ly farmhouses, the intimidation of
witnesses and the mutilation of cattle. Again, we see all through the
history of Irish secret societies that their organization has been so
splendid that the ordinary law has been powerless against them; for
witnesses will not give evidence and juries will not convict if they
know that to do so will mean certain ruin and probable death; and yet
those same societies have always possessed one element of weakness:
however terrible their oaths of secrecy have been, the Government
have never had the slightest difficulty in finding out, through
their confidential agents, everything that has taken place at their
meetings, and what their projects are.

As early as 1785 there had been two societies carrying on something
like civil war on a small scale in the north. How they originated,
is a matter of dispute; but at any rate before they had long been in
existence, the religious element became supreme--as it does sooner
or later in every Irish movement; whatever temporary alliances may be
formed for other reasons, religion always ultimately becomes the line
of cleavage. In this case, the "Peep of Day Boys" were Protestants,
the "Defenders" Roman Catholic. Some of the outrages committed by
the Defenders were too horrible to put in print; many Roman Catholic
families fled the country on account of the treatment which they
received from the Peep of Day Boys, and took refuge among their
co-religionists in the south.

But now a greater crisis was at hand. The terrible upheaval of the
French Revolution was shaking European society to its foundation. The
teaching of Paine and Voltaire had borne fruit; the wildest socialism
was being preached in every land. Ulster had shown sympathy with
Republican ideas at the time of the American War of Independence; and
now a large number of the Presbyterians of Belfast eagerly accepted
the doctrines of Jacobinism. Nothing can sound more charmingly
innocent than the objects of the United Irish Society as put forward
publicly in 1791; the members solemnly and religiously pledged
themselves to use all their influence to obtain an impartial and
adequate representation of the Irish nation in Parliament; and as a
means to this end to endeavour to secure the co-operation of Irishmen
of all religious persuasions. Some writers have tried to make out that
if the Relief Act of 1793 had been extended in 1795 by another Act
enabling Roman Catholics to become Members of Parliam