Ribbonism

Ribbonism. ‘Ribbonmen’ are first mentioned, as ‘a new name for U[nited]Irishmen’, in 1811, and the term recurs during most of the 19th century in official accounts of crime and disaffection. Such reports, often based on dubious informers' evidence and providing a convenient alibi for unsuccessful policing, cannot always be taken at face value. But there is nevertheless clear evidence, including the arrest and subsequent trial of groups of Dublin‐based Ribbonmen in 1822 and again in 1839, of a well‐developed underground network, secret and oath‐bound, recruited from among farmers, shopkeepers, publicans, tradesmen, and wage earners. The geography of the movement, extending over the northern counties of Leinster, north Connacht, and most of Ulster, suggests a direct descent from the earlier Defender society. There was also contact with Ribbon lodges in centres of Irish settlement in Great Britain. Like the Defenders, Ribbonism exhibited a strong Catholic sectarianism, combined with some concept of an egalitarian and independent Ireland, to be achieved by armed insurrection. But in practice its adherents seem to have devoted most of their energies to the maintenance and elaboration of rituals of secrecy, to internal feuding, and, in Ulster, to sectarian clashes with Orange opponents. As such it can be seen as a transitional stage in the development of a popular nationalist politics.