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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Between the summer of 1770 and the close of the year 1772, large areas of rural Ulster were rendered ungovernable by the activities of the Hearts of Steel or Steelboys. Agrarian agitation was not new, of course — during 1763 Tyrone, Armagh and Mormghan had been similarly affected by the Oakboys — but apart from the more serious and more prolonged nature of the Hearts of Steel outbreak, which gave it a notoriety and importance of its own, and the curious fact that the agitators were presbyterians, it had this unique feature: its outbreak and the heavy emigration which followed its spread and suppression were almost universally ascribed to the wicked greed of a single great landowner, the fifth earl (later first marquis) of Donegall.
I am indebted to W. H. Crawford of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland for reading an earlier draft of this paper and for many useful comments and suggestions.
2 See Crawford, W. H. and Trainor, B., Aspects of Irish social history 1750-1800 (Belfast, 1969), pp 33–49.Google Scholar
3 Bigger, F. J., The Ulster land war of 1770 (Dublin, 1910).Google Scholar
4 Commons’ jn. Ire., vol. ix (1773-78), pt. ii, appendix, pp ccxc-ecxcii. A letter from the principal linen drapers of Belfast, dated 11 Nov. 1773, claimed that there was an alarming reduction in the number of working looms. ‘In 1771, 441 were employed; in 1772, 422; and March 1773, only 160; and we have reason to believe that the decrease of working looms is proportionably as great in the adjacent country’, (ibid., p. ccxcvii). In the town and parish of Antrim in the same month, 270 of the 440 looms were entirely unemployed. It was the same story in other areas. See also W. H. Crawford, ‘The rise of the linen industry’, in Cullen, L. M. (ed.), The formation of the Irish economy (Cork, 1969), p. 30.Google Scholar
5 See Dickson, , Ulster emig., pp 60–80.Google Scholar Arthur Young prefaced his investigation of the causes of increased emigration from the north of Ireland in the early 1770s by saying that it was a constant subject of conversation in England and much discussed in parliament (Tour in Ireland, ed. A. W. Hutton, 2 vols. 1892, ii, 57). There are also frequent references to heavy emigration in the journals of the Irish house of commons for 1771 and following years.
6 See Crawford and Trainor, op.cit., p. 38.
7 Bigger, op.cit., p. 57. See Young, R. M., Historical notices of old Belfast and its vicinity (Belfast, 1896) where the passage from McSkimin’s MS is quoted in full.Google Scholar
8 Belfast News Letter 3 Jan. 1769 (advertisement of Upton estate).
9 Ibid.
10 McHenry, J., The Hearts of Steel: an historical tale of the eighteenth century (Belfast, 1846.Google Scholar)
11 Ibid., p. 93.
12 Ibid., p. 256.
13 Allen to Macartney, 10 Dec. 1770, (Macartney papers, P.R.O.N.I., D.572/3/122).
14 Bigger, op.cit., appendix, pp 121-32.
15 The lease has not survived, and there is no entry in the Registry of Deeds.
16 Macartney MSS (P.R.O.N.L, D.572/2/53), quoted in Crawford and Trainor, op.cit., p. 43.
17 R. J. Dickson, op.cit., p. 72.
18 Froude, Ire., p. 188ff.
19 Lecky, Ire., ii, 47.
20 Quoted in Dickson, op.cit., p. 74n. Dr Dickson repeats the traditional version of events: ‘Donegall … wished to relet the estate at its former rent and raise £100,000 in fines as compensation for this concession … The tenants who could not raise sufficient money to pay their portion of the fines were evicted or their leases disposed of to Thomas Greg and Waddell Cunningham who raised the rents of some of the under-tenants and turned the remainder of the land over to pasture.’
21 Quoted in Bigger, op.cit., p. 110.
22 Ibid., p. 54.
23 Hearts of Steel, p. 71.
24 P.R.O.N.I. transcript 3085/1.
25 See Stroud, D., Capability Brown (revised ed. 1957), pp 92-4.Google Scholar
26 ‘Abstract of title to the manor of Fisherwick etc. in the County of Stafford’ (William Salt Library, Stafford, M. 761/8/6); and Registry of Deeds, Dublin, 268/661/17184 (Donegall to Egerton).
27 Belfast News Letter, 6 Aug. 1765. Donegall also visited Dublin on this occasion, and took his seat in the house of lords.
28 L’Estrange and Brett: Donegall estate papers in P.R.O.N.I. (hereafter referred to as Donegall papers), D.509, leases 156-557.
29 See Maguire, W. A., The Downshire estates in Ireland, 1801-1845 (Oxford, 1972), pp 126-9.Google Scholar
30 Rental of Donegall estates, 1775-82 (P.R.O.N.I., D.835/3/1).
31 Alexander to Talbot, 7 Aug. 1771 (P.R.O.N.I., transcript 1893, hereafter referred to as Donegall letter book). Alexander went on to say, however, ‘as I see a strong probability of many… fines remaining unpaid for a considerable time to come, I think it will be better to take the new rent, even tho’ the fine should not be paid’.
32 Donegall papers, P.R.O.N.I., D.509 (leases); and Registry of Deeds, Dublin. Incidentally, the seventeen tenants of Ballypalliday in 1783 publicly thanked Cunningham for forgiving them arrears of rent and giving them such good tenures of their farms (Belfast News Letter, 28 Nov. 1783). One suspects this may have been connected in some way with his attempt to get elected for Carrickfergus shortly afterwards.
33 Bigger, op.cit., p. 28. Bigger says that John Greg ‘bought by public auction the tenant’s lands … from Lord Donegall’ and that his action was much resented. Ballylinny at least was in the hands of Thomas Greg by 1760.
34 P. Roebuck, ‘The making of an Ulster great estate: the Chichesters, barons of Belfast and viscounts of Carrickfergus, 1599-1648’ in Proc. R. I. A., 79, c, no. 1 (1979).
35 Alexander to Talbot, 29 Dec. 1771 (Donegall letter book).
36 Petition of St. John Stewart, 15 July 1752 (P.R.O.N.I. T.555/5).
37 Barry to Ludford, 17 Sept. 1754 (ibid).
38 Petition of St. John Stewart and William Magee, 10 Jan. 1755 (ibid).
39 Petition of same, 22 Nov. 1755 (ibid).
40 Marriage settlement, 11 Apr. 1718 (Donegall papers, P.R.O.N.I., D. 509/45).
41 Portis to Talbot, 30 Dec. 1773 (Donegall letter book).
42 Hearts of Steel, p. 71.
43 Bigger, op.cit., p. 141. McHenry (p. 78) explains that some Belfast merchants were speculating in fattening cattle for slaughter and export.
44 Alexander to Doherty, 17 Apr. 1733 (Donegall letter book).
45 Greg to Portis, 21 Apr. 1773 (ibid).
46 Alexander to Talbot (enclosure), 30 Sept. 1771 (ibid.).
47 Alexander to Talbot, 23 Nov. 1772 (ibid.).
48 Ibid.
49 Donegall papers, P.R.O.N.I., D.509 (leases).
50 Maguire, W. A., Downshire Estates, p. 39 Google Scholar.
51 Bigger, op.cit., p. 102.
52 The bleaching process was then still largely confined to the spring and summer months and required ready supplies of buttermilk; see Gill, G., The rise of the Irish linen industry (Oxford, 1925: reprinted 1964), p. 50.Google Scholar One of the Old Forge petitioners who had a bleachyard stressed his need for reliable supplies of sour milk. Irish bleachers, however, were among the first to experiment with oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) for bleaching, and by 1764 Thomas Greg and Waddell Cunningham were sufficiently confident of a local market to open their Vitriol Island works at Lisburn. (I am grateful to Mr. W. H.Crawford for allowing me to read his unpublished paper ’Drapers and bleachers in the early Ulster linen industry’).
53 Erskine to O’Neill, enclosed in Townshend to Rochford, 15 Apr. 1772 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/435, no. 82c); quoted in Lecky, Ire., ii, 49; and by Dickson, op.cit., p. 72.
54 Allen to Macartney, 10 Dec. 1770 (P.R.O.N.I., Macartney papers, D.562/3/122).
55 Belfast News Letter, 27 Jan. 1785.
56 Allen to Macartney, 10 Dec. 1770.
57 Donegali papers, P.R.O.N.I., D.652/27A and 269
58 Registry of Deeds, Dublin, 281/39/179928.
59 Ibid., 280/181907.
60 Bigger, op.cit., p. 103.
61 Alexander to Donegall, 16 June 1773 (Donegall letter book).
