The spirit of 1798 from the angle of a pamphlet Billy Bluff and the Squire (Satire on Irish Aristocracy). The pamphlet was put together from a series of letters written in 1796 to the Northern Star by the Rev William Porter, Presbyterian minister at Greyabbey, Co Down. He was hanged near his church in July 1798. Billy Bluff was reprinted in 1991 but seems hard to get, except perhaps in antiquarian book shops. Anyway, it was indeed a lampoon, defined in the dictionary as "a virulent or scurrilous satire upon an individual".
Certainly Madden, historian of the United Irishmen, writing a generation after, disapproved of the approach. "If that violence of language which was the foolish fashion of the day, had been a little moderated, the thoughts which are clothed in it would have suffered no injury." Here are some of the thoughts, as presented by Denis Carroll in his recent book Unusual Suspects: Twelve Radical Clergy. One of the characters is named Firebrand, The Squire, believed to be modelled on the Rev John Cleland, rector of Newtownards and later to be prosecutor of Porter as Lieut the Reverend John Cleland. The remarks attributed in Billy Bluff to Firebrand, Cleland, include a passage looking back to a time "when Catholics thought of nothing but just getting leave to live and working for their meat. Presbyterians thought of nothing but wrangling about religion and grumbling about tythes - and Protestants thought of nothing but doing and saying what their betters bid them." Singing, too, was one of his banes: "singing infects a whole country. . . because people rejoice and forget their cares. . . and their betters." As for juries, trial by juries was a foolish invention: "a gentleman has some difficulty in getting a fellow hanged that he has a spite at."
It is believed Porter was not in favour of the Rising. To him social questions were ultimately moral ones, and therefore of concern to Ministers of religion. Much more about Porter and such major figures as Father Flanagan, about whom Denis wrote a book. Armour of Ballymoney is there and lesser known but worthwhile subjects of his ready pen. Paperback, The Columba Press.