Gilbert McIlveen
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Gilbert McIlveen (17? – 1833) was a Belfast linen draper[1] and founding member of the Society of the United Irishmen, a revolutionary organisation in late 18th century Ireland. He took no part in the rebellion of 1798 and in 1803, in response to rumours of a further republican insurrection, he joined the loyalist yeomanry.
McIlveen was a linen draper in Belfast, described as fabulously wealthy.[2] An important member of Belfast's mercantile and industrial middle class, he donated £100 to the building of a new White Linen Hall in 1782, to act as a centre for the bustling linen industry in the city. Another important benefactor to the building of the hall was fellow future United Irishman, Thomas McCabe.[3]
The United Irishmen
The United Irishmen were initially founded as a group of liberal Protestant and Presbyterian men interested in promoting Parliamentary reform, and later became a revolutionary movement influenced by the ideas of Thomas Paine and his book ‘The Rights of Man’. In 1791 Theobald Wolfe Tone published the pamphlet ‘Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland’ where he set out that religious division was being used to balance “the one party by the other, plunder and laugh at the defeat of both.” He put forward the case for unity between Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters.
This pamphlet was read by McIlveen and a group of eight other prominent Belfast Presbyterians interested in reforming Irish Parliament. They invited Tone and his friend Thomas Russell to Belfast where the group met on October 14, 1791. It was there that the Belfast Society of the United Irishmen was formed, with McIlveen as a founding member.