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Mary Ann McCracken
Mary Ann McCracken (8 July 1770 – 26 July 1866) was a social activist and campaigner in Belfast, Ireland, whose extensive correspondence is cited as an important chronicle of her times. Born to a prominent liberal Presbyterian family, she combined entrepreneurship in Belfast's growing textile industry with support for the democratic programme of the United Irishmen; advocacy for women; the organising of relief and education for the poor; and, in a town that was heavily engaged in trans-Atlantic trade, a lifelong commitment to the abolition of slavery. In 2021, Belfast City Council agreed to erect a statue of Mary Ann McCracken in the grounds of Belfast City Hall. Early years and influences McCracken was born in Belfast on 8 July 1770. Her father, Captain John McCracken, a devout Presbyterian of Scottish descent, was a prominent shipowner and a partner in the building in 1784 of the town's first cotton mill. Her mother Ann Joy, came from a French Huguenot family, which made i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Manson (schoolmaster)
David Manson (1716-1792) was an Irish schoolmaster who in teaching children basic literacy sought to exclude "drudgery and fear" by pioneering the use of play and peer tutoring. His methods were in varying degrees adapted by freely-instructed hedge-school masters across the north of Ireland, and were advertised to a larger British audience by Elizabeth Hamilton in her popular novel ''The Cottagers of Glenburnie'' (1808). Patronised by leading, reform-minded, families, his school in Belfast counted among its pupils the future pioneering naturalist John Templeton, the radical humanitarian Mary Ann McCracken and her brother Henry Joy McCracken, the United Irishman, who was to hang for his role in the 1798 Rebellion. Early life and education Manson was born in 1726 at Cairncastle, Co. Antrim, son of John Manson and Agnes Jamison. At the age of eight he contracted rheumatic fever which affected him for the rest of his life. Because of this he was schooled at home by his mother, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sectarianism
Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo and if one group holds more power within the government. Often, not all members of these groups are engaged in the conflict. But as tensions rise, political solutions require the participation of more people from either side within the country or polity where the conflict is happening. Common examples of these divisions are denominations of a religion, ethnic identity, class, or region for citizens of a state and factions of a political movement. While sectarianism is often labelled as 'religious' and/or 'political', the reality of a sectarian situation is usually much more complex. In its most basic form sectarianism has been defined as, 'the existence, within a locality, of two or more divided and actively competing communal identit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Bunting
Edward Bunting (1773–1843) was an Irish musician and folk music collector. Life Bunting was born in County Armagh, Ireland. At the age of seven he was sent to study music at Drogheda and at eleven he was apprenticed to William Ware, organist at St. Anne's church in Belfast and lived with the family of Henry Joy McCracken. At nineteen he was engaged to transcribe music from oral-tradition harpists at the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792. As Bunting was a classically trained musician, he did not understand the unique characteristics of Irish music, such as modes, and when transcribing tunes he 'corrected' them according to Classical music rules. One proof of this is that some tunes published by him were in keys that could not have been played by the harpists. His notes on the harpists, how they played and the terminology they used is however invaluable, and also many tunes would have been lost if he had not collected them. Bunting's arrangement of the festival melodies for the pian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cottier (farmer)
Cotter, cottier, cottar, or is the German or Scots term for a peasant farmer (formerly in the Scottish Highlands for example). Cotters occupied cottages and cultivated small land lots. The word ''cotter'' is often employed to translate the recorded in the Domesday Book, a social class whose exact status has been the subject of some discussion among historians, and is still a matter of doubt. According to Domesday, the were comparatively few, numbering fewer than seven thousand people. They were scattered unevenly throughout England, located principally in the counties of Southern England. They either cultivated a small plot of land or worked on the holdings of the . Like the , among whom they were frequently classed, their economic condition may be described as free in relation to everyone except their lord. A cottar or cottier is also a term for a tenant who was renting land from a farmer or landlord. Scotland Cottars were between a third and a half of the rural popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combination Laws
The Combination Act 1799 (39 Geo. III, c. 81) titled An Act to prevent Unlawful Combinations of Workmen, prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers. The Act received royal assent on 12 July 1799. An additional Act, the Combination Act 1800, was passed in 1800 (39 & 40 Geo III c. 106). Background The 1799 and 1800 acts were passed under the government of William Pitt the Younger as a response to Jacobin activity and the fear of then-Home Secretary the Duke of Portland that workers would strike during a conflict to force the government to accede to their demands. Collectively these acts were known as the Combination Acts. Under these laws any combination of two or more masters, or two or more workmen, to lower or raise wages, or to increase of diminish the number of hours of work, or quantity of work to be done, was punishable at common law as a misdemeanor. Significance The legislation drove labour organisations underground. Sympathy for the plight of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Star (newspaper Of The Society Of United Irishmen)
The ''Northern Star'' was the newspaper of the Society of United Irishmen, which was published from 1792 until its suppression in May 1797 by a group of Monaghan militiamen. Origin The publication of an Irish newspaper that reflected and disseminated liberal views was an early goal of Irish republicans in the late 18th century. By the founding of the Society of United Irishmen in October 1791, the project was well underway and the first edition of the ''Northern Star'' appeared in Belfast on 1 January 1792. Like the United Irishmen the first financial backers of the ''Northern Star'' were Presbyterian and one of the United Irish leadership, Samuel Neilson, was made editor. Content Political content dominated the ''Northern Star'' but its publication of local news, as opposed to the focus on British and international affairs of other Irish newspapers of the time, brought it wide popularity. Leading members of the United Irishmen were regular contributors and mixed direct politi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure (renounce) the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope and transubstantiation placed major burdens on Roman Catholics. The penal laws started to be dismantled from 1766. The most significant measure was the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, which removed the most substantial restrictions on Roman Catholicism in the United Kingdom. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Bill of Rights 1689 provisions on the monarchy still discriminate against Roman Catholics. The Bill of Rights asserts that "it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protestant Ascendancy
The ''Protestant Ascendancy'', known simply as the ''Ascendancy'', was the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland between the 17th century and the early 20th century by a minority of landowners, Protestant clergy, and members of the professions, all members of the Established Church (Anglican; Church of Ireland or the Church of England). The Ascendancy excluded other groups from politics and the elite, most numerous among them Roman Catholics but also members of the Presbyterian and other Protestant denominations, along with non-Christians such as Jews, until the Reform Acts (1832–1928). The gradual dispossession of large holdings belonging to several hundred native Catholic nobility and other landowners in Ireland took place in various stages from the reigns of the Catholic Mary I (1553–1558) and her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth I (1558–1603) onwards. Unsuccessful revolts against English rule in 1595–1603 and 1641–53 and then the 1689–91 Williamite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of the United States, fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by the Kingdom of France and, to a lesser extent, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire, in a conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. Established by royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries, the American colonies were largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain and its Caribbean colonies, as well as other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. After British victory over the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions between the motherland and he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Volunteers (18th Century)
The Volunteers (also known as the Irish Volunteers) were local militias raised by local initiative in Ireland in 1778. Their original purpose was to guard against invasion and to preserve law and order at a time when British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight abroad during the American Revolutionary War and the government failed to organise its own militia. Taking advantage of Britain's preoccupation with its rebelling American colonies, the Volunteers were able to pressure Westminster into conceding legislative independence to the Dublin parliament. Members of the Belfast 1st Volunteer Company laid the foundations for the establishment of the United Irishmen organisation. The majority of Volunteer members however were inclined towards the yeomanry, which fought and helped defeat the United Irishmen in the Irish rebellion of 1798.Ulster Museum, History of Belfast exhibition According to Bartlett, it was the Volunteers of 1782 which would launch a paramilitary tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waddell Cunningham
Waddell Cunningham (1729 - 1797) was wealthy merchant and civic leader in late eighteenth-century Belfast, Ireland, who, both in his business ventures and political interventions, was opposed by the nascent democratic spirit of his time. He cut a liberal figure as a patron of the Belfast Charitable Society and its Poor House; as a commander of the Volunteer patriot militia; and as a subscriber to the costs of erecting Belfast's first Catholic chapel. But from within his own majority Presbyterian community this reputation was challenged. In retaliation for his land speculation and evictions, in 1771 his house in Belfast was attacked and destroyed by tenant "Steelboys" from his home region north of the town; in 1786 public protest, organised from within a Presbyterian church to which he had also subscribed, forced him to abandon plans to commission ships in the port for the Atlantic slave trade; and in 1792, following Bastille Day celebrations of the French Revolution, his attemp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hearts Of Steel
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. The protests then spread into the neighbouring counties of Armagh, Down, and Londonderry, before being put down by the army. 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.. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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