Tone and Russell returned to Dublin in October 1791 as agents from the north. They brought with them the prospect of an alliance between the Catholics and the Dissenters, a prospect which was to frighten the government into concession. The authorities had good reason for anxiety, for it was this alliance of advanced Catholics and radical Presbyterians which was to produce Irish republicanism. But such an alliance was long in coming and even Tone quickly abandoned the United Irishmen to concentrate on the more pressing issue of Catholic emancipation. It was the most electric issue of the day, and was to dominate the remainder of his political career in Ireland.

I

In Dublin Tone found himself courted by the leading Catholics. The formation of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen came at a critical time. There was a new-found Catholic confidence in the justice of their cause and the number of advanced Catholics who joined the United Irishmen is significant. McKenna's Declaration, published in November 1791, captured their mood. ‘Within a few months’, wrote the American consul in Dublin, ‘the Catholics, as if by electrical impulse, have met in large bodies and passed resolutions to remain no longer in this excluded state.’ He predicted general ferment if their petitions were rejected and thought the government was taking a short view of the situation in trying to divide and conquer. Dublin Castle miscalculated badly in continuing to demand the conventional submissiveness from this new Catholic movement. In doing so it became embroiled in a policy conflict with Whitehall which prefigured the Fitzwilliam crisis of 1795.

Already anxious at developments in France, and faced with growing radicalism at home, England saw the real threat in Ireland as the prospective alliance between the Francophile Dissenters and the Catholics. Pitt's cabinet recognised the natural conservatism of the Catholics and sought to anchor their loyalty by timely concession. They could not reasonably be denied the recent concessions made to the English Catholics, and London was prepared also to offer a limited restoration of the elective franchise, which had not been part of Mitford's Act.