ABSTRACT
Ribbonism was denoted in many underground groupings in parts of Ireland and within Irish communities in Britain, often with only tenuous links which operated variously as anti-Orange, Catholic confreres, bent on trade-union-type protection, racketeering, immigrant aid, and pub-based forms of conviviality. Whilst the Ribbon tradition inherited some of the characteristics of the many eighteenth-century rural redresser movements, its direct ancestors were the Defenders. The term Ribbonism can be used to describe a variety of underground Irish societies which shared certain characteristics manifested in oaths, passwords, organisational structures, terminology, and secrecy which sought to protect popular Catholic interests in a broad sense through much of the nineteenth century. Small towns had instances of Ribbon networking. Ilkeston in Derbyshire, Warrington in Cheshire, or Hanley in Staffordshire, each witnessed some activity and came to the authorities' notice at times.
