In December 1816 Robert Tennent penned a letter to James Jackson, a young relative who had, some time previously, quit Ulster for America. In an earlier letter, Jackson had identified ‘the deficiency of social enjoyment as the great drawback upon the comfort of an American residence’ and Tennent responded at length. First reflecting in general terms, he mused that ‘[i]t would require a very philosophic as well as a very impartial examination, assisted by much experience, to determine what degree of civilization is most conducive to human happiness’, before proceeding to encourage Jackson to exert the influence of his ‘mind enlightened by culture’ over the ‘ruder population’ among which he had come to reside. ‘Your previous experience has excellently qualified you for an undertaking of this kind’, he advised. ‘The Historic Society of Belfast is a good model to work from, only you may begin upon a smaller scale, and let your subjects be more adapted to the manhood of the mind.’

Readers unfamiliar with the literature on late Georgian Belfast might be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at Tennent's use of the language of enlightenment. ‘Civilization’, ‘human happiness’, ‘mind enlightened by culture’, ‘manhood of the mind’: such phrases do not fit with the popular perceptions of nineteenth-century Belfast which focus on its emergence as a workshop of the British Empire, albeit one that was periodically convulsed by outbreaks of violent sectarian rioting. Some, indeed, have gone so far as to suggest that the very values that facilitated Belfast's industrial expansion were, in themselves, inimical to culture and enlightenment.