Belturbet, Cahans and the Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster, 1660-1770

Cumann Seanchais Ard Mhacha/Armagh Diocesan Historical Society

Belturbet, Cahans and Two Presbyterian Revolutions in South Ulster, 1660-1770Author(s): Eoin MagennisSource: Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 21/22,Vol. 21, no. 2 - Vol. 22, no. 1 (2007/2008), pp. 129-148Published by: Cumann Seanchais Ard Mhacha/Armagh Diocesan Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29742841 .

Accessed: 20/01/2014 16:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cumann Seanchais Ard Mhacha/Armagh Diocesan Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 140.203.12.206 on Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:42:48 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=adhs

http://www.jstor.org/stable/29742841?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Belturbet, Cahans and Two

Presbyterian Revolutions in South

Ulster, 1660-1770

By EOIN MAGENNIS

INTRODUCTION

There are two starting points for this article First is the appeal made by Rev John Dunlop at an ecumenical service in Creggan, County Armagh, a few

years ago He said that night that anyone who wanted to understand the people of Ireland needed to understand Presbyterians who they are, where they come

from and how they see themselves As an historian this article is my local

response to that appeal ' The second starting point is the concept of a

'Presbyterian revolution', used in the work of Raymond Gillespie, who

described how Presbytenanism in Ulster successfully fitted religious structures to the changing religious context of a place (Ulster) in a period or

'moment' (the seventeenth century with all its upheavals) The revolution itself is best described as combining 'a Puritan vision to transform society

with a voluntanst dynamic of participation', the latter bringing together

'social discipline and religious revival' ^

The article is structured in the following way First, a very broad and quick sweep through the story of Ulster Presbytenanism in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries Then the core of the story moves to South Ulster,

particularly counties Monaghan and Cavan, and focuses on two tales from

Belturbet and Cahans (or Ballybay) Finally, the article finishes with a brief reflection on the relationship between Presbyterians of this area and politics

A SHORT HISTORY OF ULSTER PRESBYTERIANISM

The origins of Presbytenanism in Ulster are tied to the Ulster Plantation and the arrival of Scottish planters in the first decade of the seventeenth

1 This paper has been delivered in earlier versions in Oxford, Armagh and, as a Lenten talk

in March 2006, in Cookstown Particular thanks are due to that last audience for their

testing questions that night 2 Raymond Gillespie, The Presbyterian revolution in Ulster, 1660-1690', in William J

Shiels and Diana Wood (ed ), The churches Ireland and the lush (Oxford, 1989), pp 159

70

3 Robert Armstrong. 'Ireland's Puritan revolution17 The emergence of Ulster

presbytenanism reconsidered', English Historical Re\ie\\ cxxi (2006), p 1050

129



130

Cahans Presbyterian Church, County Monaghan

First Ballxbax Presbyterian Church



Two Presbyterian Revolutions in South Ulster 131

century4 It appears that these Scottish communities, once established in the

dioceses of Down, Connor and Derry, began to petition the Church of

Scotland to supply them with ministers Also some of the new landlords, such as Hugh Clotworthy of Antrim or James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery in

the Ards brought over ministers from Scotland for their new tenants This was not liked by the Church of Ireland, given the tensions between bishops and the Scottish form of church government by kirk and session However, as Bishop Echlin put it in April 1632, T did not remove them as they weie preaching to

very large congregations, and for very little money, besides, I hoped to reform

them' This toleration, known as the Prescopahan period' ended in 1635 when the Dublin government and the Ulster bishops began to depose ministers who would not agree to hold services according to Anglican canons

There is some debate about the emergence of a Presbyterian church in

Ulster - when this happened and whether it was because of local or Scottish innovations 7

For the purposes of this article I would tend to follow Raymond Gillespie's aigument of the need to be alive to the ways in which Presbyterian structures successfully interlocked with the needs of local Scottish communities in Ulster both in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries The

standard tale is that five Presbyterian chaplains came with the Scottish army,

held the first Presbyteiy in Ulster which met at Carrickfergus in June 1642 and a new style of church government began At the same time this answered local

needs expressed by petitions from counties Antrim and Down asking for

ministers The memoirs of deposed mu??steis, like Robert Baillie and Robert

Blair, record that Ulster Presbyterians held fast to their beliefs even when their ministers were expelled to Scotland in the 1630s Indeed, some adults and elder children from Bangor and Killinchy were said to have regularly sailed to

Irvine, on Scotland's west coast, to celebrate communion s

With the Stuart Restoration in 1660 a fresh period of troubles began for Ulster's Presbyterians as their 69 ministers were commanded to conform to

the Chuich of Ireland Sixty-one refused and were turned out of their livings, assemblies broken up and some ministers imprisoned No communion

services were allowed while Presbyterian school-teachers had to have a

license from the local Anglican bishop However, the congregations continued

in this period to apply their own discipline over their communities, even if this

was done quietly By the late 1660s the numbers of Ulster Presbyterians

4 WD Bailie 'Presbyterian worship in Ulster prior to the introduction of the Westminster

Directoiy in 1647', m Radicals and rein?is a tribute to W Desmond Bailie (Belfast

Presbyterian Historical Society, 2006). pp 49-65 ^ Quoted in Bailie 'Piesbytenan worship in Ulster', p 61. n 4

6 See Finlay Holmes, Out Piesh\tenan Heritage (Belfast 1985) pp 11 17 I am grateful to

Rev Isaac Thompson tor this reference

7 For various views on this point see Armstrong 'Ireland s Puritan revolution7'. Gillespie Presbyterian revolution' Phil Kilroy Piotestant dissent and contiene) s\ in h eland

1660 1714 (Cork, 1994) 8 Bailie.'Piesbytenan worship in Ulster p 51

9 Foi more detail see J D Neville lush Presbyterians under the restored Stuart monarchy ,

Ene-lulamL 16 (1981), pp 29-42 Kilroy, Piotestant dissent pp 21-5



132 Seanchas Ard Mhacha

remaining loyal to their faith and ministers meant that some measure of toleration was allowed.10 The regium donum, a gift from the king to support the upkeep of ministers, was paid annually from 1672. At the same time the

Dublin executive were wary of public displays by Presbyterians. In 1681, the

Laggan ministers (in County Derry) called for a public fast to mark the

uncovering of the 'Popish Plot' and were summoned to Dublin to face charges of subversion."

With the victory of William over James II the position of Presbyterians improved in many ways. There was a greater toleration of them by the

government, so that the regium donum was paid and existing congregations

largely left alone. This toleration had its limits and its opponents. As we shall see below, Anglican pressure was often brought to bear, using the law if

necessary, to prevent the establishment of new congregations, for example in

Inishowen, County Donegal, and Macroom, County Cork. Also the authorities

waged a low-key, though humiliating, war against marriages by Presbyterian ministers, accusing them of acting illegally and couples of fornication outside wedlock.12 In the civil area the Test Act of 1704 disallowed Presbyterians from

taking any government office, including sitting in parliament or being an officer in the militia.13

Presbyterian numbers also greatly increased in the 1690s with a surge of

immigration to Ulster from depressed and famine-hit Scotland. The numbers are hard to estimate though one historian estimates that between 40 and

70,000 came from Scotland in the 1690s alone, possibly providing an increase of 50% in Presbyterian numbers before 1700.14 This made them the larger Protestant denomination, perhaps as many as two Presbyterians to every

Anglican. Despite the constant emigration to North America through the

10 The numbers of Presbyterians in Ulster is hard to calculate but according to William

Petty's figures, which underestimate the total population by 50%, Presbyterians made up about 1/11th of the total, most of these in Ulster Using hearth tax returns in 1659 Scots were 60% of the 'planters' and 20% of the total Ulster population Twenty years later, Oliver Plunkett noted how Presbyterians outnumbered all other denominations in parts of

the Down and Connor dioceses and, in parts of County Armagh, were also the dominant

denomination

11 J S Reid, The histon of the PresbMerian church in Ireland (3 vols , Belfast, 1867), ii, pp 574 89 After the Rye House Plot of 1683 troops were sent to Ulster to close down

meeting houses and fines were levied on those refusing to attend Anglican service

12 J C Beckett, Protestant dissent in Ireland 1687 1770 (London, 1948), pp 112 7

13 The Test Act acted as (and perhaps was meant as) a deliberate insult to Presbyterians, the vast majority of whom would never have had the property needed to take office It is also

likely to have had the effect of making the tiny Presbyterian landed gentry conform to the

Church of Ireland See the important work of David Hay ton 'Presbyterians and the

confessional state the Sacramental Test as an issue in Irish polities', Bulletin of the

Presbyterian Historical Society, 26 (1997), pp 11 31, and 'Exclusion, conformity and

parliamentary representation the impact of the Sacramental Test on Irish dissenting

polities', in Kevin Herhhy (ed ), The politics of Irish dissent (Dublin, 1997), pp 52-73 14 For these figures see T C Smout and T M Devine, 'Scottish emigration in the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries', in Nicholas Canny (ed ), Europeans on the move studies in

European migration 1500-1800 (Oxford, 1994) p 88




eighteenth century the ratio had only fallen to three to two by the 1830s. These numbers and the growing confidence they brought as well as the

changing political and economic context of the eighteenth century, particularly in Ulster, made Presbyterians increasingly assertive as time went on. Also, with success came division and controversy both in religious life and in politics. For all of these reasons the story of Ulster Presbyterians in the

eighteenth century is both an important and interesting one.15

SOUTH ULSTER: THE FIRST REVOLUTION

A key story in the first Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster is the 'Belturbet Affair'. In December 1711 the entire Presbytery of Monaghan was

arrested by magistrates in Belturbet, County Cavan for an 'unlawful and riotous assembly'. Six ministers and four elders from Counties Cavan,

Monaghan and Tyrone were forced to stand trial in the spring of 1712 at the Cavan assizes and sent for trial in Dublin. In what became known as the

'Belturbet Affair', only a deal between the Synod of Ulster and the administration in Dublin Castle avoided a full trial, fines and possible jail sentences for the Presbyterians.

A look at the area's changing denominational profile in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries will provide some background to these events. In 1659 the area was predominantly Catholic. By 1732 Catholics were still in the

majority in County Monaghan, although the Protestant share of the total

population had risen from 11% to 36%. Thereafter a decline set in, especially in the south of the county, so that by 1831 the share was back to 27%. Within

County Monaghan the northern baronies had the greatest concentration of Protestants with a share of around 44% by 1732 and falling thereafter. In

County Cavan the Protestant share of the county's population rose from 9% in 1659 to 24% in 1732, falling thereafter to 18% in 1831. The numbers of

Protestants were not often broken down into the different denominations, but the few clues from 1732 or 1766 materials suggest that County Monaghan had

more Presbyterians than Anglicans, while County Cavan had the opposite picture. Also, from the 1730s to the 1830s out-migration of Protestants from south Ulster took a much heavier toll on Presbyterians than Anglicans.16

Behind these numbers were communities and congregations. The Church

15 For more detail on this story see two very different books Ian McBnde, Scripture politics Ulster Presbyterians and Irish radicalism in the late eighteenth century (Oxford,

1998) and Andrew R Holmes, The shaping of Ulster Presbyterian belief and practice, 1770-1840 (Oxford, 2006)

16 The sources for this demographic materials are Seamus Pender, A census of Ireland, circa

1659 (Dublin, 1939), 'An abstract of the number of Protestant and Popish families as

returned to the Hearth Money Office in 1731 (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

[PRONI], Mic310/1), 1766 religious census (PRONI T/808/15266), 1785 census of

Protestant males in Clogher diocese (PRONI T/808/15262), 1831-1834 religious censuses, First Report of the Commission of Public Instruction, Ireland, British

Parliamentary Papers (H C 1835, xxxui)




of Ireland had an established parish structure with church buildings and resident clergy in the dioceses of Clogher and Kilmore In the latter, in 1700, there were 17 resident clergy with 9 churches in repair, while Clogher had 19 resident clergy and 11 churches in repair in the same year

17 These structures

and the resources of local landlords and tithe collections that supported them

gave the Church of Ireland a strong advantage over the Presbyterians However, the latter had their own system of church government centring on

the Synod of Ulster which had been first summoned in 1691 Below this there were the various presbyteries (consisting of ministers and elders) which

organised affairs within a geographical region -

for south Ulster the

Monaghan presbytery from 1701 Below that again were the congregations with their sessions and ministers

In the early seventeenth century south Ulster had four key places where there were concentrations of Scottish population Glaslough and Clones, County Monaghan, and Killeshandra and Baiheborough, County Cavan There were

attempts in the 1650s, with a greater or lesser degree of success, to establish

Presbyterian congregations in these places In Killeshandra, County Cavan,

the nucleus of Scots settlers outside the town at Croghan had marched away under license from the O'Reillys in 1642 Many returned and a Presbyterian congregation was meeting there in the 1650s

l8 In 1658, a Scottish minister,

Thomas Gowan, settled at Glaslough, County Monaghan, but at the Restoration of 1660 he was expelled from the living and was forced to move to Antrim where he established one of the first academies n At all four places, the pressure for conformity from the church and state authorities was severe

after 1660 So much so, that Killeshandra and Glaslough barely had

functioning congregations by the 1680s, while elsewhere Presbyterians may have received occasional preaching but otherwise fended for themselves

(

This position of strong concentrations of Presbyterians without local

church structures changed in the 1690s By 1700, as Map 1 shows, south Ulster had seven Presbyterian congregations, all supplied with ministers As we have seen, new waves of immigration from Scotland between 1660 and

1700 added strength to existing Presbyterian population concentrations It also created new ones in south Ulster The work of historical geographers and

demographers has shown that counties Down, Derry and Antrim were by?

passed by a sizeable number of these new migrants and counties like

17 For this see Archbishop William King to Sir Robert Southwell, 19 November 1700

(Trinity College Dublin, Ms750/2/2, 17) and Visitation of Clogher, 1700 (Representative Church Body Library, 61 /6/3)

18 TJ Barron, 'Exodus of Protestant settlers from County Cavan, 16421 Hean of Bieifne, 1/3 (1980), pp 48-50, D Gallogly, 'Notes on the history of Killeshandra' (unpublished

manuscript. Cavan County Library) 19 A good summary of this early history can be found in Lindsay Brown. 'The Presbyterian

Dilemma', Cloghei Recoid, 15 (1995) 20 For example, in 1688 a Presbyterian minister, Rev Kelso, is mentioned as fleeing to

Scotland from Killeshandra and. in 1697, the congregation was getting supply preaching from Longford



135

u




Monaghan and Cavan began to get their share of Presbyterians. One piece of evidence records that in the Mullyash area of east Monaghan some Scots arrivals had first stopped in County Down but then moved on to seek better

opportunities.21 Social and economic historians have offered one reason for this. Landlords in south Ulster in the 1680s and 1690s were struggling to find tenants leading to low rents, long leases and a welcome to the Scots

immigrants.22 The fact that these Scots settlers would have almost exclusively dissented from the established church was a cause for concern for the Church of Ireland clergy but not always to landlords whose interests were paramount. The agent on a Clones, County Monaghan, estate told his master in 1715 that he should give the local Presbyterians a half acre for a meeting house at

Stonebridge as 'it will destroy the Irish and plant your estate with

protestants'.2^ This combination of promoting economic development and the

'Protestant interest' became clear again as the linen industry became

increasingly important. There are three cases in south Ulster (Creggan, County Armagh; Castleblayney, County Monaghan; and Newbliss, County Monaghan) where landlords offered weavers not only favourable individual

leases but ground to build meeting houses upon. In the case of Castleblayney, Lord Blayney in 1718 offered the Synod of Ulster financial support for the

building of a new meeting house and the appointment of a minister, Samuel

Hemphill.24 In all three cases, existing Presbyterian congregations could greet new worshippers and strength was added in economic and religious terms.

The minutes of the Synod of Ulster record how communities in Cavan and

Monaghan had begun to organise themselves sufficiently to ask the Synod to

help them with the supply of ministers. As Map 2 shows there were eight congregations in Counties Cavan and Monaghan by 1700. Glaslough and

Killeshandra have been mentioned above - although Glaslough appears to

have disappeared as a regular congregation by 1700. Drum (or Dartry) had a minister attached to the congregation from as early as 1675 when the Tyrone presbytery was talking of removing him to a more populated area. It was not to receive another resident minister until 1703 but the presbytery reported to the Synod of Ulster in 1698 and 1700 that it was regularly supplying a

minister for Drum.25 At Monaghan town the Lucas and Rossmore estates had a number of Scots families from the 1650s and had used a pre-Reformation church at Rockwallace for services in the 1650s and 1660s. The first resident

21 William Macafee and Valerie Morgan, 'Population in Ulster, 1660-1760', in Peter

Roebuck (ed ), Plantation to Partition (Belfast, 1981), pp 46-63, Alan Galley, 'The Scots

element in North Irish popular culture', Ethnologia Europaea, 8/1 (1975) 22 See WH Crawford, 'Economy and society in South Ulster in the eighteenth century',

Clogher Record, 1 (1975), pp 241-258, L O Mear?in, 'The Bath estate, 1700-1777',

Clogher Record, 6 (1967), pp 338-349

23 Edmond Kaine to Dacre Barrett, 11 May 1715 (PRONI, Barrett-Lennard papers,

T/2529/6) 24 Gillespie, 'Presbyterian revolution', p 168, Records of the General Synod of Ulster,

volume 1,476-80, John Donaldson, An historical and statistical account of the barony of

Upper Fews (Dundalk, 1828), pp 86-7

25 Records of the General Synod of Ulster, volume 1, pp 29, 44, 62




minister was a Rev. Robert Darragh, freshly arrived from Scotland, and he

organised a new meeting house soon after.26 At Ballybay (Tullycorbett), Cavan and Clones (Stonebridge) similar stories recur with requests from emergent congregations in the 1690s and ordination of ministers in 1698,1700 and 1703

respectively. In Ballybay there was an interesting extra detail as their first

minister, a Scottish man from the west coast called Humphrey Thompson, preached in both Gaelic and English.27 This survey is finished with two 'borderland' congregations

- Glennan (Treugh) and Bailieborough (Breaky) -

which were shared with neighbouring counties. In the case of Glennan it was an offshoot of a congregation based near Caledon (Kinnaird) and did not have its own minister until 1714. The other centre was at Breaky in County Meath

which served Bailieborough and as far to the north and west as Coronary, later a Seceder stronghold and may have its origins in 1700.28

This spread of congregations forms the background to the institutional

stage of the Presbyterian revolution in south Ulster. Raymond Gillespie has shown how this revolution happened elsewhere in 1691, when the Synod of

Ulster was formed to take advantage of the new political and religious context in the aftermath of the Williamite war. The new Synod was to govern 120

congregations, 96 ministers and nine presbyteries serving up to 150,000 Scots.29 Until 1701 the Cavan and Monaghan congregations fell under the rule of the Tyrone presbytery, in terms of settling disputes and ordaining ministers. In 1701 the Synod of Ulster agreed that a local presbytery be formed to 'do

what in them [the ministers] lie to spread the Gospel for a year being accountable to the next Synod'. The resolution made it clear that the Synod had been asked by local ministers for this power (including organising the

supply of ministers) and that the 'Upper Country', as it was referred to, was

akin to a mission area. The new presbytery met for the first time in Antrim in June 1701 with the Glennan minister, Dr William Ambrose, acting as

Moderator. They resolved to seek other congregations to join them and to

organise the supply of ministers within their area.w The area covered south

Tyrone (two congregations -

Augher and Aughaburger), Fermanagh (Enniskillen), Cavan (three congregations), Monaghan (five congregations),

Longford, Sligo and Meath.31 The minutes of the Presbytery of Monaghan after 1701 show how ministers and elders in south Ulster were applying the

26 DC Rushe, Monaghan in the eighteenth century (Monaghan, 1916), 34, Reid, Histon, volume 3, p 34

27 Records of the General Synod of Ulster, volume 1, pp 29, 61 There is a wealth of

information on the various Ballybay congregations in the nineteenth century in the

excellent local history, James H and Peadar Murnane, At the Ford of the Birches The

History of Ballybay its People and Vicinity (Monaghan, 1999), chapter 4

28 Thomas Hall, 'History of the congregation of 1st Baiheborough', The Witness (13

February 1903), pp 47-8

29 Gillespie, 'Presbyterian revolution', pp 161-5

30 Records of the General S\nod of Ulster, volume 1, p 45

31 The presbytery went through several names being first Clones, then Stonebndge and

eventually Monaghan The first two names come from where the presbytery was ordered to meet



138

Co

>C5>\

?i?M?

IS Si

~ ?o s:

? -s

11

f




Presbyterian discipline of session and communion roll ' The first stage of the

revolution was complete

THE 'BELTURBET AFFAIR'

However, this revolution was not easy to consolidate As Map 2 shows, in

another twenty-five years the numbers of congregations had doubled again

This is the context in which the events in Belturbet in December 1711 should be seen The full story is as follows Belturbet was a corporation town and

parliamentary borough in County Cavan, controlled by the Butler family It was a new area for Presbyterian growth in the 1690s and, in 1711, the

Presbytery of Monaghan asked the Synod for support to consolidate the new

congregation with regular supply of preaching" In 1712 the Presbytery granted ?12 to Belturbet's elders and decided to hold their December meeting in the town to give encouragement to the congregation in its efforts to build a

meeting house One historian of the Presbyterian church described what

happened next when Belturbet's 'High Church' party 'were pleased to take offence at their Presbyterian neighbours seeking to be accommodated with a

place of worship ' Local JPs and the Church of Ireland rector, Rev John

Richardson, met in Belturbet on the same day and took the Presbytery into

custody They were indicted by the magistrates of 'unlawful and riotous

assembly' and bound over to appear at the Cavan spring assizes '4

On the face of it the arrests were a 'bold attempt to interfere with the

function of Presbyterian church courts' ^

Initially, the Synod of Ulster met, heard from the Presbytery of Monaghan and sent representatives in January 1713 to lobby both the English government leader, the Earl of Oxford, and

Dublin Castle It soon became clear why the Presbyterians expected a fairer

hearing in London than in Dublin The Moderator of the Synod, Rev

Kirkpatrick, tried to persuade the Castle to drop the case but failed Lord Chancellor Phipps was certainly unsympathetic as his report of the December events show

There never was yet a settled congregation in that town, nor were any

Dissenters there until two or three years ago when some few were

sent thither on purpose for a handle to introduce a minister, and settle

a congregation, and they are now going to build a meeting house The

magistrates oppose them, alleging that the town always enjoyed

peace and unity, and there was an entire uniformity in the inhabitants

to the old established religion, and that their permitting a Dissenting

32 The minute books can be found in the Presbyterian Historical Society in Belfast and my thanks to Robert McMillan for his help in using these sources

33 Recoids of the Genet al Synod of Ulster volume 1 p 234 For a version of Presbyterian expansion which blames the Anglican minister for neglect of the town see Archbishop

King to Edward Southwell 28 March 1711 (TCD Ms 2531/326) 34 Reid Hi story vol 3 p 39

35 Ibid p 39




to be settled there would introduce schism, and divide the town into factions and parties.'6

In London, Oxford and the viceroy, the Earl of Ormond, decided to instruct

Phipps to remove any full trial from Cavan to the Queen's Bench in Dublin. Soon after the instruction the ten ministers and six elders appeared at the

spring assizes of 1713 and had their indictment upheld. Attention and

negotiations now shifted to Dublin. On 23 April 1713 a delegation of the

Presbyterian ministers appeared before Phipps and other officials and

presented a memorial (or statement). This has not survived but on the basis of it Phipps recommended that Ormond should cancel the trial. The Lord

Chancellor had not softened his position and informed Ormond that he had got every ounce of submission possible out of the ministers. They had to declare that they had no intention of building a meeting house in Belturbet and would

move their existing meeting house further away from town. Phipps also demanded and got a promise 'to behave themselves for the future without

giving any offence."7

The problems for the Presbyterians did not end with the submission. The

Presbytery of Monaghan may have felt relieved to have escaped convictions,

although there were some hints that some Presbyterians advised going to jail rather than submitting to the Tory administration. In addition, there was a

hefty financial cost from the combination of legal fees, sending lobbies to London and having to raise a security over appearing at the Queen's Bench.

The cost was estimated at over ?56, a huge sum which the Synod paid ?13

towards, leaving a large debt hanging over South Ulster's Presbyterians.'8 Some good news came when, after all the drama, a minister, Rev. Robert

Thompson, was finally ordained for the Belturbet congregation in August 1714.'9 But almost immediately the congregation was struggling financially.

The Presbytery of Monaghan was, by 1716, contributing up to ?20 a year to

support the Belturbet minister. Rev. Thompson was heavily in demand for 'mission work' and frequently absent from the town due to his ability to

preach in Irish.40 The financial problems were not ameliorated by a

sympathetic landlord, as at Bailieborough. The landlords, the Butlers, were

strong supporters of the Church of Ireland and one of them, Brinsley, was an MP for Kells and backer of Tory causes.41 This political climate made

36 Phipps to Earl of Oxford, 26 December 1712, HMC Pentland Mss, vol 5 (1899), p 255

37 Lords Justices and Privy Council to Ormond, 28 April 1713 (PRONI DIO/4/5/3) 38 Records of the General S\nod of Ulster, volume 1, p 313

39 Latimer, History (Belfast, 1893), p 140

40 Records of the General Synod of Ulster, volume 1, p 527 Ironically, Thompson shared his

interest in proselytism through Irish with Richardson, the Anglican minister who came to

Belturbet in 1709 and appealed to Convocation in 1711 for support to print Irish language catechisms and sermons See TC Barnard, 'Protestants and the Irish Language, 1675

1725', in Barnard, Irish Protestant Ascents and Descents 1641 1770 (Dublin, 2004), pp 179-207

41 For the Butlers see Edith Mary Johnston-Luk, History of the Irish Parliament 1690-1800

(6 vols , Belfast, 2002), m pp 338, 342 and 353




Belturbet hostile territory for Presbyterians. In 1721 Rev. Thompson resigned the charge and there was no minister or thriving congregation in Belturbet until the 1820s.

The 'Belturbet Affair' reveals much about the nature of both

Anglican/Presbyterian relations in the period and the first Presbyterian revolution in South Ulster. The negative attitudes of Anglicans about

Presbyterians or Dissenters were not a preserve of Tories in this period. A

leading Whig, Alan Brodrick, wrote about an anti-episcopal sermon in Dublin and said it revealed 'a temper that affects more than liberty of serving God in such manner as their conscience allows of, and [one] that aims at dominion

and power'.42 The 'Belturbet Affair' had been preceded by a similar attempt by Presbyterians to consolidate a congregation, this time in Drogheda in 1709. In fact Lord Chancellor Phipps had accused the Presbytery of Monaghan in

December 1712 of 'threatening to make a Drogheda of Belturbet'.4' This too had been the cause of much anger across a broad range of Irish Protestants.

According to Archbishop King, 40 MPs had changed their minds and would

oppose any repeal of the Test Act. However, the Synod of Ulster made the

point that there had been both a congregation and a minister in the County Louth town between 1667 and 1688. The decision to appoint a new minister in late 1708 was merely to pick up on a tradition interrupted by war.44

Whatever about the truth of the Drogheda and Belturbet cases they were

taken as an appearance of new congregations. This was happening throughout South Ulster between 1690 and 1725, and was the main outward sign of the

Presbyterian Revolution. The regium donum, which had been increased by William III to ?1,200 per annum (or perhaps ?10 per year for each minister) was blamed by Anglicans as being a crucial factor in this growth. In a

parliamentary debate in 1703 MPs, Whigs and Tories alike, declared the fund to be unnecessary. Nine years later a Belfast Anglican minister denounced

what he saw as a 'fund to plant and propagate their schism in places where the numbers and wealth of the Dissenters have not been sufficient to form a

conventicle or fund a teacher'.45 Finally, in the winter of 1713/14 the regium donum was suspended, supposedly as part of a economy drive, but really as a

concession by London to Irish Tory sentiment.46

However, while the fund would have helped sustain some poorer congregations, the wilder accusations about the regium donum should be

42 Alan Brodrick to Thomas Brodrick, 13 January 1709, quoted in S J Connolly, Religion, Law and Power (Oxford, 1992), p 168

43 Phipps to Earl of Oxford, 26 December 1712, H MC Portland Mss, vol 5 (1899), p 254

44 Archbishop William King to Annesley, 27 January 1709 (TCD Ms 2531/45), A humble

address and apology of the Presbyterian ministers and gentlemen on behalf of themseh es

and the rest of their persuasion in the North of Ireland (1711), pp 21-3

45 DW Hayton, 'A debate in the Irish house of commons in 1703 a whiff of Tory

grapeshot9', Parliamentary History, 10 (1991), 161, quote from John Tisdall, Conduct of the Dissenters (Belfast, 1712), p 13

46 For the details see D W Hayton, 'The crisis in Ireland and the disintegration of Queen Anne's last ministry', in Hayton, Ruling Ireland (Woodbridge, 2004), pp 159-187




taken with a pinch of salt Indeed, one cause of the second Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster between 1740 and 1765 was the belief that the

Synod of Ulster had stopped expanding to conserve the resources provided by the regium donum

THE SECOND REVOLUTION

The apparent wave of Presbyterian expansion in south Ulster came to a

shuddering halt in the 1720s This decade was a difficult one for the

Presbyterians Economic slump, emigration and schism all undermined the

momentum of the earlier period In the late 1710s the economy went into one of its cyclical slumps as

agricultural and linen prices were low, and harvests were poor Matters got even worse in the 1720s Emigration, mainly to America, turned into a flood

particularly as leases came to an end and landlords took the opportunity to raise rents Historians have shown that these emigrants left from every part o?

Ulster and there is evidence from several estates in south Ulster to show they lost a large number of families, particularly from their new Scots settlers

47 In

fact, there is evidence from Monaghan that as the century wore on the stones

from America of a new promised land proved a strong driver behind

emigration In 1739, the minister of Stonebndge, Patrick Plunkett, made this

point about the appeal of the New World over the poverty of South Ulster48 This brought up the reality of a struggle of congregations to sustain a minister

and meeting house Stonebndge or Belturbet were not isolated examples as

several other congregations (Drum, Castleblayney and Baiheborough, for

example) were also asking the Synod for financial support in the 1720s The basic problem for the Presbyterians was that there were only a small number of people of wealth among them The wealth, where it existed, belonged to landed gentry (almost all Anglicans and only occasionally supportive) or linen

merchants, something which did not come to South Ulster until the 1750s

Then, the Jacksons in Ballybay or the Hamills in east Cavan were the first

Presbyterian examples of linen wealth 49

Divisions and schism within the Synod of Ulster also took its toll in the 1720s and 1730s The story of the subscription crisis and the split of the

Presbytery of Antrim in 1726 has been well told elsewhere s? These divisions over church doctrine and discipline did not end with the split The influence of the 'new Light' (or non-subscribers) was felt in South Ulster too Another

47 See Kerby Miller et al, Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan (Oxford 2003), appendix 2

48 Minutes of the Piesbytery of Monaghan, 25 October 1739 (Presbyterian Historical

Society) 49 W H Crawford, 'Economy and society in South Ulster in the eighteenth century', Clogher

Recoid, 7 (1975), pp 254-6

50 Finlay Holmes, 'The Reverend John Abernethy the challenge of New Light theology to

traditional Irish Presbyterian Calvinism', in Kevin Herhhy (ed ), The Religion of lush

Dissent (Dublin, 1996). pp 100-111, McBnde, Scuptute Politics, chapter 2




split, with its origins in Scotland, occurred in 1733 and was to have a major role in the second Presbyterian revolution in South Ulster. This split was known as the Secession and was a reaction to elite and polite Presbyterianism within the Church of Scotland, and also to a shift away from strict adherence to the Covenanting Calvinism of the 17th century. In 1733 four ministers in Scotland formed the 'Associate Presbytery' and were given the name Seceders. By 1736 Presbyterians in Lisburn were sending a call for Seceder

preachers and within two decades there were almost twenty congregations in the first Irish Associate Presbytery.

South Ulster proved fertile ground or a promised land to the Seceders,

perhaps because of the recent arrivals from Scotland there. At first it was the

Presbytery of Dromore, particularly the congregation at Markethill, which

provided an opening to the Seceders. It appears that it was actually a

disgruntled section of the Synod of Ulster congregation which sent out a call to the Seceders in 1744 for supply preaching because the new minister in

Markethill was suspected of holding unorthodox views. This led to a mission from Scotland and, within four years, a Seceder congregation in Markethill.

One of the 'New Light' leaders within the Synod, Rev. William Campbell of

Armagh, later pointed out the irony that it was the orthodox party who had asked for Seceder support, but they had been the ones who lost most numbers to the new movement 'as their minds were already devoted to mystery'.'2

After Markethill there went a call from Ballybay, County Monaghan, in 1748 for the Seceders to supply preaching. Two young ministers, David

Telfair in 1748 and John Jarvey in 1750, came over from Scotland to preach for four Sundays and organise a congregation." The reasons for the 1748 call can only be speculated on but do appear to be connected to a belief that a second congregation should be established outside Ballybay and that the

ministers chosen by the elders in the town were not to everyone's taste.'4

However the tipping point in this revolution came in March 1751 when almost 200 signatories from Ballybay and surrounding areas sent out a call to Thomas

Clark to come to be their new minister.55

Clark had travelled to Ballybay as a probationer in July 1748 as part of a wider preaching circuit through Counties Down, Armagh and Monaghan. He

51 David Stewart, The Seceders in Ireland (Belfast. 1950), chapter 3 One of the Dromore

Presbytery ministers. William King, fiercely attacked the Seceders as a variety of

'Popery' - attached to church establishments and slavish following of outdated doctrines,

see A Letter to the Protestant Dissenters in the North of Ireland, occasioned b\ some

Teac hers from Scotland called Seceders ( 1748) 52 Rev William Campbell, 'Sketches of the History of Presbyterians in Ireland'(1803), f 196

(Presbyterian Historical Society, Campbell Mss) 53 Stewart, Seceders in Ireland, pp 138-9 Jarvey also worked in Erny vale and Donagh in

County Monaghan and Derrynoose and Keady in County Armagh - all four became

centres for the Seceders

54 Minutes of the Presbytery of Monaghan, 4 October 1743 (Presbyterian Historical

Society), p 45 notes a call from the Gnbby area for a new erection there 55 Minutes of session of Cahans Presbyterian Meeting House, 1751-1802 (Presbyterian

Historical Society), pp 4-6 lists the names




was clearly an impressive preacher and became the face of this second

Presbyterian revolution in South Ulster On the one hand he was utterly

unyielding in his orthodoxy, his adherence to Calvinism in its original,

Covenanting brand and his view that everything else was a form of back?

sliding or heresy However, Clark also had many positive attributes for a

settler audience of recent Scottish origins He was Scottish, from a rural

background who was both a qualified doctor and a trained military man Thus

both his loyalty and his courage were unquestionable Given his rural style he was open to all of the traditional forms of Presbytenanism

- including the

secret prayers, the communion fairs and the use of magic and medicine Clark

also brought a ready pen to the mix and an ability to debate with his

Presbyterian opponents Before he was installed at Cahans/Ballybay in 1751 he demanded a debate from an Old Light minister in Loughgall It appears there was a potential congregation in Keady and in response to a pamphlet

attacking him, Clark published in Armagh A Brief Survey The pamphlet captures much of the Seceder message

- strong on Calvinist doctrine

unbending on discipline and completely attached to the institutions of the

session and Westminster Confession A shorter version was published four

years later, perhaps for a wider appeal The Seceder revolution appears to have gone from strength to strength as

Map 3 shows By the late 1750s there were three Seceder congregations with ministers and a larger number of preaching stations All of the congregations were either splits from Synod congregations (like Ballybay, Monaghan and

Coronary) or the institutionalisation of new congregations, such as Newbliss

The latter provides a detailed case study of the spread of the Seceders In the 1740s the Presbyterians around Newbliss had been asking for a new meeting

house to be built there and a minister supplied In 1751 the congregations at

Stonebndge and Drum complained that the Presbytery of Monaghan had acted

wrongly in supporting a new erection at Newbliss and, therefore, undermining two already weak congregations The Synod agreed and ordered the

Presbytery to dissolve the new erection The Newbliss campaign continued

and, in 1752, a local landlord, Robert Ker, offered the Synod ?30 per annum to support a new meeting house and minister The offer was turned down

Again, the next year an offer of ?40 per annum and the promise that 50 families were there to support a minister had no effect The Seceders took

advantage to serve the community Similar divisions opened in Monaghan and

Castleblayney as the Synod found itself unable to support the demand for new men and buildings

'8

The Seceders proved themselves able to take advantage of the

opportunities which arose from any concern not to spread the regium donum

too thinly However, doctrine was also a key factor In Coronary, County

56 Copies of A Buef Suney (Armagh, 1751) and New Liqht Set in a Clecu Licht (Dublin,

1755) are rare but can be found in the Union Theological College, Belfast

57 Recoids of the Genet al Synod of Ulster, volume 1, pp 360 369 383

58 Orr and Haslett, Histoi y of Bally albany Con?ieqation.p 35



145

?? ?

-s; K -S




Cavan, the call for supply preaching went with a letter detailing the unorthodox ideas of the Synod's minister at that place The minutes of that

congregation detail how its session tackled 'evils' such as 'secret prayer', clandestine marriages and horse racing

5g However, the success came at a price

as many congregations proved unsustainable, in terms of supporting a

minister In May 1764 the Seceders in Counties Monaghan and Cavan sought to regulate their affairs and established their own Presbytery covering five

congregations and four ministers 6(

However, just as this milestone had been

reached this version of the Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster also

stumbled, signified by the 'Cahans Exodus'

THE 'CAHANS EXODUS'

In Ballybay Clark caused or encountered strong hostility from the existing Presbyterian congregation The Jackson family were the key elders and a relation of theirs, Rev James Jackson, had been appointed to Ballybay in

February 1750 Suspicion of his orthodoxy may have also contributed to the size of the Cahans congregation

( Clark's initial successes must have added to

the tension in the town The call of 1751 had come from across north

Monaghan and he was soon travelling and preaching at Glennan, Newbhss

and Monaghan town The tension came to a head as early as 1752 and the handle used was the refusal of Seceders to touch or kiss the bible when

swearing an oath Rev Jackson and a Rev Hamilton of Monaghan are said to

have organised local magistrates to summon Clark for disloyalty but he was

prepared with letters from Scotland that attested to his military service against the Jacobites in the 1745 rebellion However, he was still fined 40 shillings

over refusing to swear an oath 6

Worse was to follow in January 1754 when

Clark was in Newbhss moderating the call for a new Seceder minister there

He tells us that one of his elders warned him not to go to Newbhss that day and that his arresters were Presbyterian constables from Ballybay and

Aughnamullen He was taken to Monaghan and held under a sort of house

arrest, on a bail of ?4,000, until the assizes three months later The case was

dismissed due to irregularities and the judges were treated to loud prayers and

psalms 6' Such was the enmity caused by this affair that matters had come a

long way from Anglican obsession with Presbyterian disloyalty Ten years after his imprisonment Thomas Clark and 300 members of the

Cahans/Ballybay congregation went to Warrenpoint and set sail for New York on 10 May 1764 Clark details how he got a call from both Rhode Island and from Albany, New York, and, with the blessing of the new Presbytery, left Ireland for good The main reason for the exodus is usually given as an escape

59 Session minutes of Coronary, 1755-82 (Presbyterian Historical Society) 60 Stewart, Seceders, p 338

61 Reid, History, \olume 3, p 278

62 Thomas Clark, A Pastoral and Farewell Letter to the Associate Congiegatton of Presb\tenans in Ball\ba\ New Erection (Monaghan, 1807), p l8

63 Ibid, pp 21-2




from oppression This is supported by an American local history which says that Clark, soon after his arrest, sent a list of 100 families to a Robert Harpur, of Columbia College in New York Harpur then secured a grant of 40,000 acres on the New York / Vermont border for the new colony to settle

(4

However, Clark's version of events also highlights his concerns that in the

early 1760s he had begun to 'observe a coolness of attention in public worship' in South Ulster Clandestine marriages and falling attendances were

cited as symptoms of this Whatever the cause of the exodus, its first stage

ended in New York in July 1764 when the 300 arrived safely 'carried over the

devouring deep' by a 'gracious God' 6

CONCLUSION The first Presbyterian Revolution in the 1690-1725 period saw the Synod

of Ulster establish new congregations, sessions and a Presbytery of

Monaghan This revolution challenged the Church of Ireland and the idea that a Protestant church could be established outside the establishment The regium donum meant that the Synod of Ulster was recognised, at least by the

monarchy, but was a cause of dispute The 'Belturbet Affair' shows just how

few friends the Presbyterians of South Ulster had outside their own

denomination

The second revolution, based on the arrival of the Seceders, both renewed and almost wrecked South Ulster's Presbytenanism The Seceders had their

greatest success in this region but we still lack a convincing explanation as to

why this was the case Later church historians, of an evangelical disposition,

argued that the Synod of Ulster's congregations had become unorthodox and

complacent This is not that convincing for South Ulster as most of the

congregations were new and usually orthodox in doctrine (with the exception

of Ballybay) A more convincing explanation for this second Presbyterian Revolution might be identity, which has been defined by Scottish ethnicity, the crisis of congregational discipline or by socio-economic circumstances

(including rural living and poverty) However, this too does not work for

every place Coronary, in rural county Cavan, might seem to fit the bill as a

place for Seceder advance but what about Monaghan or Ballybay, towns with a flourishing linen market9

It might be that these matters are beyond explanation The tempestuousness of the region's Presbyterians can be seen in two final stones In America Clark

established a new Seceder colony in upstate New York, a place called New

Perth However, his restlessness continued and in 1782, aged 62, he went to

Long Caine Abbeville, South Carolina, where the rest of the Cahans people had gone His style had not changed A letter from New York in the summer of 1789 described his preaching as 'endeavouring to bewilder the mind rather

64 For this information see Presbyterian Church Notes The lush Times 6 January 2007

and PRONI T/l 791/1

65 Clark Pastoral letter pp 27 30



148 Se ancha s Ard M hacha

than enlightening it'.66 Back in South Ulster the 1798 rebellion washed over the region but without any great effect. Although the Seceders were largely a bastion of support for the government in the 1790s, this pattern was not uniform. In Coronary the minister, John Craig, was a known United Irishman and was forced to flee to America in 1793 with some of his congregation. Back at Ballybay, the Synod's minister, John Arnold was also a radical and forced to flee in 1797 but when his successor attempted to preach loyalty sermons in 1798 he was locked out of the meeting house. Those who refused to accept the shift to loyalty found a new home in the Seceder congregation that Thomas Clark had served fifty years before.67

Finally, I hope this article goes some way to addressing two of Rev.

Dunlop's questions about who Presbyterians were and where they were

coming from. Also, hopefully it gives an outline of the nature of the

Presbyterian Revolution in a 'frontier zone' which must have seemed as full of opportunity and threat as upstate New York or the Carolinas.

66 Carlile Pollock to William Campbell, 23 June 1789, in WD Patton, 'My Dear Uncle a

letter from New York, 1789", Bulletin of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 23 (1994),

pp 20-4

67 For more on 1798 see McBnde, Scripture Politics, chapter 8, Brian McDonald, 'South

Ulster in the age of the United Irishmen', in Thomas Bartlett et al (ed ), 1798 A

Bicentenary Perspective (Dublin, 2003), pp 226-42, and Thomas Bell, 'Rev David Bell',

Clogher Record, 6 (1967), pp 250-8



Belturbet, Cahans and the Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster, 1660-1770

Documents

Transcript of Belturbet, Cahans and the Presbyterian Revolution in South Ulster, 1660-1770