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The French Revolution had an overwhelming affect on Ireland. The similar situations in the two countries meant that the French Revolution had real relevance for Irish society, as it provided an example of how to overthrow a tyrannical regime and helped break the sectarian deadlock which had disabled the reform movement of the 1780 s, as Presbyterians were encouraged by the actions of the French Catholics to embrace the Catholics of Ireland. The Irish Catholics, due to the restrictions imposed by the Penal Code, accepted the principles expressed in France, as did the Presbyterian community for both pragmatic and ideological reasons. The politicization and radicalization of the Irish Catholics, under the Catholic Committee caused the Irish government to further adopt suppressive methods to deal with this revolutionary force.
The French Revolution helped spark the rebirth of the Irish reformist movement, expressed through the radical United Irishmen, who helped develop a Catholic-Presbyterian alliance and the beginnings of an Irish separatist movement, again serving to increase the intransigence of the Ascendancy, as war with revolutionary France broke out in 1793. Ireland was a fertile ground for revolutionary principles to gain acceptance due to previous developments and the tradition of dissent, which existed throughout the country. The tradition of Colonial Nationalism, and wide belief in the Social Contract Theory combined with the experiences of the American War and Volunteering meant that the country was already rich in the principles expressed in France, and had experience in opposing a corrupt system of government. The subsequent failure of Grattan's Parliament to represent the views of the Irish Presbyterian and Catholic communities, and the failure of the reform movement, caused by the Catholic question, had already induced feelings of frustration within the country, making the message from France attractive to the majority of the population.
The polarization of society and political thought was one of the first major influences the French Revolution had on Ireland, as Smyth points out: In a little time the French revolution became the test of every mans political creed and the nation was fairly divided into two great parties, the aristocrats and the democrats. Smyth Public debate was stimulated as the French experience created an example for radical minds in Ireland, of how to establish a political system based on the Rights of Man, as the mightiest ancien regime in Europe had fallen to the power of reformist political action. The Burke- Paine debate caught the imagination of the Irish public, and forever changed the politics of the country. The mass circulation of Paine's Rights of Man by the Whigs of the Capital, printing twenty thousand cheap copies, allowed the revolutionary mood to spread throughout the country, as the people were receptive of his description of the time, as an age of revolutions. The ideas of Paine were influential in the establishment of the United Irish Society, as Paine was elected an honorary member of the Dublin Society, and many of his ideas about the aristocracy were adopted by the Society. The Catholic and Presbyterian communities were obviously the most accepting of such principles, as they swept away a range of archaic, unjust privileges, the disestablishment of the church and the abolition of tithes also heightening such support.
The Presbyterians, a group mostly concentrated in Ulster welcomed the French Revolution, as concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity were in keeping with their habitual democratic instincts and their belief in the principles of the Enlightenment. Such factors made Presbyterians receptive to the French principles, and their participation in Volunteering and the gaining of legislative independence had prepared them for the further challenge of gaining a truly democratic system of government. The failure of Presbyterianism to gain full political representation throughout the 1780 s, and their treatment as second-class citizens, laid in stone by the Penal Code, led them to seek redress. This being especially true in the largely Presbyterian town of Belfast, where Lord Donegal l controlled the towns corporation, effectively excluding the Presbyterian community from political activity, and the lack of a substantial Catholic community meant that sectarian tensions did not really exist. Therefore the principles of the French Revolution were attractive to them as it brought to them hope of a revival of the reform movement which had fizzled out after the constitution of 1782 and the Volunteer split. Thus there existed, within the Presbyterian community: A genuine, if somewhat nave, enthusiasm for revolutionary principles Beckett The news of revolution in France was bound to capture the support of the Irish Catholics, despite their natural conservatism, since it severed the link between religion and political representation, a link that was made quite apparent in Ireland through the continued existence of the Penal Laws.
The Catholic community was therefore responsive to the Rights of Man as they opened up the opportunity to gain the political rights, which had been denied for so long in the confessional Irish Nation. For the lower class and peasant Catholics of Ireland the French principles of justice and equality gave them the opportunity to gain a greater measure of economic representation in wealth, and social rights, views expressed by Defenderism in their mistaken view of the Revolution, as a means to regaining land and ridding Ireland of Protestantism. As Smyth points out: The French Revolution, never far from the mind of contemporaries, formed the background against which the Catholic and reform questions of 1791 - 1793 were fought out Smyth The French Revolution served to radicalize the Irish Catholic community as they began to question the idea of the Protestant Ascendancy in Irish politics and society. The source of the majority of this new radicalism came from the urban middle class Catholics who believed the French Revolution to be the opportunity to gain the political rights, which were denied by the Penal Code.
This radical middle class body soon came to replace the old cautious elite, who had led the somewhat circumspect campaign for Catholic Emancipation. The Catholic Committee began a period of revival under this new leadership and its radicalization was soon apparent as it began to demand rights rather than exhaust the roads of supplication, a fact made evident in the pamphlet produced on 21 st October by the Catholic Society in Dublin, which called for the repeal of the Penal Code as a matter of right. The French Revolution changed the rhetoric of Irish politics. A language of rights replaced the language of supplication in Catholic declarations Smyth The radical character of this middle class led Committee became further evident as it soon came to oppose the conservative opinion of the Catholic Church, an establishment who viewed the Revolution with trepidation. Thomas Hussey claimed that the Irish Catholics had caught the French disease, as the Church was forced, in order to maintain support, to back the radical Committee in the 1792 campaign for Catholic Emancipation. The new Catholic linkage with the Protestant radical community, in the form of the United Irishmen, provoked anxiety within the Catholic conservative community as the feared the political, social, and economic consequences of their radical nature.
According to Hussey, as a result of the French Revolution, the Irish Catholics would not: Bear the lash of tyranny and oppression inflicted upon them, without their resisting or even complaining Hussey Not only did the French Revolution radicalize the Catholic community, but it also acted as a catalyst in their politicization, shown most clearly in the elections to and implications of the Catholic Convention. The elections involved mass participation by Catholics throughout Ireland, giving them a taste in the polity of Ireland. The Convention, which met on the 3 rd December 1792 provided a forum for Catholic radicals and helped allay Catholic political claims with the causes of general liberty, the rights of man and parliamentary reform. The Convention heightened the administrations worry over the revolutionary potential of the Catholic...
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