Armagh disturbances

The Armagh disturbances was a period of intense sectarian fighting in the 1780s and 1790s between the Ulster Protestant Peep o' Day Boys and the Roman Catholic Defenders, in County Armagh, Kingdom of Ireland, culminating in the Battle of the Diamond in 1795.

In County Armagh, Protestants and Catholics were roughly equal in number, in what was then Ireland's most populous county. Whilst there was sporadic rioting by Protestant and Catholic mobs in Armagh Town, the rest of the county was largely at peace. According to James Bryson, writing on 29 December 1783: "I remember something of the state of the public affairs for more than 30 years and I do aver that I never was witness to a more profound tranquility [sic] than what prevails at present." Despite this, both Catholic resentment of Protestants and their privileges and Protestant fears of the Catholics turning on them remained.

Throughout the 1780s these tensions had been rising to boiling point. The relaxing of some of the Penal Laws against Catholics in 1778 and 1782 as well as the failure to enforce others left many Protestants wanting to reinforce their traditional supremacy over Catholics. One of the Penal Laws was the prohibition of Catholics possessing firearms, however some local Volunteer corps admitted Catholics into their ranks, ignoring this.

Another of the relaxed Penal Laws meant that Catholics were granted a parliamentary vote, which brought them into competition with Protestants in the land market. The entry of Catholics to the market caused a rise in prices and many Protestants felt aggrieved when Catholics outbid them on plots of land when their leases expired. Some of these Catholics were also from Connacht. These factors, as well as a lack of land near the linen markets, saw fierce competition to rent land. This occurred at a time when the Protestants already in the linen industry were seeing lower wages because of both increased industrialisation and Catholics taking up weaving.

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