Defenders

Defenders, secret society, originally the Catholic opponents of the Peep of Day Boys in Co. Armagh. From 1790 Defenderism spread into other Ulster counties, and into the northern half of Leinster, including Dublin city. During 1794–5 an explosion of Defender activity in Connacht led to Lord Carhampton's (see Luttrell, Henry) notorious impressment for naval service of over 1,000 suspects. Sporadic contact from the early 1790s with the United Irishmen (see Tandy, James Napper) developed, probably by 1796, into a formal alliance. Defenders as well as United Irishmen participated, though not always harmoniously, in the insurrection of 1798. The movement continued into the 19th century under the new name of Ribbonmen.

The Defenders were for long perceived as a largely apolitical adjunct to the United Irishmen, preoccupied with practical economic grievances and religious animosities. Recent work, however, makes clear that Defenderism had a regional and national leadership of a kind never developed by the Whiteboys or other movements of agrarian protest. Its members, equally, looked beyond the resolution of immediate economic grievances and sectarian animosities to a general social and political transformation, however crudely imagined. Defenderism can thus be seen as a key stage in the process of politicization, shaped both by popular awareness of the French Revolution and by domestic political events, notably the increasingly assertive activities of the Catholic Committee and the backlash among conservative Protestants.