, the DPOA emerged from the 1840s on the winning side. Neither O’Connell’s Repeal Parliament nor the Young Irelanders’ Irish republic became realities. Ultimately, though, the ‘ultra-Protestants’ were fighting a losing battle in Ireland, simply because numbers were against them. For every Protestant in Ireland, there were 3-4 Catholics and the concerted attempt to convert Catholics to Protestantism in the first half of the 19th century was largely a failure.

In Dublin political power from the 1840s onwards passed irrevocably to the representatives of the Catholic majority. The Protestant working class in Dublin did not disappear but it did dwindle through emigration, intermarriage with Catholics and social mobility as the 19th century progressed. By the 20th century, the kind of militant, working class Protestant unionism espoused by the DPOA was a thing of the past in the city.

Bibliography

Primary

Royal Academy of Ireland

*Two Addresses to the Protestants of Ireland, 1843. HP1868/10

*The DPOA annual Report of 1845 HP VOL.1914 (1846)

*The Soiree of the DPOA 1846 HP VOL.1914 (1846)

National Library of Ireland

*An Address to Thomas Wyse MP on Catholic Education,1844 (MS 15,036)

*The Warder Newspaper 1842-1848

Secondary

*Hill, Jacqueline From Patriot to Unionists, Dublin Civic Politics and Irish Protestant Patriotism 1660-1840, Clarendon, Oxford 1997.

*Hill, Jacqueline, The Protestant Response to Repeal, the case of the Dublin working class, in Ireland Under the Union, (Lyons and Hawkins eds), Clarendon 1980.

* Patrick M. Geoghegan, Liberator, The Life and Death of Daniel O’Connell 1830-1847, Gill & MacMillan 2010.

References

[1]Hill, The Protestant Response to Repeal p36-40

[2] Hill, Protestant Reponses, p46, Though the British Government appointed boards retained control over policing, paving, cleaning and lighting.

[3] The Warder, January 22, 1842

[4] The Warder, October 22, 1842

[5] The Warder January 1, 1842

[6] The Warder October 8, 1842

[7] The Warder January 22, 1842

[8] The Warder February 4, 1843

[9] The Warder February 4, 1843

[10] The Warder January 1, 1842

[11] The Warder, January 1, 1842

[12] The Warder, January 22, 1842

[13] The Warder October 8, 1842

[14] The Warder, September 24, 1842

[15] Soiree of the DPOA January 14, 1846, Haliday Pamphlets, RAI.

[16] DPOA annual report 1845

[17] Two Addresses to the Protestants of Ireland, 6 September 1843.

[18] The Warder January 15 1842

[19] The Warder, April 29, 1848

[20] Patrick Geoghegan, :liberator, The Life and Death of Daniel O’Connell, p120-121

[21] The Warder, April 18, 1843, For Belfast Protestant Operative Association, see Sean Farrell, Rituals and Riots, Sectarian Political Culture in Ulster 1784-1886, p141

[22] Two Addresses to the Protestants of Ireland, 6 September 1843.

[23] Soiree of the DPOA January 14, 1846, Haliday Pamphlets, RAI.

[24] The Warder, March 18 1843

[25] DPOA annual report 1845

[26] DPOA, Two Addresses, 6 September 1843

[27] The Warder October 8, 1842

[28] Address to Thomas Wyse MP, March 14 1844, NLI ms15,036

[29] The Warder, October 8, 1842

[30] Hill, Protestant Responses to Repeal, the Case of the Dublin working class, p42.

[31] The Warder, January 7, 1843

[32] Hill, The Protestant Response to Repeal, p58

[33] The Warder, February 25, 1843

[34] The Warder, September 24, 1842

[35] The Warder, August 26, 1843

[36] The Warder, September 24, 1842

[37] Two Addresses to the Protestants of Ireland 1843

[38] Patrick M. Geoghegan, Liberator, The Life and Death of Daniel O’Connell 1830-1847, p157

[39] The Warder, August 26, 1843

[40] The Warder April 29, 1848

[41] The Warder January 1, 1842

[42] The Warder, September 24, 1842

[43] The Warder, May 6, 1848.