Detailed Information
From Captain Moonlight to Captain Rock': Irish secret societies 1760-1830'
In a time and a space where Irish landlords dominated the economic, social, political and legal life of the country, their tenants had few mechanisms by which they could express opposition or dissent. So they often took the extra-legal route. Their activities were nocturnal, illegal and usually violent. They formed secret societies with exotic names like Whiteboys, Steelboys, Terry Alts, and Houghers and took direct action against their oppressors. These were by now means exclusively members of the aristocracy or willing appendages in the apparatus of landlordism such as agents, process servers or bailiffs. Intra tenant rivalries—class conflict—was just as pervasive in late 18th and early 19th rural society as tensions between tenant and landlord. As a response to high rents, tithes, enclosure and a host of other grievances tenants, denied a hearing in court or in parliament, took the law into their own hands and used murder, intimidation, rape and mutilation to further their ends. In a succession of minor (and major) insurgencies between 1760 and 1830 the 'moonlighters' sought to hold sway, and often succeeded, if only temporarily.
Myles Dungan is an author and broadcaster. He presents the weekly History Show on RTÉ Radio 1 and holds a PhD in history from Trinity College, Dublin. He is the author of more than a dozen books on Irish and American history and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley in 2007.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries if you had a problem with your landlord you had precious few legal remedies. But you could always kill him! With the help of your brethren in the Whiteboys, or the Rockites you could murder, intimidate, rape, or mutilate. If you were caught, it meant an appointment with the hangman. But if you weren't ...
4 Monday's
10:30 - 12:30pm
8th May, 15th May, 22nd May and 29th May
A knowledge of the complexities and class-ridden nature of rural Irish society in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Levellers: The Whiteboys of the 1760s respond to land enclosure. The ‘Boys’: The impact of the Rightboys, Oakboys, Steelboys, and the origins of the Orange Order. ‘The Old Vest and the Cravat’: the bitter intra-tenant rivalry of the Caravats and the Shanvests. The Reign of Terror of 'Captain Rock': rent, religion and rape, the Rockite rebellion of the 1820s