The annual report of the Linen Hall Library, that shining light in Belfast's intellectual life, reminds irresistibly, at this time of the days of Thomas Russell, one of its secretaries, friend of Tone and all the other United leaders. It reminds likewise of two fine books on the same Russell Denise Carroll's The Man From God Knows Where, and Dr C.J. Wood's painstaking editing of Russell's journals and memoirs, which may show signs of dyslexia, it is said.
One of that band in Belfast was Samuel Neilson, a draper who sold his business to take the major share holding in the paper of the United Irishmen, The Northern Star, which he also edited. Some claim he was the real founder of the
United Irishmen. He eventually saw his printing plant wrecked by the soldiers, was jailed and finally emigrated to America where he died in 1803. Has there been a full study of this hero, for hero he was?
In his book As I Roved Out, Cathal O'Byrne, a Belfast journalist, relates an interview Neilson's daughter gave much later to an American reporter. "Yes, I recollect when the officers came in to arrest him. I was but a very little thing then, but I knew there was something wrong. When the officers came in my father turned to them and asked `What brings you here?' They said they had a warrant for his arrest. He told them to stand back for a minute.
Then he took mother aside, and they talked to each other for some time. That was in 1797, the second time he was arrested. I don't remember when he was ar rested first. The two servant girls we had then were Catholics and they used to call a spare bedroom we had for chance visitors the priest's bedroom.
One of the girls kept count, and said that twenty six different priests had slept in that bed. You see, priests from all parts of the country used to come to see my father about Catholic emancipation, which he advocated strongly, both as editor of the Northern Star, publicly, and as a United Irishman, privately. That was at our house in Belfast."
It was one of four thatched houses in the centre of Belfast next door to Sugarhouse Entry in Waring Street, according to O'Byrne. His book, is a collection of rambles around the city and environs, with many an anecdote.