Henry Joy McCracken

Henry Joy McCracken was an Irish republican executed in Belfast for his part in leading United Irishmen in the Rebellion of 1798. Convinced that the cause of representative government in Ireland could not be advanced under the British Crown, McCracken had sought to forge a revolutionary union between his fellow Presbyterians in Ulster and the country's largely dispossessed Catholic majority. In June 1798, following reports of risings in Leinster, he seized the initiative from a leadership that hesitated to act without French assistance and led a rebel force against a British garrison in Antrim Town. Defeated, he was returned to Belfast where he was court-martialed and hanged.

31 August 1767

Born on the same birth day (31 August): Alan Jay Lerner • Andrew Foster (footballer) • Charl Schwartzel • Félix-Antoine Savard • Harald Ertl • Herbert Reul • Holger Osieck • Javagal Srinath • John Davidson (Illinois politician) • Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin • Moran Campbell • Richard Gere • Sauce Gardner • Théophile Gautier • William Shawn

Born in the same month (August 1767): Louis Antoine de Saint-Just