21 November 1798: The Rev Edward Hudson in Ballymena is perplexed on the 15th by the resurgence of the Defender movement in Ahoghill and Rasharkin (Antrim).
A Catholic priest in Hudson's confidence attributes this phenomenon to "the introduction of the Orange system, and hinted something of the encouragement it received from the higher powers".
Gen Goldie indiscreetly admits this much to another of Hudson's associates. The Reverend informs Lord Charlemont that "on the whole, the minds of people here are in a very unpleasant state - not a week in which there are not one or two nights destined for massacre" by either Orangemen or Defenders, "such are the accursed effects of party spirit".
The drive to smash the solidarity of Catholic/Presbyterian United Irishmen in mid- and east Ulster entails realigning the criteria of loyalty along sectarian fault lines. The demoralising military defeats in June of Antrim and Down republicans saps the dynamism needed to rally in strength.
Disunity, furthermore, is hastened by an influx of Presbyterians into the yeomanry, the preferential treatment of northern United Irish prisoners and gentry endorsement of Orange ultra-loyalism.
Religious lines of demarcation are less applicable in Munster, where United Irish infiltration of the yeomanry remains an issue.
A Dunkerrin (Offaly) yeoman named Morrissy is tried by a panel of officers from the Downshire militia and the Castletown, Eglish and Birr yeomanry and executed by firing squad in Limerick on the 17th.
On the 19th Hibernian Journal reprints a French proclamation concerning the insurrection in Flanders in which British agents are blamed for stirring up disaffection.
It is reported that "the Trees of Liberty have been replaced by crosses; one part of the factious wore the Orange cockade, and the standard of another were marked with the Imperial Eagle".
The most far-reaching event of the day, however, occurs in the Provost Marshalsea, where the injured Wolfe Tone is warned by the surgeon attending him to avoid moving as death may be near. Tone replies: "It is the most welcome news you could give me" and expires from the severe neck wound he inflicted on himself eight days before.
The fortunes of Capt Alcock of the Wexford militia change for the worse on the 20th when his United Irish sympathies are deemed to warrant a sentence of transportation for life to "Botany Bay". Abraham Nixon, captain of Wicklow's Coolkenna infantry, is that day ordered released from custody by the Court of King's Bench. Nixon stands accused of killing William Granger in cold blood who, he alleges, played a part in the death of his yeoman father during the battle of Ballyrahan on July 2nd. Prosecutors are hindered by the refusal of eye-witnesses to testify against Nixon and he is bound over to the next county assizes.
Nixon's Arklow associate, Capt Thomas Atkins, registers a major anti-insurgent success that night by shooting Andrew Hackett dead. His followers recently killed three Castletown yeomen and were potentially a long-term threat to the district.
Col King of the Sligo militia writes from Arklow to confirm that this latest account of the death of "the noted rebel Hackett" is well founded. Hackett's severed head is spiked on the barracks within view of the house occupied by his widow.