On The Trail of the United Irishmen of Belfast

From Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators swearing an oath in the Duck and Drake to the Great Train Robbery being planned in Belgravia’s Star Tavern, the history of pubs and plotting as long as the history of the drinking den itself. The pub was a place that subversives could hide in plain sight, particularly if the proprietor was sympathetic and could forewarn if any authorities came poking around.

“The public house was usually the meeting place for political groups from the humblest of journeymen combinations to the aristocratic Whig clubs”
~The Politics of Consumption in Ireland, Martyn J. Powell

Even today, smaller political groupings will regularly meet in the upstairs or backrooms of pubs. In Ireland, a rebellion that was gestated in the backroom of various pubs in Belfast set forth a chain of events that have defined the last two decades on the island.

The United Irishmen rebellion of the 1790s is one of the most personally fascinating chapters of Ireland’s colourful history. Despite being little over 200 years ago (and just over a century before partition) the events of the uprising sound almost alien to someone like myself who grew up in a Northern Ireland of binaries and certainties, where, with very few exceptions, you could box people as British/protestant/unionist/loyalist or Irish/catholic/nationalist/republican.  The area I grew up in was almost exclusively protestant, with the BBC and the Union flag (to give two examples) part of everyday living and RTE and the Irish tricolour being almost foreign concepts to me – despite being geographically closer and on the same pile of dirt. Yet only a few miles away in West Belfast this was completely reversed. I did not know who the Irish Taoiseach was until Bertie Ahern started playing a role in the Northern Ireland peace process and yet I always knew the name of the UK Prime Minister, the US President and their opposition. The reality is that my generation (born in the 1980s) grew up in a segregated culture and I occupied a different world from people my own age who grew up in a predominantly Irish Nationalist identifying area where everyone is reared on RTE, Gaelic games and the Irish language. The segregation and polarisation is so total that its startling to dig into the history of the United Irishmen rebellion and learn that this band of Irish republican radicals were not only mostly protestant, but Presbyterian (the denomination of my family, a denomination almost uniformly unionist these days) and that at one point the group controlled a vast area including Mid and North County Down, the nowadays as-British-as-Finchley (to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher) area I grew up in.

To me, the United Irishmen still seems like a fantastical fairytale, an alternative history so incongruous to today’s received wisdom and cultural norms. But it did happen and many of the places it happened are places I am on a regular basis, streets I walk on, buildings I go past, pubs I drink in. Pubs are a regular feature in the history of this group of radicals, where they formed, where they met, where they stored weapons and where they hid while soldiers were in pursuit of them.  So in order to get a feel for the history, to take in the events and make it seem real to me, I visited many of the spots in Belfast that played their part in the history of this storied rebellion.

Towards the end of the 18th century members of the Irish Patriot Party, inspired by the French Revolution and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Rights of Man’, began to seek parliamentary reform in Ireland. They wished to move away from the monarchic regime and towards a more democratic system which enfranchised a greater amount of the population. An Irish branch of the Whigs were formed however some pushed for even more radical change and broke off into secret, militant societies.  The Belfast branch of the United Irishmen was formed on October 14 1791. It was here that the most radical arm of this society existed, consisting of legendary names such as Thomas Russell, Theobald Wolfe Tone, William Steel Dickson and Henry Joy McCracken, names that are commemorated on blue plaques in different parts of the city of Belfast. The Society themselves are commemorated outside Kelly’s Cellars, the only one of their reputed meeting places which still exists in some form. However there are many other locations around the city that are associated with them, as noted by Powell “Taverns and alehouses were central to United Irish recruitment and proliferation.” More than anything though,  a recurring theme in their story is their love of drink:

“As any reader of Wolfe Tone’s diary knows, both he and his friend Thomas Russell were fond of a drink and no strangers to hangovers. The informer William Bird complained of his United Irish confreres “that they seldom say much till they are nearly drunk, and by the time I get them in that plight, I am little better myself. And tho’ they were to open their hearts ever so liberally, I stand a fair chance of forgetting it by morning.” Nor, in the eighteenth century – if the prisoner’s friends or family could afford it – did gaol (jail) entail total abstinence. Mary Ann McCracken scolded her brother for drinking too much in Kilmainham.”
~ Jim Smyth, Dublin Review of Books

Tone’s diaries paint the picture of a man who rarely had a sober day and many entries read little more than the ramblings of a joyous drunk.

“Huzza! God bless everybody! Stanislas Augustus! Geo Washington! Beau jour! ...Generally drunk. Broke my glass thumping on the table. Home, god knows how, or when…" "On looking at Hamilton Rowan, he’s got four eyes.”
~The Diaries of Theobald Wolfe Tone

The Society’s chief propagandist and editor of The Northern Star Samuel Neilson also had a somewhat strong relationship with alcohol as we will come to later. As noted earlier, it wasn't an unusual thing for subversive organisations to meet in pubs and the Society’s biographer Robert R. Madden noted:

“In those times, all the business of the country societies was conducted in public houses: and men entered into solemn engagements, involving consequences of awful moment to their country and to themselves, in the midst of scenes ill calculated for cool deliberation.”
~The Lives and Times of the Society of the United Irishmen, R. R. Madden

Madden had a point. Over time the Society became riddled with informers and you can't help but feel that their guard was very much low at these meetings where they would eventually be discussing treason and rebellion.

Many of these pubs sadly no longer exist including almost certainly their original meeting place where they formed – although no-one is entirely certain which pub was the first. Most historians agree that it was in a pub in one of Belfast’s narrow entries that run between some of the well-known streets in the city, with the most likely being Crown Tavern in Crown Entry - not to be confused with the more famous Nicholson’s run Crown Bar on Great Victoria Street. Little is known about it but at that first meeting there were 28 members present:

“Tone dined with Neilson and the two men walked to the Crown Tavern off High Street for the meeting”
The Belfast Jacobin, Kenneth Dawson

Crown Entry is one of a number narrow entries which are a remnant of Old Belfast, right from the founding of the city. When Belfast’s High Street was a canal, thirsty sailors would be able to disembark and straight down the one of the entries looking for a drink. They used to be an absolute hive of activity, full of old taverns and such and it was in these that much of the United Irishmen’s plotting went on. The revolutionary air around them was clearly infectious as signs commemorating some of the Society’s revolutionary heroes began popping up outside some of these taverns.

Crown Entry

“The fact the United Irishmen met in pubs and doubtless secured support within Ireland’s hostelries was reflected in changes in pub names. After the American and French revolutions, pub signs were adorned with names like Dr Franklin, Mirabeau and General Dumouriez.”
~The Politics of Consumption in Ireland, Martyn Powell

One of the most famous taverns frequented by the Society was The Benjamin Franklin Tavern in Sugarhouse Entry (connecting Waring Street and High Street), bearing a sign of the eponymous American above the door and at that time run by a lady called Peggy Barclay.

"What a house was Peggy's in the entry...Dr Franklin, awful and pompous, stood in a swinging frame above The door telling all visitors, in my humble opinion, to drink, and to be merry, which they did...The fertile oyster beds of Carrick and Comber supplied the dainties; and in all Ireland there was no finer rum to be found than that hidden in Peggy's cellar. "
~ Visitor's comments (sourced from 'Historic Pubs of Belfast, Gary Law)

The entry was so called after the sugar refinery and another tavern in the entry was known as the Sugar Loaf Inn. After the Society was banned, they met in pubs under cover names and in Dr Franklin’s the Belfast Society met under the name ‘The Muddler’s Club’

“The Muddler’s club," of Belfast, held at a public house in "Sugar House Entry," was resorted a good deal by strangers on coming from the count and by townsmen of the middle class. " The rules the club," Hope says, " were set in a frame, and on the chimney-piece every evening. Its ostensible business was jovial amusement, its real one, establishing the connection of the Society of United Irishmen”
~The Lives and Times of the United Irishmen, R.R. Madden

 The Muddler’s Club were reportedly betrayed by one of the staff, Bell Martin from Portaferry (a mistress of Lord Castlereagh as it turned out) who gave the names of members of the Society who had infiltrated the Monaghan Militia. Members of the society including McCracken were in the house of her lover Robert McCrea. Martin was sent to the tavern to retrieve some ‘cherries.’ This was code for musket balls which she brought back wrapped in a handkerchief.

The Belfast Newsletter states that "she rendered important services to Colonel Barber by giving information of soldiers of the Monaghan militia frequenting the meetings of the United Irishmen's Society, under the name of the Muddler’s club, and being brought to the barracks she identified the men. Four of these men were subsequently tried and executed.”

The Society’s newspaper The Northern Star bitterly denounced Martin as ‘a common prostitute’ while William Steel Dickson – who knew of her reputation having seen her grow up in Portaferry - branded her ‘a woman addicted to lying and theft’. She allegedly continued her spying activities in Dublin after her work in Belfast.

The Franklin – along with other taverns with a revolutionary bent – later attracted the ire of those loyal to the crown after an incident on Belfast’s North Street.  North Street was known for its street entertainers, fire eaters, jugglers and musician. According to ‘The Annals of Ulster: 1790-1798’ members of the 17th Dragoons asked a blind street fiddler to play ‘God Save The King’, much to the distaste of a crowd of locals who urged the fiddler not to and then, as beautifully put by the book's author McSkimin ‘some expressions were used against his majesty’ by the locals.

As you can imagine this descended into something of a riot and the dragoons went on a rampage, targeting the signs of Mirabeau, Washington and Dumouriez that hung above the bars and the Ben Franklin above Peggy Barclay’s tavern some came down with them, hacked by the swords of the soldiers. Peggy Barclay is thought to have moved to another premises shortly afterwards.

Sugarhouse Entry today

In an ironic twist, the tavern later became a favourite of Scottish and English soldiers who referred to it as ‘Nugent’s Den’ after the Royalist commander in chief. It was later called the Bambridge Hotel for much of the remainder of its existence before both the tavern and the entry were destroyed by the Luftwaffe during the Belfast Blitz. Now there is just an unrecognisable service entry which was closed off during Northern Ireland’s more recent Troubles and never re-opened. One could walk past it hundreds of times – as I have – without knowing the name or the significance of the place. There are no signs and if you didn’t know, you’d only see a dark, gated alleyway.

While most of the old taverns are gone as well as Sugar House Entry itself, the ones that connect High Street with Ann Street still exist and are home to some of Belfast’s oldest pubs, such as The Morning Star which dates from the early 1800s. The closest existing relation to the old taverns is The Mermaid Inn in Wilson’s Court. You could go your whole life not realising this place exists as these days it would literally be your only reason for going down this entry. The only reason I already knew of it was when I was out with a couple of work colleagues for a Christmas do a few years ago and one of them – a dedicated scooper with a nose for a cheap pint – took us to the Mermaid.

The premises themselves date from around the time of the rebellion, late 1790s/early1800s, no-one is sure – and has, at various points in history been known as The Rainbow Hotel and the Harp Tavern. Today, its most recent appearance in the press was the bar’s innovative solution to the indoor smoking ban in 2007.

“The popular pub has benefited from a major interior makeover that also included the removal of the entire front wall and its replacement with sliding glass doors. A canopy covers chairs and tables in the beer garden while the pub's sliding doors open onto a widescreen TV. "I'd say that a good 80 to 90pc of my customers are smokers," said Vincent (McKenna, owner). "So the ban could have hit me hard and, indeed, there are fears in the trade that quite a few pubs could go belly-up. "A lot of my regulars are also gee-gee men, so I've put a speaker outside which means they can both see and hear the racing while enjoying a drink.”
~ Belfast Telegraph, April 2007

Ten years later and the glass doors are wide open on a stunning Belfast day. When I arrive 80s pop music is playing and the clientele is exclusively male. Despite being in the middle of the city centre with not a house nearby, it has the feel of a community tavern. The chairperson calls to a colleague 'see if Jim wants another pint there'. He asks another customer about 'the wife'. Even though I'm a stranger, he also engages me in conversation, asking me about my 'Tá' badge (it's the day of the Irish abortion referendum). It's not flashy or ornate, it's just a simple, cosy pub which seems a world away from the busy Ann Street just a few yards away. Among the usual Belfast fare (Guinness, Harp, Carlsberg) I'm surprised to see Sam Smith's Double Four lager - literally the only time I've seen Sam Smith's being sold anywhere in NI (although I'm sure it has appeared in Spoons). I take my lager out to the beer garden (really just a fenced off area in front of the sliding doors) and, at two o clock, the music goes off and the horses go on the TV. It's refreshing that somewhere like this still exists in the middle of modern, slick Belfast, a throwback, an escape, a way to switch off the crowds after a day of shopping.

In the late 1700s, Wilson’s Court was also the home of the United Irishmen’s radical publication the Northern Star. Edited by Samuel Neilson (dubbed the ‘Belfast Jacobin’ by Wolfe Tone, referencing the most militant arm of the French revolutionaries) this publication gained notoriety as the rebels’ official mouthpiece, peaking with a circulation of 4000-50000. According to author Gillian O’Brien ‘in late eighteenth-century Ireland, the purchase of the Northern Star was as potent a symbol of freethinking, independent citizenship as bearing arms’. Crowds would gather to read a single copy and it was through a medium like this that a movement started by a few radicals in a pub gestated into full rebellion that had to be suppressed by the state. It soon found itself outselling the more established Belfast News Letter (incidentally the paper started by Henry Joy McCracken’s grandfather Francis Joy). The Star found itself under scrutiny not just  because it was targeting the ascendency class but also by showing sympathy to the French Revolution. Shortly after the Monaghan Militia double agents had been betrayed by Bell Martin, members of the militia (not officially under government orders, it has been suggested) stormed the offices of the Northern Star, destroying their printing presses, bringing an end to the paper’s six year run. Neilson himself was arrested, jailed and later exiled. It was all downhill from here for Neilson. He’d lost his friends through execution and death on the battlefield, his properties and his newspaper and ultimately his cause as the rebellion was soundly defeated in 1798. He also suffered in prison with injuries and mistreatment from authorities. Finally his fondness for alcohol, honed in the early days of the Society, caught up with him, as Madden explains:

“The old ruinous remedy for alleviating such troubles was unfortunately had recourse to at this time by Neilson; and it is needless to say, the remedy only aggravated the evil. The result of many inquiries among the intimate friends of Neilson, establishes pretty clearly, that previous to his first confinement his habits were not those which were then deemed intemperate.”

He harboured ambitions to return to publishing but died in 1802 before he had the chance.

One of the Society’s original stated aims was for more autonomy for the Irish Parliament moving away from the Monarchy into a more democratic system. They also sought to give disenfranchised Catholics more rights including a better share of the vote (a recurring theme in Irish conflict over the next two centuries right to this day). Presbyterians organising subversively on behalf of Catholics is, again, another astonishing thing to read for someone brought up on the sectarian conflict of the 20th century and even now, mainstream unionist parties baulk at any sort of ‘concession’ being made to the culturally Irish Catholic community. The society had, however, broken away from the mainstream Irish Patriot Party thought and, sensing this, Wolfe Tone wrote a pamphlet called ‘Argument on behalf of Catholics in Ireland.’ He signed the document ‘A Northern Whig’ after The Northern Whig Clubs - a precursor to the Society.

The history of the Northern Whig building is much more interesting than the bar that occupies it today suggests. The building is located at Four Corners, the oldest part of the city, where Bridge Street, North Street, Rosemary Street and Waring Street meet. This area is pivotal to the United Irishmen story. It is the birthplace of William Drennan and the first Presbyterian church is where Drennan’s father preached. Before this building existed, there was a row of thatched cottages, one of which was the Thatched House Tavern, another meeting place of the rebels and next door to Samuel Neilson’s drapery store. Behind these cottages was Sugarhouse Entry where Franklin’s Tavern was. The Thatched House Tavern became the venue of choice for the Muddler's Club after they were betrayed at Franklin's. Thirty years after the rebellion the cottages were replaced by Commercial Buildings which acted as the Town Hall for a short time, later a hotel and then, in 1922 it become home to the Northern Whig and Post, a liberal unionist newspaper that took its name from Wolfe Tone’s signature. After the paper closed, the bar opened, keeping the name that adorns the front of the building

Sadly the modern bar is nowadays one of a growing number of identikit cocktail bars which have spread recently in a city which, while all too conscious of a dark and violent past is a bit overly keen to homogenise itself and become more attractive to tourists, professionals, businesses and investors. It is very slick but, bar the presence of ‘Henry Joy McCracken Tonic’ behind the bar, it very much brushes its history under the carpet. It’s a shame the Whig doesn’t play on the history of the ground it stands on but its possible that it has opted to be as bland and shiny as possible to ensure that it remains a broad, inoffensive place. And it is popular. Seats are difficult to come by at weekends and their astonishing number of taps mostly facilitates having nearly every possible popular macro lager on tap.

The cocktails are decent but for the discerning beer drinker there is little to choose from. Conscious of changing tastes, most Belfast bars will have some sort of IPA on tap. Due to this being a largely C&C linked bar (though you will almost always get Diageo’s Guinness in any bar, no matter who they take most of their taps from) the IPA of choice is Whitewater’s Maggie’s Leap. Whitewater are the second oldest craft brewery in Northern Ireland and one of the few that regularly does cask ale (though you’d have to go to either The Errigle or McHugh’s to find it). They recently sold a 25% stake to C&C to help fund a new brewery and this tie-up also seems to mean that Maggie’s Leap appears in most C&C tied bars. They also make an outstanding nitro stout called Belfast Black but this is less regularly available, perhaps because it compares far too favourably against Diageo’s flagship stout. Near the Whig, an upmarket restaurant called The Muddler’s Club has appeared and serves dishes and cocktails with namee inspired by the Irishmen while a new hotel on the other side of Sugarhouse Entry will have a bar called ‘Franklin’s’ in honour of the old tavern. However these are all part of the new Belfast, aimed at tourists and business folk who want a garnish of history while out for a fancy meal or hotel stay.

One of the few locations outside of the city centre where the Belfast United Irishmen reportedly met for a drink is up past Queens University in the Stranmillis area in South Belfast. At the very edge of what could reasonably be called ‘the city’, on the banks of the Lagan is the popular Cutters’ Wharf bar. Much like The Whig, it is slick, serves food, cocktails and most of the macro lagers anyone will want. Its a few hundred yards from Cutters that the site of what was once Molly Ward’s Tavern lies. No trace of it exists anymore but it is described in greatest detail by Cathal O’Byrne in his Belfast historical sketch book ‘As I Roved Out’. By O’Byrne’s account Molly Ward’s was famous for her ‘cruds (curds, in local speak) and cream’ served in the river garden. Due to its location, it was handy as a place to hide smuggled arms with small pleasure boats taking on the weapons and gunpowder from the ships on Belfast Lough and heading up the Lagan to Stranmillis.

A (possibly apocryphal) story recounted by O’Byrne tells how when a Major Fox, having been tipped off by a disgruntled drunk who had been thrown out, arrived at the tavern with a band he f soldiers to search for arms.  Pre-empting the drunk man’s betrayal, Molly and her husband John tossed gunpowder, pikes and printed propaganda down the well hole as well as into the Lagan. According to legend, one crock of gunpowder was rescued when Molly threw a cloth over it and placed her mother-in-law on top and a child on her knee where it stayed hidden as soldiers searched the premises. Despite the only weapon being found being John Ward’s legally held musket, suspicion was enough for their licence to be revoked and the bar closed shortly afterwards.

The pub most associated with the United Irishmen is the famous Kelly’s Cellars. My plan was always to finish my trail here, given that you can’t read a word about Kelly’s Cellars without reading that ‘the United Irishmen held meetings here’ and, in some accounts that, Henry Joy McCracken dived into the pub and hid under the bar while being pursued by redcoats. There’s even a blue plaque from the Ulster History Circle commemorating the very fact that they met here. Something wasn’t quite right as I researched this. The only two lines I ever read are the aforementioned. Nothing else. I dig through historical accounts, biographies, diaries and not a mention of any United Irishmen meeting in a tavern on Bank Street, Crooked Lane or any of its historical titles. I read JJ Tohill’s account (his father ran the bar for many years) and Gary Law and again, the same two lines are the only mention of the Irishmen. Tohill himself asserts that the story of McCracken hiding under the counter is certain to have happened.

The bar itself is one of a few who claim to be Belfast’s oldest surviving pub and Kelly’s claim is pretty strong – though the 1720 proclaimed on the façade seems to be a reach, with the 1780s seeming to be agreed my most historians and the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. It was originally a spirit store belonging to Hugh Kelly (hence the current name), though the store itself is linked to other locations including Berry Street and North Queen Street. Like many old pubs, its hard to know how much of the original still exists – its had many facelifts since then but it looks great, with the whitewashed walls, the sign in Irish welcoming you to ‘Teach Uí Ceallaigh’. It plays heavily on its cultural Irishness with multiple trad sessions a week. As Belfast columnist Malachi O’Doherty, a regular in Kelly’s during his career, notes:

“Kelly's has been garnished since with embellishments of its character: the old bicycle hanging on the wall outside, the Irish language signage, celtic symbols and a tribute inside to the United Irishmen, who met and connived there in the late 1700s. All of this traditionalism seems a bit contrived, an effort to remake the bar in its own image, overstating the point that it is already native and historic. You get that anyway from the crumpled floor and the old fireplace. "

The bar has done very well out of its fame. According to O'Doherty became particularly associated with the Official IRA (the original organization from which the Provisional IRA broke away from at the start of the troubles when the OIRA started to move towards Marxist politics and away from armed struggle – the two factions remained in bitter dispute that sometimes spilled into violence). The visitor book established by Tohill recorded many famous visitors including Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby, Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Louise MacNeice. The late Leonard Cohen features on the wall, photographed during a visit here. It's dark and dingy, very much resembling a cellar and looking like a pub might have the 1800s. The beer selection is nothing special, just the full range of Diageo kegs and most people are drinking Guinness or Hop House 13 anyway. The outside is bunged on the hottest day of the year so far. Kelly's is still wildly popular though these days less associated with political types than, say, The Sunflower in Union Street.

The bar became heavily associated with Republicanism as well as a bit of a bohemia, a place where radical politics was discussed and a place where journalists would meet and get quotes from IRA men.

It plays very heavy on the legend of the Irishmen and it still niggles me that I can’t find anything other than received wisdom. The one thing I do notice is that most places where this line is parroted starts with ‘it is said’ or ‘legend has it’. Then I finally come across this by North Belfast historian Joe Baker. Baker has covered the United Irishmen before, including Sugarhouse Entry where the Franklin Tavern was. Here, in an editorial discussing false history that places ascribe themselves, he tackles the legend of Kelly’s:

“I have emailed the Ulster history Circle several times asking for their source material but all my emails were ignored”

Later, he puts forward his own reasoning feeding his doubts of the truth of it all:

“Kelly’s Cellars is situated in the old Catholic part of town and the Belfast United Irishmen were not only Presbyterians, but Freemasons”

Kelly’s isn’t a million miles away from the small circle of High Street entries where the Irishmen met but its still a place apart from the others. So where did the story originate? Its hard to know beyond the fact that it’s the only existing bar that was open around those times and therefore the only bar that the possibility could be applied to. My own hunch is this bar’s long-running association with Irish nationalist politics made it at convenient story to maintain. Former West Belfast MP Joe Devlin was the bar manager in the early part of the 20th century while it became a renowned hangout for active republicans and those with sympathies. O’Doherty continues:

“the pub’s revolutionary history and general air of dilapidation made it a home from home for journalists, assorted lefties, arty types and members of the Official IRA…The bar was a place of intense political discussion in which people hammered out theories about a federal Ireland, a new Ireland, a socialist Ireland, a libertarian Ireland. Sometime Provos (Provisional IRA members and supporters) would come in and they and the Stickies (Official IRA members and supporters) would scowl at each other.”

I go back to O’Byrne’s book. Near the beginning he goes to Bank Lane and talks about (as it was known then) ‘Kelly’s Store’

“The little old lime-white place with its barred windows and arched and vaulted ceiling”
~As I Roved Out, O'Byrne

Most notably, given that his book is littered with detailed anecdotes about the United Irishmen, he doesn’t mention them once in his entry for Kelly’s Stores, not even to address the veracity of the legend. I can only assume then that the legend grew in later years, under the stewardship of Jimmy Tohill – whose son JJ Tohill heartily endorses the story in his book ‘Pubs of the North’. It has very much suited Kelly’s narrative to keep the story alive, fitting in as it does with the bar. It was also useful to be able to point to ‘history’ when the bar came under threat when the building was earmarked to lose its listed status and they were able to count on the Ulster Architectural Heritage  Society to weigh in on their behalf. It was later saved with Northern Ireland’s then-Environment Minister Mark H Durkan quoted as saying:

"After careful consideration of all the available information I have decided to retain listing for a number of these buildings, including Kelly’s Cellars. Despite the fact that Kelly’s Cellars has been altered over the years I have concluded it is still of significant historic interest. Sufficient historic material survives to reflect this.”

No mention was made of the United Irish history but there is no doubt that the bar has great cultural and historical significance whether or not the claims are true. Architecturally and aesthetically it is a stunning bar and while the Irishness is laid on thick, it doesn’t quite fall into the 'Oirishness' that you’d find  in theme pubs elsewhere. However, on the question of whether Tone, McCracken, Russell and co ever met here, I’ll leave the final, bubble-bursting word to Baker:

“There is no evidence that the United Irishmen ever went near Kelly’s Cellars, never mind met in it”

Sugarhouse Entry and The Northern Whig

So in my efforts to follow the footsteps of the United Irishmen, it’s possible I didn’t even manage to sup a beer in a place where they supped (or in all likelihood, necked, given what we’ve learned about them) theirs. Oddly enough the closest I came was on the site of the homogenised, soulless modern bar The Northern Whig which is on the site of the Thatched House Tavern and around the corner from the site of Dr Franklin’s. The most striking and perhaps sad thing I’ve discovered is that for all its ballyhoo, its blue plaque and history on the walls, Kelly’s claim to history is both the most celebrated and the most dubious while the place where we are most certain they drank - as recorded by many contemporary sources – Sugarhouse Entry is dilapidated, closed off and doesn’t even have a sign or anything to note the history. Still, given Northern Ireland's most famous tourist attraction sells itself with a myth about a giant rather than the amazing science behind its hexagonal rocks, Kelly's isn't the most egregious case of marketing bullshit in this part of the world.

The Four Corners

Down the road from the former Sugarhouse Entry, across from what is now The Northern Whig is The Assembly Rooms – where the Four Corners meet. This building was where Henry Joy McCracken, after defeat in the battlefield in Antrim, was court-martialled and sentenced to death after he refused an offer of clemency to betray his comrades. He was hanged across the road at Corn Market and, despite an attempt by his sister to revive him, he passed and with his death was the death of the Society of the United Irishmen of Belfast's rebellion.

~Mac Siúrtáin