Captain Rock: The Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–1824

3. Ideology and Organization

Three Ideology and Organization Although a great deal can be learned about the ideas and motives of the Rockites from examining their behavior, at least as much can be discovered about their ideology by analyzing the notices, proclamations , and threatening letters in which they directly revealed the character of their mental world. Hundreds of threatening notices and letters are extant for the Rockite movement of the early 1820s. Dozens of them were printed in contemporary newspapers, and a much larger number survive, either in their original form or as copies, in the State of the Country Papers at the National Archives in Dublin. One thing that the Rockite movement did not lack was scribes. Many of these scribes were only half literate, but many others, especially country schoolmasters formed in the hedge-school tradition, had no trouble expressing themselves clearly, forcefully, sometimes eloquently , and o◊en at considerable length. Virtually all of this material is in English, the language of public discourse for the lower-class Rockites as well as for the landed elite, although the bombast, exaggeration , and stilted style of much of the English used betrays a society in linguistic transition. For many of its members English was still a somewhat strange tongue or a secondary language with which they were not yet comfortable. 84 85 ideology and organization Rockite Conceptions of Justice Any discussion of the Rockites’ ideology must begin by stressing that they articulated their own standards of justice. These took concrete form in the laws, constitutions, and regulations that they promulgated . Earlier agrarian rebels had also been legislators, but the Rockites carried this old tradition to new heights of seriousness and comprehensiveness. Providing a striking illustration is a proclamation by “his excellency John Rock, captain general and supreme director of the Irish liberators,” which was posted on the church gate at Kinneigh in west Cork in January 1822. It began by roundly denouncing a magistrate who had torn down a previous notice, and then proceeded to list other decrees: We also enact that rents in general be reduced so as to render the tenant solvent, and that the tithe system be utterly abolished. We also enact that all rackrents and backrents be forgiven, and that any person or persons driving or distraining for any of the aforesaid charges, or processing or executing decrees for tithe or any illegal charge whatsoever within our jurisdiction, shall suffer capital punishment. We also enact that any person or persons invited to the standard of liberty and refusing to comply therewith shall suffer such punishment as is attached to that offence. We also enact that all bidders at auctions for rent or tithe shall suffer accordingly. We also enact that any person or persons proposing or agreeing for any farm or farms of land until the same be 3 years unoccupied shall suffer death. It is further enacted that any individual attempting to take down or in any wise disfigure this advertisement or any other [of] the like tendency shall, without regard to age, sex, or function, suffer capitally.1 Other notices were equally insistent in demanding strict adherence to Rockite ordinances. In one of February 1822 setting forth a variety of regulations concerning rents, tithes, and the letting of land, the writer spoke of “enforcing and making the following tempo[r]ary laws perpetual .”2 A second notice sent early in 1822 to the Cork landowner and agent William Stawell declared that “in consequence of a new code of laws recently given out by General John Rock, legislator general of Ireland , it is unlawful for any gentleman to hold any more lands than that which immediately adjoins his dwelling residence.”3 The writer of a third notice in March 1823 warned Charles Haynes, a land grabber in the Mallow district who also employed strange laborers, that “your infidelity and your transgressions against the new established laws of this land, which were founded on the laws of God, must be represented before the senators at the illustrious senate house.”4 And a fourth notice posted in at least three different places in north Cork in September 1824 cautioned “all land canters” about “a law enacted [in] the third year of his majesty’s reign and second year of General John Rock, Esqr., that no man is allowed to take tithes or overhold any farms or dispose [i.e., dispossess] poor families until the year 1825 is...