Henry Joy McCracken

Henry Joy McCracken was born in High street, Belfast into two of the city's most prominent Presbyterian industrial families. He was the son of a shipowner, Captain John McCracken and Ann Joy, daughter of Francis Joy, of French Huguenot descent. The Joy family made their money in linen manufacture and founded the Belfast News Letter. Henry was the older brother of political activist and social reformer Mary Ann McCracken, with whom he shared an interest in Irish traditional culture.

In 1792, he helped organise the Belfast Harp Festival which gathered aged harpists from around Ireland, and helped preserve the Irish airs by having them transcribed by Edward Bunting.[1] Bunting, who lodged in the McCracken's Rosemary Lane home, was a classically trained musician.

McCracken became interested in democratic, and ultimately republican, politics from an early age. He was drawn to the Society of the United Irishmen formed in October 1791 by men with which he and his family had been associated in Belfast through the Rosemary Street Presbyterian churches and the Irish Volunteer militia. While his name does not appear in early records, he was in the confidence of the Society's executive committee from the outset.[2]

By the time McCracken formally took the United Irish pledge (or "test") on 24 March 1795 to "persevere in endeavouring to form a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of every religious persuasion", and "to obtain an equal, full and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland", the Society was abandoning its hopes for parliamentary reform. It was just week since the reform-minded Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after just 100 days in office, and just four days before trade in Belfast and Dublin shut down in "sullen indignation" at this departure.[3] Under the newly repressive regime of Lord Camden, a decided opponent of Catholic emancipation and of all other concessions, thoughts turned increasingly toward the prospect of a French-assisted insurrection.

In June 1795, with three other members of the movement's Northern Executive, Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilson and Robert Simms, McCracken met with Theobald Wolfe Tone who was en route to exile in the United States (and France). At McArt's fort atop Cave Hill overlooking Belfast they swore the celebrated oath "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence'".[4]

Working parallel to the "uniting" efforts of Father James Coigly,[5] during the Armagh Disturbanes McCracken and other emissaries from Belfast travelled extensively in an effort to counter sectarian tensions with the Society's republican programme. For a time he lived in County Armagh, working with Charles Teeling amongst the Defenders (and ranging as far south as King's County), urging them to join the united movement and binding himself in substantial sums to meet the expenses of those hauled before biased magistrates by their Protestant neighbours.[6]

Nearer home, in Belfast and its hinterland in Down and Antrim, McCracken worked with Jemmy Hope organising among Presbyterian tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers. He also undertook the fraught task of seducing government militia and of carrying information between Belfast and Dublin.[7]

In September 1796 Lord Castlereagh personally presented Neilson, Russell, Teeling and five other prominent United men with warrants for their arrest and pursued McCracken. He was seized on 10 October and lodged with the others in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. Serious illness, however, permitted his release on bail a little more than a year later, in December 1797.[8]

The north did not respond to the call from Dublin and the south to rise on 23 May 1798. In Antrim, Robert Simms, resigned his county command rather than proceed without greater certainty of French assistance. Seizing the initiative, McCracken was elected his replacement by local delegates, and he proclaimed the "First Year of Liberty" on 6 June. There were widespread local musters but before they could coordinate, most were burying their arms and returning to their farms and workplaces. The issue had been decided by the following evening. McCracken, commanding a body of four to six thousand, failed, with heavy losses, to seize Antrim Town where he had planned to surprise a meeting of the county's magistrates.

Catholic Defenders turned out, but in the march upon the town tensions with the Presbyterian United Irish may have caused some desertions and a delay in McCracken's planned assault.[9] The Crown forces meanwhile prepared and were able themselves to surprise McCracken with reinforcements from their main base in Lisburn.

On 15 June McCracken, together with his brother William, James Hope, James Orr, James Dickey and about 50 other rebel survivors took refuge on the slopes of Slemish, near Ballymena. There they received news of the defeat of the Down insurgency at Ballynahinch on the 12th and, under threat of attack from Scottish Fencibles, dispersed.[10]

McCracken sister, Mary Ann, met with him twice while he was on the run, supplying him with money and clothes. On 8 July she received news that he was in Carrickfergus Gaol: where he had been seized with two companions hoping to embark on a foreign vessel. Court-martialled,[11] he refused clemency in return for naming the Robert Simms. His last request of his sister, was that she convey to his friend Thomas Russell (who, five years later, was to suffer the same fate) the simple message that he had done his "duty".[12] McCracken was hanged in the Corn Market, Belfast (land his grandfather had donated to the town) on 17 July 1798, aged 30.[8]

• Hamilton, Thomas (1893). "McCracken, Henry Joy" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co.