congregations across the Atlantic to start new lives in New England. This was among the early wave of departures that, in the course of the coming decades, was to carry tens of thousands of "Scots-Irish" to the New World. From 1778, inspired by the revolt of their kinsmen in the America colonies, the disaffection among the people of the town and district took a more radical turn, first in the drilling and political conventions of the Volunteer militia, and then from 1795, with the additional impetus of the French Revolution, in the Society of United Irishmen. The "test" or pledge of the Society "to form a Brotherhood of affection amongst Irishmen of every religious persuasion" so as to secure an “equal representation of all the people in Ireland", was administered by leading residents of the town, among them a doctor, a schoolmaster and two attorneys. When in June 1798, having despaired of parliamentary reform, the Society called for insurrection, men assembled on Dungobery Hill, parading with guns, pikes, pitchforks and scythes tied upon sticks. Although they quickly dispersed on news of the defeat of the larger rebel host at Antrim town, reprisals were taken. Government troops burned the town, and many of the rebels were either hanged or "sent for transportation" (to the West Indies or to the penal colony of New South Wales). The young licentiate minister, Richard Caldwell, who had had command of the rebels found exile in the United States, there to die in War of 1812 in a march on Canada. 19th century In 1837, Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, describes Ballymoney as "a market-town and post-town" containing 2,222 inhabitants (11,579 in the broader civil parish) with a long established linen market chiefly supplying the London market, and with "a very extensive trade ... in grain, butter, pork, and general provisions". Transport was largely via the Bann. By 1860, the town was connected to both Belfast and Derry by rail. At the height of the Great Famine in 1847, entire families were being admitted to the Ballymoney Workhouse. At one point it became vastly overcrowded with 870 inmates. The destitute families were separated, men, women and children being subject to demanding work regimes. By the end of the century the number of people seeking relief had declined and the workhouse closed in 1918. It later became the site of the Route Hospital. In the decades following