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(1767-1798)
Henry's
Song
Henry was born at 39 High Street,
Belfast,  on
31 August 1767. He was the fifth child of Captain John McCracken,
a Belfast ship owner and rope maker, and Ann Joy, daughter of Francis
Joy, who had founded the Belfast News-Letter and General Advertiser
in 1737.
The Joys were of Huguenot descent,
their name being originally Joyeuse, both the McCracken and Joy
families were among the leaders of Belfast industry, read more from
Mary Lowry's 'History
of Belfast'
Henry was tall, standing just
under six feet, with fair hair. He tended to be rash and impulsive
He was apprenticed to the textile trade, in 1789 Henry Joy was appointed
Manager of a cotton mill on the Falls Road.
He and his sister, Mary Ann
McCracken, founded the first Sunday School in Belfast, he worked
as a social reformer and brought about improvements in working conditions
in mills. He started a school to provide free education to the children
of the poor. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Belfast
Harp Festival in 1792, gathering together itinerant harpers and
bands of what was then a dying tradition. He is said to have fathered
a child with Mary Bodle.
McCracken’s radical ideas included political
reform and in
1791 he was a founder member of the Society of United Irishmen.
and he later was to become a member of the Ulster Directory. In
1795, in the company of Wolfe
Tone, Robert Simms, Samuel Nelson and Thomas Russell at the
site of MacArt's Fort on Cave Hill, outside Belfast they swore the
oath "Never to desist in our efforts until we have subverted
the authority of England over our country and asserted our independence".
The
Battle of Antrim. |
