The enigma of Roddy McCorley Goes to Die: Forgetting and remembering a local rebel hero in Ulster

The ballad Roddy McCorley is widely recognised as one of the most popular Irish rebel songs, a traditional genre for which Ireland is particularly renowned. The earliest written allusion to McCorley is a reference in the Belfast News-Letter from early 1800 that refers to the arrest of 'banditti', who had been active in county Antrim in the aftermath of the insurrection. In preparation for rebellion, the largely Presbyterian leadership of the United Irishmen in Ulster attempted to form an alliance with the Defenders, a Catholic secret society that confronted rival Protestant vigilante organisations, namely the Peep O' Day Boys. Ethna Carbery and Alice Milligan, who were the representatives of Ulster on the central '98 centenary committee in Dublin, envisaged inclusive and pluralistic commemorations that would 'cast aside all bitterness, all intolerance' and overcome 'internecine warfare'. Five years after the publication of Carbery's poem, Francis Joseph Bigger, Ulster's foremost antiquarian, made a significant intervention in the remembrance of McCorley.