Hearts of Oak (Ireland)
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The Hearts of Oak, also known as Oakboys and Greenboys, was a protest movement of farmers and weavers that arose in
County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
in 1761. Their grievances were the paying of ever increasing county
cess Cess is a tax that is generally levied for promoting services like health and education. Governments often charge cess for the purpose of development in social sectors. The word is a shortened form of "assess". The spelling is due to a mistaken ...
,
tithes A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more ...
, 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 Historically, Fermanagh ( ga, Fir Manach), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of a ...
, Londonderry,
Monaghan Monaghan ( ; ) is the county town of County Monaghan, Ireland. It also provides the name of its civil parish and barony. The population of the town as of the 2016 census was 7,678. The town is on the N2 road from Dublin to Derry and Lette ...
, and Tyrone.


Origins and grievances

The Hearts of Oak movement started in 1761 in
County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...
, Ireland's then most populous county. The first ground of complaint was that every man was forced to give six days' work in the year and six days' work of a horse, for making or repairing roads, which the gentry often turned to their own use, while they themselves contributed nothing.Joyce, P.W., "Irish Secret Societies (1760-1762)", ''A Concise History of Ireland''
/ref> Their chief grievance appears to have been the
turnpike Turnpike often refers to: * A type of gate, another word for a turnstile * In the United States, a toll road Turnpike may also refer to: Roads United Kingdom * A turnpike road, a principal road maintained by a turnpike trust, a body with powers ...
toll gates, which they went about demolishing. In 1763 the county
cess Cess is a tax that is generally levied for promoting services like health and education. Governments often charge cess for the purpose of development in social sectors. The word is a shortened form of "assess". The spelling is due to a mistaken ...
(tax) was increased to help pay for the improvements in the country's transport network which was needed due to the rapid expansion of the linen industry in Ulster. Another grievance to which the Oakboys were vehement about was the paying of the tithe to the
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...
, which the state church was entitled to collect from the local population regardless of religion. Along with this was the paying of "small dues", where Catholics and Presbyterians had to pay the Church of Ireland a fee for marriages, baptisms and funerals, whether or not it occurred in their church.


Activity

There are accounts, quite possibly exaggerated, claiming some Hearts of Oak gatherings consisted of as many as 10,000 people. One account claimed that there is no town in County Armagh that could not raise four or five hundred. Whilst many members were volunteers, the Hearts of Oak frequently intimidated many others to join their ranks, though this appears to have been a community sanction. Others were attracted by the carnival-like nature of their gatherings, with companies of Oakboys displaying standards and playing drums, horns, bagpipes, and fiddles. The main tactic of the Hearts of Oak appears to have been that once assembled, they would march to the houses of local gentlemen such as landlords, clergy, and magistrates and make them swear an oath and sign a declaration depending on the grievance. This involved the threat of violence and it is recorded that they put up gallows and threatened to hang any who refused to meet their demands. Due to the size of these Oakboy gatherings, those affected readily complied, and soon gentlemen were being summoned to public places to make their declaration, with those that failed to appear when summoned being marched upon. Despite the threatening language and symbolism they used, and most likely due to their vast numbers, they rarely, if ever, had to resort to physical violence. The activity of the Hearts of Oak declined in County Armagh as 1763 progressed on, with their demands being met by the county magistrates. This success however is claimed as causing the movement to grow in strength in neighbouring counties. In County Londonderry, many rectors and tithe collectors had to flee to the city of Derry for protection, to which the Hearts of Oak threatened to besiege the city unless they were expelled.


End of the protests

By the middle of July 1763, the Irish government, worried by the Hearts of Oak's progress, dispatched troops to the affected counties. Whilst the mere appearance of the army was enough to disperse some Hearts of Oak, to end demonstrations and marches in other areas, they had to assert themselves. This led however to a few bloody confrontations which saw several Oakboys killed and many others arrested. A general pardon was issued at the start of August 1763 for all Hearts of Oak who would return to their homes, and by the end of August, the Hearts of Oak had been subdued. This pardon however excluded those who had already been arrested or previously indicted, of which some would need to be the subject of "exemplary" punishment. These trials however descended into farce when only one Oakboy brought to trial was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, with all other defendants acquitted. This may have been due to the fact the charges labelled against them were of treason, with the sole Oakboy found guilty being charged as such for treating a clergyman "very ill". Petty juries didn't like charges such as this, especially when death was the penalty, and it is suggested that the juries were made up of people who sympathised with the Hearts of Oak. Despite some small degree of sectarianism in rhetoric, the movement as a whole consisted of aggrieved Anglicans,
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
s, and
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
s. Though this was the case, the Church of Ireland, of which the vast majority of gentlemen belonged too, blamed the Presbyterians. The local Presbyterian churches responded with notices calling on their members to remember their loyalty and obedience to peace, whilst seeking absolution of being to blame.


See also

*
Agrarian society An agrarian society, or agricultural society, is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland. Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation's total production is in agriculture ...
*
Defenders (Ireland) The Defenders were a Catholic agrarian secret society in 18th-century Ireland, founded in County Armagh. Initially, they were formed as local defensive organisations opposed to the Protestant Peep o' Day Boys; however, by 1790 they had become a ...
* Hearts of Steel *
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 wi ...
*
Molly Maguires The Molly Maguires were an Irish 19th-century secret society active in Ireland, Liverpool and parts of the Eastern United States, best known for their activism among Irish-American and Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania. After a seri ...
* Peep o' Day Boys * Orange Order *
Ribbonism Ribbonism, whose supporters were usually called Ribbonmen, was a 19th-century popular movement of poor Catholics in Ireland. The movement was also known as Ribandism. The Ribbonmen were active against landlords and their agents, and opposed "Or ...
*
United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional refor ...
*
Whiteboys The Whiteboys ( ga, na Buachaillí Bána) were a secret Irish agrarian organisation in 18th-century Ireland which defended tenant-farmer land-rights for subsistence farming. Their name derives from the white smocks that members wore in the ...
*
Captain Rock Captain Rock was a mythical Irish folk hero, and the name used for the agrarian rebel group he represented in the south-west of Ireland from 1821 to 1824. Arising following the harvest failures in 1816 and 1821, the drought in 1818 and the fever ...


References

{{Reflist, {{Cite book , author=James S. Donnelly Jr. , title=Hearts of Oak, Hearts of Steel , publisher=Studia Hibernica, Editorial Board {{Cite book , author=Jonathan Bardon , title=A History of Ireland , isbn=978-0-85640-764-2 , year=2005 , publisher=The Blackstaff Press , url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/historyofulster00jona {{Cite book , author=S. J. Connolly , title=Oxford Compantion to Irish History , isbn=978-0-19-923483-7 , year=2007 , publisher=Oxford University Press {{Cite journal , author=James S. Donnelly , title=Hearts of Oak, Hearts of Steel , journal=Studia Hibernica , issue = 21, pages=7–73 , publisher=Studia Hibernica , year=1981, jstor = 20496176 {{Cite book , author=Eoin Magennis , publisher=Cumann Seanchais Ard Mhacha/Armagh Diocesan Historical Society , title=County Armagh Hearts of Oak 18th century in Ireland Defunct organisations based in Ireland Irish agrarian protest societies 1761 establishments in Ireland