Battle of the Diamond

The Battle of the Diamond was a violent confrontation between the Catholic Defenders and the Protestant Peep O'Day Boys that took place on September 21, 1795 near Loughgall, County Armagh, Ireland. The Peep O'Day Boys were the victors, killing between 4 and 30 Defenders. It led to the foundation of the Orange Order.

Background

The background to the so called "Battle of the Diamond" [Robert Kee, Vol I, pg.71] was the increase of democratic republicanism stimulated by the United Irishmen and the Catholic Committee an alliance which endangered the whole body of the landed gentry. This fear to their privileged position was also compounded by the proposals of the English Moderate Whigs with concessions to the upper stratum of the Catholic Community, and that the English “Liberals” proposed to buy over the wealthier and more moderate Catholics. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 142-3]

The “Castle clique” of the Protestant Ascendancy retorted "by rousing up the more ignorant, debased, corrupt, and reactionary stratum," according to T. A. Jackson. The objective was to create disunity and disorder under pretence of passion for the Protestant religion. This view was shared by John Mitchel “The chief object of the Government and its agents he writes, "was now to invent and disseminate fearful rumours of intended massacres of all the Protestant people by the Catholics." [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392] As a result of the efforts and influence of the United Irishmen, sectarian divisions were being replaced by political unity. Religion therefor was the last option left to the reactionaries, and to stock the traditional fear of the Papacy and hostility to the Catholic religion. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 142-3] [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392] Dr. Daniel Owen Madden says of this period: — “Efforts were made to infuse into the mind of the Protestant feelings of distrust to his Catholic fellow-countrymen. Popish plots and conspiracies were fabricated with a practical facility, which some influential authorities conceived it no degradation to stoop to; and alarming reports of these dark confederations were circulated with a restless assiduity.” [ Dr. Daniel Owen Madden, cited in John Mitchel’s History of Ireland]

In County Armagh, where the population was fairly evenly divided between the sects, there had for years been the sight of intermittent faction fighting between Peep-of-Day Boys and Catholic Defenders. This had subsided under the influence of United Irish agitation. [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392] 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.” [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 142-3]

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. The Defenders’ re-organised and began beating off The Peep-of-Day Boys attacks and every successful defence, would then be described as another “Catholic outrage.” Every successful defence brought a fresh search for evidences of “sedition” to be followed by a spread of anti-Catholic violence to areas previously peaceful. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 142-3]

Within weeks a regular pogrom was in force in Armagh and the neighbouring counties. 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 “Hell or Connacht”. [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.393] 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. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5]

Battle of the Diamond

This pogrom artificially worked-up culminated, on September 21, 1795, in the incident which came to be known as the “Battle of the Diamond,” and which has taken a front place in Orange mythology ever since. [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.393]

Several writers according to John Mitchel have alleged that the Catholics invited this conflict by a challenge sent to the Orangemen. Mitchel continues "the latter, having abundance of arms, and being sure of the protection of the magistrates, were not slow to accept such au invitation; but nothing can be more absurd than to term the affair a battle. Not one of the Orange party 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." [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.393]

The “myth-version” suggests Jackson is that a body 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. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5] The Catholics, it should be noted, were almost entirely unarmed, while the Protestants were an organised and armed force. [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392]

According to Robert Kee's account, a large party of Defenders attacked a party of Peep O’Day Boys and got the worst of it, leaving twenty or thirty corpses on the field. The incident, "which in itself constituted nothing new," is a historical landmark, according to Kee, since it led the Peep o’ Day Boys to reorganise under a new name, the Orange Society. [Robert Kee, Vol I, pg.71] [The colour orange having long been a popular symbol with which to celebrate the victory of William of Orange over James II a century before.Kee cited]

Mr. Emmet describes the affair, “ 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 in 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.” Mr. Emmet adds, “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.” [Pieces of Irish History, Emmet, cited by John Mitchel, History of Ireland Vol I, pg. 393] [For the time being the Orangemen remained a crude organization, successors to the Peep o’ Day Boy turning Catholics out of their homes with great brutality that often ended in murder. An alternative was to affix to the doors of Catholics such threats as ‘To Hell — or Connaught’ or ‘Go to Hell —Connaught won’t receive you — fire and faggot. Will Thresham and John Thrustout.” Those Catholics thus ‘papered’, as it was called. seeing the barbarous punishments inflicted on those who did not obey, usually took the hint and left for Connaught. Kee cited]

Just as peace had been restored, and the Protestants were ready to march away, a new group of Catholics arrived, to the aid their fellow Catholics. The newcomers, in the confusion, attacked the Protestants before the situation could be explained to them and the incident was then brought to an end. [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5]

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." [Mr. Plowden, cited by Mitchel and who was as hostile to the Defenders as any Orangeman, says from five to seven thousand. Also cited are O’Connor, Emmet, and MacNeven, in their Memoirs of the Union, say seven thousand driven from their homes.] [Robert Kee, Vol I, pg.71]

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. [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392] Under a pretext of fervour for law, order, and the Protestant religion 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." [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5]

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, [John Mitchel, Vol I, pg.392] 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." [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5]

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, 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." [ Thomas Bartlett , Kevin Dawson, Daire Keogh ,pg. 44]

Jackson evaluating the Orange Society writes "it was founded to disrupt and destroy the United Irishmen, and the Defenders functioned, the one as a great liberating force, and the other as a tenants’ protection league and an agrarian trade union." The Orange lodges functioned as a "union-smashing" force, operating in the interest of an oligarchical clique threatened by a revolutionary-democratic advance. They constituted Jackson contends, "the first Fascist body known in history." [ T. A. Jackson, pg. 144-5]

References

ources

* "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 1570982554