William Drennan was an Irish physician, poet and political radical, who was one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen. He is known as the first to refer in print to Ireland as "the emerald isle" in his poem "When Erin first rose".
Background
Drennan's Ancestors were the Irish clan Ó Draighnáin, Anglicized to Drennan meaning "grandson of blackthorn". William was son to ReverendThomas Drennan, minister of Belfast's First Presbyterian Church on Rosemary Street, where William was born in 1754. Thomas Drennan was an educated man from the University of Glasgow and was ordained to the congregation of Holywood, county Down in 1731. Drennan was heavily influenced by his father, whose religious convictions served as the foundation for his own radical political ideas. His sister, Martha, married fellow future United IrishmanSamuel McTier in 1773.
Education
In 1769 he followed in his father's footsteps by enrolling in the University of Glasgow where he became interested in the study of philosophy. In 1772 he graduated in arts and then in 1773 he commenced the study of medicine at Edinburgh. After graduating in 1778 he set up practice in Belfast, specialising in obstetrics. He is credited with having been one of the earliest advocates of inoculation against smallpox, and of hand washing to prevent the spread of infection. Drennan also wrote much poetry, coining the phrase "Emerald Isle" and was the founder and editor of a literary periodical, "Belfast Magazine". He moved to Newry in 1783 but eventually moved to Dublin in 1789 where he quickly became involved in nationalist circles.
Like many other UlsterPresbyterians, William was an early supporter of the American Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Volunteers who had been formed to defend Ireland for Britain in the event of French invasion. The Volunteer movement soon became a powerful political force and a forum for Protestant nationalists to press for political reform in Ireland eventually assisting Henry Grattan to achieve legislative independence for the Irish parliament in 1782. However Drennan, like many other reformers, quickly became dismayed by the conservative and sectarian nature of the Irish parliament and in 1791 he co-founded the Society of United Irishmen with Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell. He wrote many political pamphlets for the United Irishmen and was arrested 1794 for seditious libel, a political charge that was a major factor in driving the United Irishmen underground and into becoming a radical revolutionary party. Although he was eventually acquitted, he gradually withdrew from the United Irishmen but continued to campaign for Catholic Emancipation.
Cultural activities
He settled in Belfast in 1807. In 1810 he co-founded the non-denominational Royal Belfast Academical Institution. As a poet, he is best remembered for his poem The Wake of William Orr, written in memory of a United Irishman executed by the British. Despite Drennan's links with revolutionary republicans, he gradually became alienated from the post-Union nationalism of the period. His abiding concern for Liberalism and post union realities made him contemplate his political ideas anew. Regarding the Act of Union, Drennan wrote that:
a FAITHFUL UNION, a real assimilation of the countries, in spirit as well as in form, not merely in virtue of parchment.
Death
Drennan died in 1820. He directed that his coffin be carried by an equal number of Catholics and Protestants with clergy from different denominations in attendance.
On 8 February 1800, Drennan married Sarah Swanwick, "an English lady of some wealth" from Shropshire, and in 1806 left Dublin for Belfast. They had one daughter and four sons. His sons John Swanwick Drennan and William Drennan wrote a biography of him for Richard Davis Webb's A Compendium of Irish Biography. His son, John Swanwick Drennan, was a noted poet. Through his daughter Sarah, who married John Andrews, of a prominent family of flax merchants, he had several notable descendants, including:
