Battle of the Diamond
Encyclopedia
The Battle of the Diamond was a violent confrontation between the Catholic Defenders
and a Protestant faction including Peep o' Day Boys, Orange Boys and local tenant farmers that took place on 21 September 1795 near Loughgall
, County Armagh
, Ireland
. The Protestants were the victors, killing between 4 and 30 Defenders. It led to the foundation of the Orange Order.
, where the population was fairly evenly divided between Catholic and Protestant, had been for years the site of intermittent faction fighting between Protestant Peep-of-Day Boys and Catholic Defenders
. This had subsided under the influence of United Irishmen agitation.
When the pro-Catholic reformer Earl FitzWilliam
was appointed Viceroy, the Peep-of-Day Boys, after nearly two years of quiescence, suddenly resumed their activity. Jackson notes that it was “impossible to miss the connection between this fact and the lie deliberately circulated by the Clare-Beresford faction that Fitzwilliam was coming to replace Protestant ascendancy with Catholic ascendancy.”
The most reactionary Protestant magistrates in County Armagh took advantage of the renewed disturbances to search Catholic homes for “seditious literature”. The Peep-of-Day Boys also began again to search Catholic homes for concealed arms although it was now legal for Catholics to possess arms. Such activity brought fresh searches for evidence of “sedition” to be followed by a spread of anti-Catholic violence to areas previously peaceful.
In his evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee investigation into the Orange Order on July 10, 1835, James Christie described an orchestrated campaign of 'wrecking' Catholic homes by the 'Peep-o-day' and 'break-of-day boys' who were the precursors of the Orange Order. Christie, a Quaker, said:
Christie testified that the 'wrecking' actually began in 1794 on the estates administered by James Verner, a Justice of the Peace who lived at Church-hill, on the Dungannon Rd, but that the greatest depredations committed against the Catholics were in the Spring of 1795, and on a lesser scale in 1796 - 97. He told of twelve to fourteen Catholic houses being burned down in one night just a mile or so from Portadown, at Battle Hill, in the spring of 1795 (See 'Two Hundred Years in the Citadel'
The Catholic Defenders, in retaliation, regularly attacked Protestant homes.
At a Sunday church service in Portadown in June 1795 a Rev. George Maunsell called on his congregation: " to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne
in the true spirit of the institution" by attending a sermon to be given by a Rev. Devine of the Established Church at Drumcree on Sunday the 1st of July. The aftermath of the sermon saw attacks on local Catholics and two alleged killings
The violence against Catholics in the Portadown area quickly spread. The victims, fleeing from their burning homes, spread panic throughout Ireland. The motive actuating this “Protestant” villainy, according to Jackson, became unmistakable when it was seen that it was the most improved farms, on the best land, which were first attacked, and whose occupants were first offered the alternative of “To hell or to Connaught”. Jackson continued: “Poor and struggling Catholic farmers scratching a living from a stony hill-top farm rarely, if ever, excited Protestant zeal even in the heart of Antrim”.
Several writers, according to John Mitchel, have alleged that the Catholics invited this conflict by a challenge sent to the Orangemen. Mitchel continues:
The “myth-version” of the 'Battle of the Diamond, suggests Jackson, is that a group of “peaceful” Protestants was set upon by a multitude of “cowardly” Catholics whom "the brave Protestants routed with great slaughter." The truth, vouched for by contemporary Protestant testimony, writes Jackson, is that a semi-secret assembly of Catholics in the hills was sniped persistently by Protestant sharpshooters; that this brought on random fighting, which lasted for several days. It was ended only after the intervention of a Protestant magistrate and a Catholic priest. The Catholics, it should be noted, were almost entirely unarmed, while the Protestants were an organised and armed force.
According to Robert Kee
's account, a large party of Defenders attacked a party of Peep-of-Day Boys and got the worst of it, leaving twenty or thirty corpses on the field. The incident, "which in itself constituted nothing new," was a historical landmark, since it led the Peep o’ Day Boys to reorganise under a new name, the Orange Society
.
Mr. Emmet describes the affair as such:
But the Orangemen, writes Mitchel, by no means confined themselves to mere forcible ejectment
of their enemies. He states that "many fearful murders were committed on the unresisting people; and what gives perhaps the clearest idea of the persecution is the fact that seven thousand persons were estimated in the next year to have been either killed or driven from their homes, in that one small county alone."
The Orange Order became an "organised conspiracy of all the most degenerate reactionaries" and were used as an instrument to break up the solidarity prompted by the United Irishmen,
and to replace the struggle for democratic advance by "disintegrating it into an embittered war of sect against sect, from which the only ones to profit were the Clare-Beresford clique in Dublin Castle and their hangers-on of every social grade."
R.H. Wallace state that the first Orangemen did not sympathise with the Peep-of-Day Boys or wreckers and never allowed them to join the Orange Institution. Mervyn Jess has stated that some Peep-of-Day Boys might have “slipped through the net” but if so they found themselves in a vastly different organisation. There is evidence according to Jess, that the Orange Order in fact evolved out of the Orange Boys society which had been formed in County Tyrone
in 1792 by James Wilson. Ruth Dudley Edwards notes that Wilson was present at the Battle of the Diamond and became one of the first Orangemen.
The Irish Volunteering
movement (set up in the late 18th century to defend Ireland from possible French attack) she says, was another source of members and inspiration to the early Orange Institution, and that Orangemen were among the first to contribute to repair funds for Catholic property damaged in the violence surrounding the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798
.
Shortly after the Order's establishment, the Governor of Armagh, Lord Gosford, gave his opinion of the new group to a meeting of magistrates: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country… the only crime is… profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges…" However, whoever the Governor believed were the “lawless banditti” they could not have been Orangemen according to Wallace, as there were no lodges in existence at the time of his speech. Against the background of the seditious activity of the United Irishmen, the government backed the Orange Order from 1796. Thomas Knox
, British military commander in Ulster, wrote in August 1796, "We must to a certain degree uphold them, for with all their licentiousness, on them we must rely for the preservation of our lives and properties should critical times occur."
In the Irish House of Commons, on the 20th of February, 1796, Henry Grattan
observed:
Defenders (Ireland)
The Defenders were a militant, vigilante agrarian secret society in 18th century Ireland, mainly Roman Catholic and from Ulster, who allied with the United Irishmen but did little during the rebellion of 1798.-Origin:...
and a Protestant faction including Peep o' Day Boys, Orange Boys and local tenant farmers that took place on 21 September 1795 near Loughgall
Loughgall
Loughgall is a small village and townland in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 285 people.Loughgall was named after a small nearby loch. The village is at the heart of the apple-growing industry and is surrounded by orchards. Along the village's main street...
, County Armagh
County Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The Protestants were the victors, killing between 4 and 30 Defenders. It led to the foundation of the Orange Order.
Background
County ArmaghCounty Armagh
-History:Ancient Armagh was the territory of the Ulaid before the fourth century AD. It was ruled by the Red Branch, whose capital was Emain Macha near Armagh. The site, and subsequently the city, were named after the goddess Macha...
, where the population was fairly evenly divided between Catholic and Protestant, had been for years the site of intermittent faction fighting between Protestant Peep-of-Day Boys and Catholic Defenders
Defenders (Ireland)
The Defenders were a militant, vigilante agrarian secret society in 18th century Ireland, mainly Roman Catholic and from Ulster, who allied with the United Irishmen but did little during the rebellion of 1798.-Origin:...
. This had subsided under the influence of United Irishmen agitation.
When the pro-Catholic reformer Earl FitzWilliam
William FitzWilliam, 4th Earl FitzWilliam
William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam PC , styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham's estates, making him one of the richest people in...
was appointed Viceroy, the Peep-of-Day Boys, after nearly two years of quiescence, suddenly resumed their activity. Jackson notes that it was “impossible to miss the connection between this fact and the lie deliberately circulated by the Clare-Beresford faction that Fitzwilliam was coming to replace Protestant ascendancy with Catholic ascendancy.”
The most reactionary Protestant magistrates in County Armagh took advantage of the renewed disturbances to search Catholic homes for “seditious literature”. The Peep-of-Day Boys also began again to search Catholic homes for concealed arms although it was now legal for Catholics to possess arms. Such activity brought fresh searches for evidence of “sedition” to be followed by a spread of anti-Catholic violence to areas previously peaceful.
In his evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee investigation into the Orange Order on July 10, 1835, James Christie described an orchestrated campaign of 'wrecking' Catholic homes by the 'Peep-o-day' and 'break-of-day boys' who were the precursors of the Orange Order. Christie, a Quaker, said:
"it was termed "wrecking" when the parties broke open the door and smashed everything that was capable of being broken in the house ... they threw the furniture out of the house smashed; and in other cases they set fire to the house and burnt it"
Christie testified that the 'wrecking' actually began in 1794 on the estates administered by James Verner, a Justice of the Peace who lived at Church-hill, on the Dungannon Rd, but that the greatest depredations committed against the Catholics were in the Spring of 1795, and on a lesser scale in 1796 - 97. He told of twelve to fourteen Catholic houses being burned down in one night just a mile or so from Portadown, at Battle Hill, in the spring of 1795 (See 'Two Hundred Years in the Citadel'
The Catholic Defenders, in retaliation, regularly attacked Protestant homes.
At a Sunday church service in Portadown in June 1795 a Rev. George Maunsell called on his congregation: " to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne
Battle of the Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thronesthe Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland...
in the true spirit of the institution" by attending a sermon to be given by a Rev. Devine of the Established Church at Drumcree on Sunday the 1st of July. The aftermath of the sermon saw attacks on local Catholics and two alleged killings
The violence against Catholics in the Portadown area quickly spread. The victims, fleeing from their burning homes, spread panic throughout Ireland. The motive actuating this “Protestant” villainy, according to Jackson, became unmistakable when it was seen that it was the most improved farms, on the best land, which were first attacked, and whose occupants were first offered the alternative of “To hell or to Connaught”. Jackson continued: “Poor and struggling Catholic farmers scratching a living from a stony hill-top farm rarely, if ever, excited Protestant zeal even in the heart of Antrim”.
Battle of the Diamond
This violence culminated, on September 21, 1795, in the incident which came to be known as the “Battle of the Diamond,” which has taken a front place in Orange Order folk memory ever since.Several writers, according to John Mitchel, have alleged that the Catholics invited this conflict by a challenge sent to the Orangemen. Mitchel continues:
the [Protestants], having abundance of arms, and being sure of the protection of the magistrates, were not slow to accept such an invitation; but nothing can be more absurd than to term the affair a 'battle'. Not one of the Orange party at the so-called 'Battle of the Diamond' was killed or wounded. Four or five Defenders were killed, and a proportionate number wounded; and this is the glorious battle that has been toasted at Orange banquets from that day to the present."A similar example of Orange propaganda was the 1860 newspaper report of an OUTRAGEOUS ATTACK ON ORANGEMEN AT DERRYMACASH CHAPEL, also in Co. Armagh. The subheading to the sensational report said '16 Roman Catholics Shot' and the report went on to say that a riot had taken place at Derrymacash Chapel when a parade of 70 Orangemen was attacked by 300 Catholics armed with turf spades and billhooks etc. The Protestant owned newspaper said:
The Catholics had blocked the road at Derrymacash Chapel and attacked the approaching Orangemen who in their defence, fired on the lawless mob, shooting down 16... of their cowardly assailants.... Seven Protestants have been arrested, but none of the attacking party
The “myth-version” of the 'Battle of the Diamond, suggests Jackson, is that a group of “peaceful” Protestants was set upon by a multitude of “cowardly” Catholics whom "the brave Protestants routed with great slaughter." The truth, vouched for by contemporary Protestant testimony, writes Jackson, is that a semi-secret assembly of Catholics in the hills was sniped persistently by Protestant sharpshooters; that this brought on random fighting, which lasted for several days. It was ended only after the intervention of a Protestant magistrate and a Catholic priest. The Catholics, it should be noted, were almost entirely unarmed, while the Protestants were an organised and armed force.
According to Robert Kee
Robert Kee
Robert Kee CBE is a British broadcaster, journalist and writer, known for his historical works on World War II and Ireland....
's account, a large party of Defenders attacked a party of Peep-of-Day Boys and got the worst of it, leaving twenty or thirty corpses on the field. The incident, "which in itself constituted nothing new," was a historical landmark, since it led the Peep o’ Day Boys to reorganise under a new name, the Orange Society
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
.
Mr. Emmet describes the affair as such:
The Defenders were speedily defeated with the loss of some few killed and left on the field of battle, besides the wounded, whom they carried away. The Catholics, after this, never attempted to make a stand, but the Orangemen commenced a persecution of the blackest dye. They would no longer permit a Catholic to exist within the country. They posted up on the cabins of these unfortunate victims this pithy notice, “To Hell or Connaught”, and appointed limited time in which the necessary removal of persons and property was to be made. If, after the expiration of that period, the notice had not been complied with, the Orangemen assembled destroyed the furniture, burned the habitations, and forced the ruined families to fly else where for shelter ... While these outrages were going on, the resident magistrates were not found to resist them, and in some instances were even more than inactive spectator.
But the Orangemen, writes Mitchel, by no means confined themselves to mere forcible ejectment
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of their enemies. He states that "many fearful murders were committed on the unresisting people; and what gives perhaps the clearest idea of the persecution is the fact that seven thousand persons were estimated in the next year to have been either killed or driven from their homes, in that one small county alone."
Aftermath
That same night September 21, 1795 a body of magistrates, squires, squireens, and parsons in County Armagh met together and formed the Mother Lodge of the Orange Society. An oath-bound secret society on the Masonic model was organised, which, in practice, "proved a fomenting centre, as well as a cloak of protection, for the organised knavery into which the Peep-of-Day Boys had degenerated."The Orange Order became an "organised conspiracy of all the most degenerate reactionaries" and were used as an instrument to break up the solidarity prompted by the United Irishmen,
and to replace the struggle for democratic advance by "disintegrating it into an embittered war of sect against sect, from which the only ones to profit were the Clare-Beresford clique in Dublin Castle and their hangers-on of every social grade."
R.H. Wallace state that the first Orangemen did not sympathise with the Peep-of-Day Boys or wreckers and never allowed them to join the Orange Institution. Mervyn Jess has stated that some Peep-of-Day Boys might have “slipped through the net” but if so they found themselves in a vastly different organisation. There is evidence according to Jess, that the Orange Order in fact evolved out of the Orange Boys society which had been formed in County Tyrone
County Tyrone
Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Londonderry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Londonderry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610-1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on...
in 1792 by James Wilson. Ruth Dudley Edwards notes that Wilson was present at the Battle of the Diamond and became one of the first Orangemen.
The Irish Volunteering
Irish Volunteers (18th century)
The Irish Volunteers were a militia in late 18th century Ireland. The Volunteers were founded in Belfast in 1778 to defend Ireland from the threat of foreign invasion when regular British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight across the globe during the American War of Independence...
movement (set up in the late 18th century to defend Ireland from possible French attack) she says, was another source of members and inspiration to the early Orange Institution, and that Orangemen were among the first to contribute to repair funds for Catholic property damaged in the violence surrounding the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...
.
Shortly after the Order's establishment, the Governor of Armagh, Lord Gosford, gave his opinion of the new group to a meeting of magistrates: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country… the only crime is… profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges…" However, whoever the Governor believed were the “lawless banditti” they could not have been Orangemen according to Wallace, as there were no lodges in existence at the time of his speech. Against the background of the seditious activity of the United Irishmen, the government backed the Orange Order from 1796. Thomas Knox
Thomas Knox
Thomas Knox was a Scottish prelate from the 17th century. The son of Andrew Knox, Bishop of the Isles, he received crown provision to the Deanery of the Isles on 4 August 1617...
, British military commander in Ulster, wrote in August 1796, "We must to a certain degree uphold them, for with all their licentiousness, on them we must rely for the preservation of our lives and properties should critical times occur."
In the Irish House of Commons, on the 20th of February, 1796, Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician and member of the Irish House of Commons and a campaigner for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century. He opposed the Act of Union 1800 that merged the Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain.-Early life:Grattan was born at...
observed:
"...that of these outrages he had received the most dreadful accounts. Their object was, the extermination of all the Catholics of that county". He described it as " a persecution conceived in the bitterness of bigotry—carried on with the most ferocious barbarity by a banditti, who, being of the religion of the state, had committed, with greater audacity and confidence the most horrid murders, and had proceeded from robbery and massacre to extermination! They had repealed by their own authority all the laws lately passed in favour of the Catholics had established in the place of those laws the inquisition of a mob, resembling Lord George Gordon's fanatics—equalling them in outrage, and surpassing them far in perseverance and success. These insurgents call themselves Orange Boys or Protestant Boys, that is, a banditti of murderers, committing massacre in the name of God, and exercising despotic power in the name of liberty.
Sources
- Ireland Her Own, T. A. Jackson, Lawrence & Wishart, Fp 1947, Rp 1991, ISBN 0-85315-735-9
- History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the Present Time (2 Vol), John Mitchel, James Duffy 1869
- The Most Distressful Country, Vol I, The Green Flag, Robert Kee, Quartet Books, Fp 1972, Rp 1983, ISBN 0-7043-3089-X
- The 1798 Rebellion: An Illustrated History, Thomas Bartlett , Kevin Dawson, Daire Keogh, Roberts & Rinehart, 1998 ISBN 1-57098-255-4
- The United Irishmen: Their Lives and Times (Vol 1), Richard R. Madden, James Duffy (Dublin 1857)
- The Faithful Tribe, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Harper Collin, London, 2000
- The Orange Order, Mervyn Jess, The O’Brian Press Ltd. Dublin, 2007
- History of the Orange Order: The Formative Years 1795-1798, R.H. Wallace, GOLI Publications, Belfast, 1994
- The Catholics of Ulster: A History, Marianne Elliott, Basic Books (New York 2001).