Irish/German line
While researching my Irish and German familial lines:
from my grandfather’s father, Edwin Carpenter - Rose Maria Snook (his mother) - William John Snook 1811-1884 (her father) - Esther Gillian 1783-1846 (his mother) - William Gillian 1753-1792 and Katherine Minser 1761-1792
I found this intriguing story:
“William Gillian of Stronoken Bridge, Antrim, Ireland, came to America about 1773, having participated in a rebellion against the English, fled from his home and came to the American Colonies, leaving his wife and daughter. Either deliberately, or believing his wife dead, because of the uncertainty of communication, he married an American girl, Katherine Minser. They had six children. His first wife was Sarah Dunshee.
One evening two callers appeared at his home--a woman, whom he introduced as his cousin from Ireland, and her daughter. The "cousin" talked most of the night, and something aroused the American wife's suspicion. Upon confronting them in the morning, she learned the truth--the "cousin" was in reality his wife, so she left, taking her children with her.
The oldest one, Amy, was adopted, taken west, and lost sight of. John Riheldaffer, a son of Katherine, was a minister in St. Paul, Minn. Phoebe and her husband George Stuck, are buried in Evergreen Cemetery (Fairfield, Iowa) beside Casper and Esther Snook.
The Irish wife went back to him and they had another daughter, Sarah, so that the oldest and youngest children were children of the Irish wife. William Gillian married in Ireland, Sarah Dunshee, and had a daughter born before 1773.”
Not immediately trusting William Gillian’s story of participating in a rebellion against the English, as he had lied to his wife, my 5th great-grandmother, and upon initial searching could not find an Irish rebellion taking place in the approximate time period I eventually stumbled upon this:
“In the 1770s, twenty years before the United Irishmen, there occurred an armed rising by the poor people of Ulster, mainly Presbyterians, against injustice and oppression. The rising was to last almost four years. It witnessed assemblies of armed men, the storming of towns and even battles. Writing a hundred years later, W.E.H. Lecky described it as a ‘formidable insurrection’. To many at the time it seemed that society was about to be overthrown and even the influx of large numbers of troops into the area did not immediately put an end to it.
The alarm engendered by this insurrection is clear in a letter from a landlord to Sir George Macartney, the Lord Lieutenant’s secretary:
I want proper words to convey adequate ideas to picture the danger I have reason to believe my own life, the lives of my family, and the utter destruction of my worldly substance is in, from an abon’d, illoyal, lawless, irreligious banditti who have armed themselves in this part of the country to the great terror of every of his majesties liege subjects, and more especially to those of them that enjoy any kind of property.
In the second half of the eighteenth century King George III and his government still lived in fear of a repeat of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. However, this rising was started by poor tenants fearful of eviction.
Donegall’s debts
In 1769 the fifth Earl of Donegall was among the largest landowner in Ireland. His estates were counted in thousands of acres. Even one of his tenants might lease as much as 7,000 acres, which would be sub-let to farmers in small plots. He also had estates in England and along with the title inherited the accumulated debts of his forefathers. Faced with large debts and expenses, the fifth earl needed to raise money badly. He decided to make his estates in Ulster financially viable. The plan was to replace the smaller tenants with more substantial ones so as to increase the rents and to charge fines for the granting of new leases. This overhaul began on lands held by the middleman, Clotworthy Upton, and was immediately opposed by the tenants there. These tenants banded together for mutual support, refusing to pay increased rents or to accept new leases. Their great fear was that the changes proposed by Lord Donegall would result in the eviction of hundreds of families. They carried out acts of violence against Clotworthy Upton and tenants who accepted new leases. As the re-organisation spread to lands held through other middlemen (as well as those held from Lord Donegall directly) so too did the violent protest. The rebellious tenants became more organised, forming recognisable groups under specific leaders. They became known as the ‘Hearts of Steel’, or ‘Steelboys’, and under this name carried on a campaign of protests and outrages for the next four years. Lord Donegall was not the only landlord who was attempting to improve his estates, nor the only one to give offence to his tenants, and so other tenants followed their example and formed Steelboy groups. Their grievances related not only to landholding but also to paying tithes to the established church and the county cess.”
There’s more to it as well, and it’s quite an interesting read, but judging by the time period given and where my grandfather, William Gillian was from it seems like a very strong possibility he was in fact a Steelboy and part of this uprising (Antrim, his birthplace is in the historical province of Ulster where this rebellion took place)
TLDR: Irish 5th great-grandfather was probably a poor tenant of a wealthy land-owning class, participated in revolution against them and their unfair rents and eventually expanded to include causes like unfair tithes (church tax essentially)
You can read more about the uprising here:
https://www.historyireland.com/illoyal-lawless-irreligious-banditti/#:~:text=In%20the%201770s%2C%20twenty%20years,of%20towns%20and%20even%20battles.
All in all, quite a neat find.