The Northern Whig Club, Belfast, 1790 – "steady friends of the Revolution", celebrating the Revolution of 1688

So here's another treasure trove to challenge present-day preconceptions. On page 348 of his Historical Collections Relative to the Town of Belfast (online here) Henry Joy (DIB entry here) reprinted an article from the Belfast News Letter, on how Belfast marked the second anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille in 1789, which they connected back to both the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution of 1776.

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COMMEMORATION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
July 14, 1791

"...The Inhabitants of Belfast and its neighbourhood the more strongly to mark their abhorrence of despotism their love of liberty and their attachment to their brethren of mankind dedicated this day to the commemoration of the greatest event in human annals commemoration of the greatest event in human annals.

In the striking serious and splendid manner which they adopted for celebrating the destruction of the BASTILE they were actuated by the same principle which in the last century taught them to rejoice in the dethronement of a despot James II by the Revolution of 1688 and attached them to the line now on the throne by the same principle that led them to deprecate an unjust war on their then fellow subjects in America that prompted them to take the lead in forming a Volunteer army that made them declare their sentiments in the most decided tone on the subject of restoring to imperial Ireland her independency as a Sovereign State and that determined them to assert the necessity of purifying the tainted parts of the Constitution by giving the People their due influence in the legislation of this kingdom..."

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And, below, are just two of a number of newspaper reports from the British Newspaper Archive which show the Northern Whig Club celebrating the Glorious Revolution of 1688, even holding a meal in the Donegall Arms on the 4th November to mark William of Orange's birthday. They also commemorated 1776, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

In this list of the club's original members from April 1790 there are quite a few who have only been remembered to popular history as having been United Irishmen. Even in this acclaimed book, no mention is made of these wider connections.

Yet again it seems that there are important, missing, chapters in our history. To change your reality you have to change your story. More to follow...