Henry Joy McCracken, Irish businessman and activist, founded the Society of United Irishmen (d. 1798)
Henry Joy McCracken (31 August 1767 – 17 July 1798) was an Irish republican, a leading member of the Society of the United Irishmen and a commander of their forces in the field in the Rebellion of 1798. In pursuit of an independent and democratic Irish republic, he sought to ally the disaffected Presbyterians organised in the Society with the Catholic Defenders, and in 1798 to lead their combined forces in Antrim against the British Crown. Following the defeat and dispersal of the rebels under his command, McCracken was court-martialled and executed in Belfast.