The recall to London in March 1795 of the liberal Viceroy Earl Fitzwilliam dashes hopes of parliament reforming itself to the satisfaction of the United Irishmen. That his downfall is engineered after just three months in office by conservative members of the Ascendancy underlines the depth of opposition to reform.
The United Irishmen are already illegal and at this stage in some disarray but the Fitzwilliam episode fuels their disenchantment at the defeat of the 1794 Reform Bill and serves to animate their militant core.
All faith in constitutional politics is abandoned and a new constitution adopted on May 10th, 1795, which restructures the movement as an avowedly revolutionary organisation. Simple societies are created of 36 men sworn to secrecy linked by elected representatives to a chain of higher committees presiding over parish, barony, county and provincial level groupings.
Monthly subscriptions are levied to purchase arms and hire lawyers to defend prisoners. This model provides the means to incorporate the Defenders and to build a clandestine mass movement in counties without significant republican cadres. Other preparations include petitioning the French Directory for military assistance and suborning the army and militia.
Recruitment is boosted by widespread outrage stemming from the partisan manner in which clashes in mid-Ulster between the Defenders and the "Peep of Day Boys" are suppressed, that latter being known as the Orange Order from September 1795. This proves the final straw for liberal MPs Arthur O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who join the United Irishmen.
The new hardline Viceroy, Lord Camden, underlines the disparity of treatment by sending troops to contain the Connaught Defenders. The Northern Star notes on October 22nd, 1795, that Gen Carhampton detains 1,300 suspects for transportation, many of whom are placed on a prison tender off Sligo to expedite their removal overseas.
Tensions rise in the face of perceived injustices such as the introduction of a draconian Insurrection Act in March 1796 to retrospectively legalise army excesses.
Thomas Lane, the Marquis of Downshire's sober-minded agent at Hillsborough, Co Down, expresses the view on July 16th, 1796, that "a flame may and will burst forth . . . The emissaries of the United Irishmen are astir in every quarter. When they apply to Catholics they give them the alternative of taking the oath and being protected or of being burnt out [by the Orangemen] and sent to Hell or Connaught. These are the villains most to be dreaded. They are Dissenters with true republican principles."
Dublin Castle approves the setting up of a yeomanry force in September 1796 comprising units of roughly 40 paid civilian volunteers who are armed, equipped and uniformed out of government stores or by patriotic benefactors.
Officers, typically lesser gentry magistrates, often lead their own tenants in policing their home districts. Yeomen are required to defend their neighbourhood from the designs of its disaffected inhabitants should the military be called away to combat French invaders.
Most yeomen are Protestant, particularly in Ulster where entire Orange lodges are enrolled, but the New Cork Evening Post comments on October 31st, 1796, that the Bandon yeomanry, as with many others, welcome Catholics "with open arms".
Concerns regarding the Castle's divisive security policy persist into the winter. An assessment by Maj George Mathews on December 5th, 1796, states that "there is nothing surer than that Orangemen, if it goes on, will be the means of making United Men, and our neighbours [in Drogheda] and the Queen's [County Militia] are . . . very willing to undertake the business".