ommenced agrarian
outrages in Ulster, called respectively Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders.
As the Catholics sided with one party, and the Protestants with another,
it merged eventually into a religious feud. The former faction assumed
the appellation of Protestant Boys, and at last became the Orange
Society, whose atrocities, and the rancorous party-spirit which they so
carefully fomented, was one of the principal causes of the rebellion of
1798. The Catholics had assumed the name of Defenders, from being
obliged to band in self-defence; but when once a number of uneducated
persons are leagued together, personal feeling and strong passions will
lead to acts of violence, which the original associates would have
shrunk from committing.

Pitt was again thwarted by the Irish Parliament on the Regency question,
when the insanity of George III. required the appointment of his heir as
governor of England. The Marquis of Buckingham, who was then Lord
Lieutenant, refused to forward their address; but the members sent a
deputation of their own. This nobleman was open and shameless in his
acts of bribery, and added L13,000 a-year to the pension list, already
so fatally oppressive to the country. In 1790 he was succeeded by the
Earl of Westmoreland, and various clubs were formed; but the Catholics
were still excluded from them all. Still the Catholics were an immense
majority nationally; the French Revolution had manifested what the
people could do; and the rulers of the land, with such terrible examples
before their eyes, could not for their own sakes afford to ignore
Catholic interests altogether. But the very cause which gave hope was
itself the means of taking hope away. The action of the Irish Catholics
was paralyzed through fear of the demonlike cruelties which even a
successful revolution might induce; and the general fear which the
aristocratic party had of giving freedom to the uneducated classes,
influenced them to a fatal silence. Again the middle classes were left
without leaders, who might have tempered a praiseworthy nationality with
a not less praiseworthy prudence, and which might have saved both the
nation and some of its best and bravest sons from fearful suffering. A
Catholic meeting was held in Dublin, on the 11th of February, 1791, and
a resolution was passed to apply to Parliament for relief from their
disabilities. This was in truth the origin of the United Irishmen. For
the first time Catholics and Protestant