Cummins was born in North Carolina in either 1768 or 1770 to a wealthy Scotch-Irish American landowning family who had emigrated to America in the early 1700s.
[1] Inspired by American independence and by Thomas Paine's defence of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man, the Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast and Dublin in 1791 by liberal Presbyterians ("Dissenters") and Anglicans ("Protestants") committed to work with Ireland's Catholic majority to secure a representative parliament in Dublin.
Fitzgerald, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, was not yet a member of the United men, but his home quickly became a hotbed of local radical opinion.
His sister Lucy wrote that Cummins, as well as national organisers like Fitzgerald’s close friend Arthur O’Connor, became regular visitors.
When the government, at war with the new French Republic, refused further reform, Fitzgerald and the United leadership began organising for an insurrection.
At the house of Oliver Bond, he and the other leaders, including Peter Ivers debated the impending insurrection and the potential for French assistance.