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.

The Joys, who made their money in linen manufacture, had founded the Whig paper Belfast News Letter in 1737, and were closely associated with the rise of the Volunteer movement during the American War.

On the pretext of securing the Kingdom against the French in the American War, the citizens' militia or "National Guard" as it was later styled, allowed Presbyterians to arm, drill and convene independently of the Anglican Ascendancy.

[8] In response to William Drennan's proposal for a "benevolent conspiracy--a plot for the people", on 1 April 1791 McCracken resolved with Samuel Neilson, John Robb, Alexander Lowry and Thomas McCabe to form "an association to unite all Irishmen [...] for the restoration and preservation of our liberty and the revival of our trade".

[9][10] Those who gathered for the inaugural meeting in October, and who called themselves, at the suggestion of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Society of United Irishmen, were men with whom McCracken and his family had been associated in Belfast through the Rosemary Street Presbyterian churches and the Irish Volunteer companies.

[11] By the time McCracken formally took the United Irish pledge (or "test") on 24 March 1795 to "persevere in endeavouring to form a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of every religious persuasion", and "to obtain an equal, full and adequate representation of all the people of Ireland", the Society was abandoning its hopes for parliamentary reform.

[13] In June 1795, with three other members of the movement's Northern Executive, Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilson and Robert Simms, McCracken met with Theobald Wolfe Tone who was en route to exile in the United States (and France).

At McArt's fort atop Cave Hill overlooking Belfast they swore the celebrated oath "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence".

McCracken was one of the few Presbyterian leaders of the movement broadly known to Catholics, a possible measure of which was his rescue from Yeomanry in Belfast, just days before, by residents of the town's "Irish quarter", Hercules Street.

There were widespread local musters in the county, including seizures of Ballymena and Randalstown (and in conjunction with them, west of the Bann, at Maghera), but before they could coordinate most were burying their arms and returning to their farms and workplaces.

but of class:[25]You will no doubt hear a great number of stories respecting the situation of the country, its present unfortunate state is owing entirely to treachery, the rich always betray the poor[26]On 8 July Mary Ann received news that her brother was in Carrickfergus Gaol.

[28] McCracken was hanged from gallows erected in front of the Market House on Belfast's High Street (where ten years before he taught his Sunday school) on 17 July 1798, aged 30.

[30] The Market House displayed the staked heads of McCracken's confederates executed weeks previously: James Dickey and John Storey who had fought with him at Antrim, and Hugh Grimes and Harry Byres, leaders at Ballynahinch.