The inspirational view where Irish radicals foresaw the birth of an Irish republic
Hikes & Trails with John G O'Dwyer: McArt's Fort above Belfast City
Viewed from Belfast, the elongated escarpment to the northwest of the city that forms Cave Hill resembles a sleeping giant. Its unusual shape, was the reputed inspiration for Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century fantasy, . Later, in the 19th century, when a small man with a big hat became an all-conquering general, it was known locally as Napoleon’s nose.
From Belfast Castle, the Cave Hill ramparts seem intimidating, but in reality, the climb isn’t all that challenging. Initially, a wooded path through a natural forest conveys you through an area that was once a deer park for the Marquis of Donegal. Emerging to the open mountainside, you will get a bird’s eye view over the elongated city below that seems so tightly compressed between hill and lough.
Next, to capture your curiosity will be the brooding, basalt cliffs containing the eponymous caves, which are not actually natural features but remnants of pre-historic mining. Veering right, above a depression known as The Devil’s Punchbowl, you will soon be elevated onto the northern shoulder of Cave Hill, before going southwards along a clifftop path leading to the high point of McArt’s Fort.
This is the kind of view that Friday nights after work should have!
— Alistair Hamill (@ahamillphotos) January 21, 2023
Snowy McArt's Fort, with Belfast way down below, and Orion stalking the skies above... pic.twitter.com/YV0SF2OXtE
Not much remains of this mountaintop redoubt of a Gaelic chieftain, but the location had a prominent role in Irish history when United Irishmen — Thomas Russell, Henry Joy McCracken, Wolfe Tone, and others — met here in 1795. Founded in 1791 the United Irishmen was initially no more than a reformist society supporting universal human rights. With its membership drawn mainly from Ulster Presbyterians, disgruntled at discrimination against them as Protestant dissenters, it did, however, attract some adherents from the Anglican community. The most prominent of these was Theobald Wolfe Tone.
Born in 1763, the son of a Dublin coach builder, Wolfe Tone, as he became known, was descended from a Huguenot family forced to flee France by religious persecution. An activist, never likely to fit comfortably into a life of middle-class conformity, Tone was soon, through the United Irishmen, espousing such radical ideas as Catholic emancipation and universal suffrage.
In 1793, Britain went to war with revolutionary France. Fearing a French invasion through Ireland, the French admiring Society of United Irishmen was declared illegal, with the result, that in 1795, it was reconstituted as an oath-bound, revolutionary organisation. Soon after, Tone travelled to Belfast, ascended Cave Hill and agreed a compact with a group of fellow Irish radicals, including Russell and McCracken. Well away from the prying eyes of the British authorities, they promised "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence".
In search of Wolfe Tone. Another stage of the 1798 tour. This time at Volunteers’ Well and McArt’s Fort on the Cavehill. It is new-strung and shall be heard! pic.twitter.com/OvYN4rJv0Z
— Stevie Jenkins (@steviejenkinsSF) July 11, 2023
On arrival at McArt’s Fort, you will immediately be aware that the revolutionaries had an inspirational view as they foresaw the birth of an Irish Republic. All of Belfast is laid out below your feet, with the expansive vista across the city dissolved south to the Mourne Mountains and north to the Antrim Hills. In 1795, it would then have been an equally memorable but more rural panorama, for pre-industrial Belfast was no bigger than a large town.
The United Irishmen didn’t succeed, of course. Soon after the Cave Hill compact, Russell was arrested, imprisoned, and later executed for his part in Robert Emmet’s failed 1803 rising. Tone fled to the USA and then on to France. Here, he used his considerable diplomatic skills to gain a commission in the French Army and persuade the Paris Government to send a large invasion fleet to Ireland. With Tone on board, the expedition reached Bantry Bay in December 1796 but was unable to land due to bad weather, with the ships returning to France.
Tone now found an increasingly powerful Napoleon Bonaparte less concerned with intervention in Ireland. He did, however, persuade the French to mount a number of smaller raids on Ireland. On one of these, Tone was captured at the naval Battle of Tory Island and reputedly died by his own hand in November 1798 after being court-martialled and sentenced to death in Dublin.
As for McCracken, he would return to seek sanctuary on Cave Hill following his participation in the 1798 Rebellion. After a month on the run, he was captured and executed, which appeared to close the chapter on the main participants in the Cave Hill Compact. The seeds the Cave Hill conspirators had sown would, however, live on as an inspiration for future generations and be part achieved with the declaration of an Irish Republic more than 150 years later.
The Cave Hill climb starts from Belfast Castle, located off the Antrim Road. Follow the blue arrows to McArt’s Fort and then complete the full loop back to Belfast Castle in about two hours.
- A fuller account with a map of the Cave Hill Loop is contained in John G O’Dwyer’s book available from currachbooks.com
