The most significant outcome of these events was to strengthen the alliance between the Catholics and Dissenters, ‘binding the[m] … together by a community of insult’, as Emmet recalled. The attempt of the government to separate Catholics from radicals was public knowledge by early 1792, and the United Irishmen and Catholic Committee sought to guard against any rift. Informal contacts between the two organisations increased through the winter and spring months as key positions in both came to be dominated by the same men. The increasing involvement of Tone in their activities was indicative of the progressive radicalisation of the Catholics. For, contrary to his disclaimer of influence in the United Irishmen, Tone's prominent role in the early activities of the Dublin Society soon had him in open conflict with the authorities.

I

Tone's correspondence at this time reflects his excessive, almost romantic admiration for the spirit of Belfast, prompting Sam McTier to comment: ‘He mistakes the situation of this town and country around, they are still full of prejudice, which time only can remove’. Tone continued to view the Dublin United Irish Society as a poor reflection of that in Belfast and he reported on its activities to his northern friends as if to a parent society. In particular he complained of the admission test adopted for the Dublin Society at the end of 1791, claiming that it would deter new members and that its language was complicated, ‘superfluous’ and ‘commanding’. It was a criticism of the laboured style of Drennan, who drafted the test, and Tone was not alone in this view. Indeed he may have been irked at the choice of Drennan rather than himself as the Dublin Society's main scribe. But most of all he had heard of a split in the Belfast United Irishmen, when a group opposed to the test broke away and formed another society.

It was possibly Russell's influence which made Tone so combative at the turn of the year, and he regained his prominence in the Dublin Society after Russell's departure for Dungannon in January 1792.