Having been reminded that I have Drennans in my ancestry, it's been serendipitous to fall upon the following references in recent reading.
William Drennan (1754-1820) is best known today for his involvement with the Society of United Irishmen, but following his arrest in May 1793 he stepped back from direct participation. His Letters of Orellana (1784) were what brought him to public attention, published in the Belfast News-Letter. Letter VI, directed to King George III, contains rich references to William, Prince of Orange, his 1688 Glorious Revolution and 1689 Bill of Rights:
"... To reform the constitution is in this case to restore it. But little studious of names in a subject so deeply interesting, we are ready to call the attempt to renovate our constitution an innovation, if the same term be applied to those changes in our government which form the brightest pages in the annals of its history to Magna Charta, to the Bill of Rights, to that religious revolution distinguished, by the name of Reformation: and to what we shall ever deem a glorious innovation on the usage of the realm - the settlement of the illustrious House of Hanover on the throne of these kingdoms.
At the same time in which we lay our grievances before our Sovereign and our Father, we call upon the shades of an Alfred, an Edward, and a William, to hover at this instant over your honoured head, and to pour down upon you: the inspiration of their just, generous, and extensive counsels. We call upon Him who first founded the constitution, and mixed the genius of so many nations into a rich tide of personal valour and public glory, upon Him, who carried on the glorious work, tempered monarchy with popular privilege, and made the greatest happiness of the greatest number the policy of the state; upon Him, who rescued this constitution from perdition, and wrote upon his flag those golden words, “I will maintain the liberties of the empire”.
We call upon you, illustrious Sovereign, in their great names, to vindicate your crown and to save your people. There are certain eras in the history of this nation when the elastic spirit of freedom struggles to throw off the incumbent weight which oppresses it, and which the lapse of time, or the abuses of the constitution had accumulated with slow and almost imperceptible additions. When a James, or a Charles, happens to mount the throne in these critical periods, they disobey or shut their eyes against the signal of Heaven press the people with as still heavier hand, and force the tortured nation into convulsion. Yet the crimes of the prince become the immediate or remote means of general good, and tyrants themselves, the unwilling instruments of divine benevolence. But, blessed be God, he often condescends to signalize such momentous periods by sending as his messengers patriot kings, who unite with the nation in bringing about a bloodless revolution; and thus restoring the empire to its original grandeur. In such a period appeared the immortal WILLIAM, whose conquest was without a groan, and whose triumph was without a war.
That great and good monarch George the First, seconded in: the same manner the designs of Heaven, and rescued the crown once more from a race that polluted it It is yours, royal Sir, to rise not only above the crowd of kings, but above even these our most illustrious monarchs, and to become our greatest deliverer. In your power is it placed, O King! to usher in a new order of things, to perfect the glories of the constitution, and to make the name of George the Third, luminous in the historic page to remotest generations..."
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In 1795, in A Letter to His Excellency Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord Lieutenant Of Ireland (page 41, online here) Drennan also referred to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and John Locke, and their influence upon the American Revolution of 1776:
"...You will be told , that the people in the North of Ireland are deeply infected with what are called French principles ... I do believe them most obstinately attached to the principles of Locke, as put in practice at the (Glorious) revolution... ... the very same principles of Locke were illustrated in the plains of America..."
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In 1810, Drennan wrote a biography of renowned Whig Alexander Henry Haliday (see previous post here) again using vocabulary that is most often associated with the Glorious Revolution, which the Whig Club of Dublin which was founded in 1789 had avowed to 'support and maintain' (see previous post here).
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It has been a surprise to me to find these connections, which I have stumbled into as an offshoot of reading about the links between 1688 and 1776, and of the forthcoming booklet about 'The Break of Killyleagh' of 1689. These uncovered histories don't slot neatly into our 2024 assumptions, or of how people like Drennan, Henry Grattan and Archibald Hamilton Rowan are usually portrayed in our times. But that isn't the issue – our present-day categories, and manipulated simplifications, are the issue.
These were intelligent, educated and committed people living and writing in complex times. Be wary of those today who too easily mesh the complex past with the agendas of the present.
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