Henry Joy McCracken’s Volunteer Coat
This coat has two significances. It belonged to Henry Joy McCracken, an iconic figure from the failed Rebellion of 1798. The son of a Belfast shipowner and rope maker, he became an officer of the Green company of the Belfast regiment of volunteers, a newly formed radical group, in 1792
Having served in the Volunteers, he then made the progression that many did and subscribed to the United Irish movement, formed in Belfast in 1791. Following a series of arrests and some cases of cold feet by other leaders, he found himself at the head of the United Irish forces at the Battle of Antrim. He hid on Cave Hill after it and was on his way to take ship into exile when he was recognised by two members of the yeomanry and captured.
McCracken was hanged in Belfast Cornmarket on 18 July 1798 for his part in leading the rebels at the Battle of Antrim. His last hours, and his walk to the gallows, are poignantly recorded by his sister Mary Ann McCracken, whose evidence would be an appropriate contemporary voice: "I took his arm and we walked together to the place of execution ... Clasping my hands around him (I did not weep till then) I said I could bear anything but leaving him".
The coat also represents the transition that took the Volunteer movement, or at least a good proportion of its members, from attempting constitutional reform in the 1780s to armed rebellion by the late 1790s, the beginning of ‘the armed struggle’.
Image: Henry Joy McCracken’s Volunteer Coat