THE .ULSTER CONFUCT successes had excited an undercurrent of fear amongst the Orange lower classes at Catholic militancy. This upsurge of feeling was increased after O'Connell's victory in the Clare by-election. Whilst Peel and the Irish viceroy were pondering whether they would have to grant Catholic emancipation, the Protestant Orange aristocracy decided that the only way they could prevent emancipation was by an impressive display of force while the decision was still in the balance. The Orange Order had been illegal for several years, but the proletarian membership kept it going in the absence of middle class or aristocratic leadership, and maintained the tradition of marches of triumph through predominantly Catholic districts on ceremonial dates. The Dublin administration feared that the July 12th march in 1828would be a violent expression of the lower class Ulster Protestant reaction to the Clare by-election but, whilst there were some clashes, there was no general tumult. O'Connell still .did not as yet pose a direct threat to the Protestant peasants in the border counties and they were prepared to wait on the initiative of the gentry and the politicians whose interests were more immediately menaced. The Protestant ruling class's response came in August 1828 when they started to organise what they called Brunswick clubs. These were designed to encapsulate the widest possible range of Orange opinion and militancy whilst being sufficiently respectable to avoid suppression as a secret society. The clubs drew mainly on the lower classes but they were dominated by members of parliament, lawyers and Protestant clergy. By no means all members of the clandestine Orange Order joined the Brunswick clubs and they held little attract• ion for the Presbyterian peasantry. Nevertheless the movement spread rapidly through Ulster in the autumn of 1828, its main activity being the preparation of petitions and the holding of meetings against Catholic emancipation. In spite of its rapid growth (108 clubs were formed in the space of 12 weeks), however, the Brunswick clubs movement was only really effective in the north of Ireland where the Protestants were in a majority. O'Connell, who was worried (unnecessarily as it turned out) that the Brunswickers might be exerting an undue influence on the English government, decided to demonstrate the weakness of the Brunswick movement by getting a Belfast journalist, John Lawless who was a long-time enemy of Orangeism, to lead a march of the Catholic Association into the northern counties to hold polit77
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