Publications | Down Survey | 1998 Issue Contents

An oath from Ardglass
Brian S Turner

At the end of his preceding article about the Forde documents Allan Blackstock urged us to keep looking for little clues and unnoticed jigsaw pieces which can add meaning and personal contact to our history. Serendipity was at work even before his words were published. In the late summer Dr Ian Gilchrist came in to give the museum a little scrap of paper which he had found in the house of his late aunt, Miss Isabel Gilchrist, at The Crescent, Ardglass. He believes that it came from the old Gilchrist home in Ardtole, just north of the town.

The document comes from June 1797, a month of extremely high tension in county Down. The United Irishmen had been growing in confidence throughout the year, despite the fact that the army had carried out , sweeping disarmings in March when the Insurrection Act, giving extra power to the magistrates, was extended to the whole county. In April General Nugent had prevent a meeting of those who favoured reform rather than coercion. In May, General Lake, commanding the northern district, issued a proclamation of martial law.

In June, just around the time this document was written, the Down United Irish commanders, Alexander Lowry of Rathfriland, and Arthur McMahon, Presbyterian minister of Holywood, were in Ballynahinch for a meeting with the Antrim commanders to try to persuade them to rise immediately. Their failure to do so checked the development of the movement, which had lost many of its leaders by the time rebellion eventually broke out a year later.¹

Through fear of insurrection, or unwillingness to appear opposed to the government policy of coercion, local landowners were under pressure to extract oaths of loyalty from their tenants. This document is one such oath. Even here there may be a slight implication of dissent from the application of martial law, in that Hugh Gilchriest² swears loyalty to King George III, but not to the constitution and laws of the kingdom as was usual. A final twist in this small piece of paper, which could easily have got lost in the winds of Ardtole, is that the man who witnessed Hugh Gilchriest's promise to have nothing to do with the United Irishmen was Rear Admiral Charles FitzGerald of Ardglass, who was created Lord Lecale in 1800. His brother, Lord Edward FitzGerald, was to die in May 1798 as commander of the whole United Irish army.³

Transcription

Manuscript written on single sheet

County Downe to wit }
I Hugh Gillchriest of the parish of Ardglass in said County do sincerley promise and swear that I will be faithfull and Bear true Alligence to his Majesty King George the third of Great Britain and that I have Neither Guns Piks or Arms nor do I know of any consealed and I do swear that I never will be of the Society of United Irishmen nor adher to their order, So Help me God.
Sworn Before me this 23rd Day of june 1797
Chas FitzGerald

(FitzGerald signature in a different hand)

Brian S Turner

References

1.	Extensive reference to this period of 1797 is contained in K L Dawson `The military leadership of the United Irishmen in county Down 1796-1798' and Allan Blackstock `The Down Yeomanry 1796-98', both in Dawson, Hill and Turner (eds) 1798: Rebellion in County Down (Newtownards 1998)
2.	The spelling of the name in the document `Gilchriest' is evidence of the correct pronunciation of the name, with the stress on the second syllable, rather than the peculiar pronunciation which seems to have developed in Lecale in more recent times, stressed on the first syllable. Mac Giolla Chriost - devotee of Christ.
3.	Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, lO5th edition, 4th impression, (London 1980) p1581