Hearts of Steel

Last updated December 20, 2023

The Hearts of Steel, or Steelboys, was an exclusively Protestant movement originating in 1769 in County Antrim, Ireland due to grievances about the sharp rise of rents and evictions.^[1]^[2]^[3] The protests then spread into the neighbouring counties of Armagh, Down, and Londonderry, before being put down by the army.^[2]

Origins

The Hearts of Steel rose in 1769 against unjust and exorbitant rents, chiefly exacted by middlemen—speculators or "forestallers"—who took lands from absentee landlords at greatly increased rents, and made their own profit by doubling the rents on the poor tenants.^[4]

In 1770 in Templepatrick, County Antrim a local landlord evicted tenants and replaced them with speculators who could outbid the locals for the land. At some point, a local was arrested and charged with maiming cattle belonging to a merchant from Belfast, which spurred the farmers of Templepatrick to take up arms and march on Belfast to demand his release. The protestors surrounded the barracks and threatened to burn the house of Waddell Cunningham, who was one of the new speculators in Templepatrick. The soldiers in the barracks fired upon the protestors killing several and wounding others. The protestors eventually set fire to Cunningham's house and as the fire threatened to spread and destroy the town of Belfast itself, its mayor decided to free the prisoner.^[1]^[2]

Further consternation was caused by the sharp increase in rents throughout Ulster. At the same time, the leases had expired for Lord Donegall's south County Antrim estate. Whilst he kept his rent at the old prices, he greatly increased their renewal fee. These coincided with several years of severe harvest failures, which resulted in high bread prices. The result of this was that people were unable to support themselves or their families, being left in the utmost state of deprivation and destitution, with many evicted from their land for failure to pay.^[1]^[2]

Spread

The Hearts of Steel protests and uprisings quickly spread throughout the county and into counties Armagh, Down, and Londonderry, which were also subject to the Hearts of Oak protest movement which it merged with. One tactic of the protestors was the "houghing" of cattle, which was cutting off the leg tendons of cattle, thus laming them. They also forced farmers to sell food at prices they set, and demanded anyone letting out land to do so at the cost of 12 shillings an acre. Landlords were threatened that if they tried to collect the cess from anyone that their houses would be destroyed.^[1]^[2]

The Battle of Gilford

A band of Hearts of Steel, numbering around 800, held a demonstration in Gilford, County Down, on 2 March 1772, consisting of marching through the village and past the castle, home of the local Gilford estate owner, Richard Johnston. On 5 March, the local Presbyterian minister, Rev. Samuel Morrell had informed Johnston that the "leading deputies" of the Hearts of Steel were meeting in the townland of The Clare, part of Johnston's estate. They raided the house and arrested the alleged deputies, with one escaping. This escapee raised the alarm and the next day between one and two thousand Steelboys from Gilford and neighbouring Lurgan and Portadown converged on the village at the castle of Johnston.^[5]

Despite a plea from Johnston for diplomacy, a half-hour gun battle erupted between the Hearts of Steel and the defenders of the castle resulting in the burning of the gardener's house and the death of Morrell. Johnston failed with attempts to send out a flag of truce and so decided to flee, making a break from the castle and swimming across the River Bann, pursued the whole way. After gathering 150 men Johnston sought to confront the protestors, however, by then 4,000 were waiting for him at neighbouring Loughbrickland.^[1]^[5]

The aftermath of this battle resulted in Johnston returning to Gilford with a company of soldiers, only to find that his castle and demesne had been wrecked, with damage estimated at being £2,200. Despite their victory, the Hearts of Steel would face a heavy army response, with Johnston himself taking it upon himself to hunt down the ringleaders of the trouble. Eventually, they were brought to trial in Dublin as due to either sympathy for or fear of the protestors in Ulster meant that convictions were hard to secure. In the end, they were found not guilty.^[5]

End of the protests

The disturbances were so widespread in the affected counties, that the British government passed legislation to severely punish the "wicked and disorderly persons", and by the latter half of 1772 sent the army into Ulster to crush them. Men were hanged, whilst many others are said to have drowned trying to flee across the sea to Scotland. The viceroy of Ireland, Lord Townshend, privately blamed the landlords and their actions for the disturbances and so issued a general pardon in November 1772.^[1]

Related Research Articles

County Antrim is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 3,086 square kilometres (1,192 sq mi) and has a population of 651,321, as of the 2021 census. County Antrim has a population density of 211 people per square kilometre or 546 people per square mile. It is also one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland.

County Londonderry, also known as County Derry, is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland and one of the nine counties of Ulster. Before the partition of Ireland, it was one of the counties of the Kingdom of Ireland from 1613 onward and then of the United Kingdom after the Acts of Union 1800. Adjoining the north-west shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,118 km² (818 sq mi) and today has a population of about 252,231.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">County Down</span> County in Northern Ireland

County Down is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of 961 sq mi (2,490 km²) and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the north, the Irish Sea to the east, County Armagh to the west, and County Louth across Carlingford Lough to the southwest.

Marquess of Donegall is a title in the Peerage of Ireland held by the head of the Chichester family, originally from Devon, England. Sir John Chichester sat as a Member of Parliament and was High Sheriff of Devon in 1557. One of his sons, Sir Arthur Chichester, was Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1605 to 1616. In 1613, he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Chichester, of Belfast in County Antrim. He died childless in 1625 when the barony became extinct.

Clonmany is a village in north-west Inishowen, in County Donegal, Ireland. The Urris valley to the west of Clonmany village was the last outpost of the Irish language in Inishowen. In the 19th century, the area was an important location for poitín distillation. Outside the village, there are a number of notable townlands, including Kinnea (Rockstown), Crossconnell, Dunaff, and Leenan.

The Orange Volunteers (OV) or Orange Volunteer Force (OVF) is a small Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in 1998 by loyalists who opposed the Belfast Agreement and the loyalist ceasefires. Over the following year it carried out a wave of bomb and gun attacks on Catholics and Catholic-owned properties in rural areas, but since 2000 has been relatively inactive. The group has been associated with elements of the Orange Order and has a Calvinist fundamentalist ideology. OV's original leader was Clifford Peeples. The OV are a Proscribed Organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000 and have been included on the U.S. State Department's, "Terrorist Exclusion List", since 2001.

Belfast Castle is a mansion located in Cave Hill Country Park in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in a prominent position 400 feet (120 m) above sea level. Its location provides unobstructed views over the City of Belfast and Belfast Lough. There have been several different structures called 'Belfast Castle' over the centuries, located on different sites. The current 'castle' is a Victorian structure, built between 1867 and 1870 on the slopes of Cave Hill, and is listed as being Grade B+. The main entrance into the Belfast Castle Demesne is now where Innisfayle Park meets Downview Park West, just off the Antrim Road. The original main entrance into the current demesne was formerly on the Antrim Road itself, where Strathmore Park now meets the Antrim Road.

Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the Irish seat of the Stewart family, Marquesses of Londonderry. Prominently associated with the 2nd Marquess, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Britain's Foreign Secretary at the Congress of Vienna and with the 7th Marquess, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the former Air Minister who at Mount Stewart attempted private diplomacy with Hitler's Germany, the house and its contents reflect the history of the family's leading role in social and political life in Britain and Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobermore</span> Village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Tobermore, from Irish An Tobar Mór, meaning 'the great well') is a small village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland named after the townland of Tobermore. The village, which has a predominantly Protestant population, lies 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south-south-west of Maghera and 5.5 miles (8.9 km) north-west of Magherafelt. Tobermore is within the civil parish of Kilcronaghan and is part of Mid-Ulster District. It was also part of the former barony of Loughinsholin.

Castle Upton is situated in the village of Templepatrick, in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is around 12 miles (19 km) north-west of Belfast. Originally the site of a 13th-century fortified priory of the Knights of St John, the present building was constructed around 1610 by the Norton family who settled here during the Plantation of Ulster. Soon after, it was bought by the Upton family, later the Viscounts Templetown, who remained in possession until the 20th century. The castle was remodelled in the 1780s to designs by Robert Adam, who also designed the stable block now known as 'Adam Yard'. Upton was purchased in 1963 by Sir Robin Kinahan and Coralie de Burgh, by which time it was in a poor state of repair. Following restoration the Adam Yard was converted to housing, and the castle later opened as a wedding venue. In 2016 the property was placed on the market by Kinahan's son Danny Kinahan MP. The property is now owned by the Hughes family.

The A6 road in Northern Ireland runs for 71.4 miles (114.9 km) from Belfast to Derry, via County Antrim and County Londonderry. While stretches of the road before Randalstown have now been superseded by a motorway, the A6 remains one of the most important arterial routes in Northern Ireland, connecting its two largest cities and urban areas. Between Randalstown and Derry, the road forms part of European route E16.

Northern Ireland is divided into six counties, namely: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. Six largely rural administrative counties based on these were among the eight primary local government areas of Northern Ireland from its 1921 creation until 1973. The other two local government areas were the urban county boroughs of Derry and Belfast.

The Tenant Right League was a federation of local societies formed in Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine to check the power of landlords and advance the rights of tenant farmers. An initiative of northern unionists and southern nationalists, it articulated a common programme of agrarian reform. In the wake of the League's success in helping return 48 pledged MPs to the Westminster Parliament in 1852, the promised unity of "North and South" dissolved. An attempt was made to revive the all-Ireland effort in 1874, but struggle for rights to the land was to continue through to the end of the century on lines that reflected the regional and sectarian division over Ireland's continued place in the United Kingdom.

The Hearts of Oak, also known as Oakboys and Greenboys, was a protest movement of farmers and weavers that arose in County Armagh, Ireland in 1761. Their grievances were the paying of the ever-increasing county cess, tithes, and small dues. The Hearts of Oak name came from the wearing of a piece of oak in their hats. By the end of the protests the movement had spread to the neighbouring counties of Cavan, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone.

Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline from approximately 50% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the Republic of Ireland, 4.27% of the population described themselves as Protestant. In the Republic, Protestantism was the second largest religious grouping until the 2002 census in which they were exceeded by those who chose "No Religion". Some forms of Protestantism existed in Ireland in the early 16th century before the English Reformation, but demographically speaking these were very insignificant and the real influx of Protestantism began only with the spread of the English Reformation to Ireland. The Church of Ireland was established by King Henry VIII of England, who had himself proclaimed as King of Ireland.

Samuel MacCurdy Greer (1810–1880), was an Irish politician who, in Ulster championed Presbyterian representation and tenant rights. He was a founder member of the Ulster Tenant Right Association and of the all-Ireland Tenant Right League. In the general election of 1857 he was returned to Westminster on a tenant-right platform for County Londonderry.

James MacKnight (1801–1876) was an Irish journalist and agrarian reformer whose call for Fair Rent, Fixity of Tenure and Free Sale briefly surmounted Ireland's political and sectarian division. In the United Kingdom general election of 1852 the all-Ireland Tenant Right League, which MacKnight formed in a joint initiative with Charles Gavan Duffy, helped return 48 pledged MPs. Pulled between Catholic and nationalist sentiment in the south and the strength of Protestant and unionist feeling in the north, the League and its Independent Irish Party did not survive the elections of 1857. In Ulster, MacKnight supported tenant-right candidates committed to the legislative union with Great Britain, while remaining sharply critical of British government efforts to address Ireland's continuing agrarian crisis.

Sir Richard Johnston, 1st Baronet was an Anglo-Irish politician in the Irish House of Commons.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 Jonathan Bardon (2005). A History of Ireland . The Blackstaff Press. ISBN 978-0-85640-764-2.
1 2 3 4 5 S. J. Connolly (2007). Oxford Compantion to Irish History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923483-7.
↑ James S. Donnelly (1981). "Hearts of Oak, Hearts of Steel". Studia Hibernica (21): 7–73. JSTOR 20496176.
↑ Joyce, P.W., "Irish Secret Societies (1760-1762)", A Concise History of Ireland
1 2 3 D. E. McIlroy. "The Battle of Gilford – 1772".

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[Bardon-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jonathan Bardon (2005). A History of Ireland . The Blackstaff Press. ISBN 978-0-85640-764-2.

[Connolly-2] 1 2 3 4 5 S. J. Connolly (2007). Oxford Compantion to Irish History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923483-7.

[JSTOR-3] James S. Donnelly (1981). "Hearts of Oak, Hearts of Steel". Studia Hibernica (21): 7–73. JSTOR 20496176.

[Joyce-4] Joyce, P.W., "Irish Secret Societies (1760-1762)", A Concise History of Ireland

[Gilford-5] 1 2 3 D. E. McIlroy. "The Battle of Gilford – 1772".

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]