Loyal Londonderry awarded freedom of city to the man who foiled Wolfe Tone’s landing at Lough Swilly

A source of pride for some. For others, including DUP MP Gregory Campbell, their involvement is a convenient propaganda tool manipulated by latter day republicans such as Sinn Féin.

After Rev David Latimer recently decided to address Sinn Féin’s Ard Fheis in Belfast, Mr Campbell commented: “I would be surprised if Sinn Féin did not try to make use of the support given by Presbyterian ministers during the rebellion of 1798 and their support in that era for the Irish republican cause. That is very, very unfortunate.”

Presbyterian Ministers of the time like William Steel Dickson certainly did support the inchoate Irish republican cause espoused by the Society of United Irishmen, as did his celebrated co-religionists William Drennan and Henry Joy McCracken amongst others.

In fact nine of the eleven men who resolved to unite the people of Ireland and maintain a balance against English influence in order to preserve liberty and commerce at the first meeting of the United Irishmen in 1791 in Belfast were Presbyterians. The others were Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell, Anglicans from Dublin and Cork respectively.

But despite the early involvement of all degrees of Irish Protestantism - Prelacy and Presbytery both, though mostly the latter - and the role played by Presbyterian leaders in the uprisings in Down, Antrim and Dublin from May 1798, this involvement must also be acknowledged as the action of a minority.

The view of Londonderry Protestants, for example, appears to have been unanimously loyalist judging from the attitude of their political leaders sitting on the Corporation at the time.

One measure of this can be witnessed in the fact that not only did Londonderry not rise - it had one of the lowest levels of compensation claims for lost property in Ireland (3 claims) for example - but following an eleventh hour failure to land a French expeditionary force in Donegal, the Londonderry corporation nailed its colours firmly to the mast.

Revolutionary France - at war with Britain since 1793 - had been persuaded by Wolfe Tone and others to lend its support to the rebels.

So in August 1798 over 1,000 French soldiers commanded by General Humbert landed in Mayo. After some success and the declaration of the “Republic of Connaught” Humbert’s force was defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck in September 1798.

But it was when Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart’s attempt to land a further 3,000 soldiers at Lough Swilly in October 1798 was spectacularly defeated by Sir John Borlase Warren that Londonderry Corporation decided to bestow the freedom of the city on the victorious commander.

The Bompart expedition may have been the sting of the dying rebel wasp after the rising had earlier been subdued in Ulster, Leinster and Connaught but Londonderry’s gratitude towards the naval commander’s decisive defeat of the forces of the First French Republic was heightened by the fact that had Bompart succeeded in landing at Lough Swilly his first design would surely have been Londonderry.

Warren’s victory came after the furious Battle of Tory Island on October 12, 1798 between French and British squadrons off the northwest coast.

During this action Warren’s squadron inflicted 700 casualties, captured seven ships and 2,400 prisoners, including the United Irish leader Wolfe Tone, who would later be taken prisoner at Buncrana when the ship upon which he had travelled with the French, the Hoche, eventually surrendered.

Warren led the squadron aboard his flagship HMS Canada. He was aided by Edward Thornbrough (HMS Robust), Michael de Courcy (HMS Magnanime), George Countess (HMS Ethalion), Charles Herbert (HMS Amelia), Graham Moore (HMS Melampus), Thomas Byard (HMS Foudroyant) and Philip Charles Durham (HMS Anson).

The vanquished French fleet - some captured, some scattered - was led by Bompart, accompanied by Wolfe Tone in French naval dress, aboard the Hoche.

The other commanders of the French fleet were Martin-Antoine Lacouture (Sémillante), Mathieu-Charles Bergevin (Romaine), Louis-Léon Jacob (Bellone), Jean-François Legrand (Immortalité), Adrien-Joseph Segond (Loire), Desiré-Marie Maistral (Hoche), Léonore Deperonne (Coquille), Nicolas Clément de la Roncière (Embuscade), Jean-Pierre Bargeau (Résolue) and Jean-Marie-Pierre Labastard (Biche).

Five days after the Battle of Tory Mayor of Londonderry John Darcus on October 17, 1798, summoned a Common Council meeting and according to the minutes of the Londonderry Corporation told the Council he had called them together to consider the propriety of giving the freedom of the city to Sir John Borlase Warren.

He also suggested bestowing “the freedom of this City to the several captains who fought under him and defeated the French Fleet the 12th October 1798.”

It was: “Ordered that the freedom of this City be presented to the said Sir John Borlase Warren in gold box the value not to exceed thirty guineas.

“Also to the several captains of his Majesty’s ships who fought so Gloriously under him, be each of them admitted to their freedom - Common Council.”

The minutes show that once again at a pivotal moment in Ireland’s history, as in 1689, Londonderry had made its stand.

During the Siege its citizens had remained staunch supporters of an earlier European revolutionary, William of Orange, who in 1688 had launched his successful invasion of England to establish “a free and lawful Parliament.”

A century later, however, they were having no truck with those other European revolutionaries, the French republicans.

This was in contrast to some of their countrymen in Down, Antrim, Belfast and Dublin, although the city was once more embroiled in a wider European revolutionary war.

Not long after Mayor Darcus recorded the Council’s, this time loyalist attitude for posterity, Wolfe Tone would be temporarily held in Derry Gaol before being transported to Dublin to be tried for treason.

The failed Bompart expedition was also the last attempt by the French Navy to invade Britain or Ireland. The Hoche was renamed HMS Donegal soon afterwards and the 1798 rebellion was over.