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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
A Distinguished contemporary historian of eighteenthcentury Ireland has observed that “the early history of the Volunteers has never been written.” This is not to say that the Volunteers have not been written about, for no subject has urged Irish pens to greater industry than have the Volunteers. Yet, during the past one hundred and fifty years historians of each generation have been content for the most part to rely upon the research and repeat the generalizations of the previous generation. Consequently, the circumstances surrounding the raising of independent companies in Belfast and the reasons for the spread of that institution over the rest of Ireland in 1778–79 remain obscured and confused.
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12 Idem.
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16 It is contended here that the account presented in the anonymousHistory of the Town of Belfast was based upon Heron's letters to Banks of August 14 and of August 18, 1778, and that Grattan's son used only Heron's letter of August 18, 1778 and Buckinghamshire's letter to Weymouth of May 24, 1779 to substantiate his assertion of Government's ineptitude and weakness. Lecky and Bann followed Grattan; Paterson saw Heron's letters, but like Rogers, he was reluctant to contest Lecky's authority.
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40 Idem. The “gavelling clause” deprived Irish Catholics of all rights to a free testamentary disposition of landed property.
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