Although no evidence has been found of his previous involvement in democratic politics, in January 1797, by his own account, Turner was admitted not only to the United Irish Society but also to its national directory.
[2] In April 1797 Turner enhanced his reputation as a firebrand when he challenged the Crown's commander-in-chief in Ireland, Henry Luttrell, Earl of Carhampton, to a duel after the latter had reproached him in a Newry inn with wearing United Irish colours and torn from him the offending green necktie.
On his return to Hamburg the French ambassador, Jean Frédéric Reinhard, gave him a passport enabling him to go to London and meet both with Lord Edward FitzGerald, who was at the head of the United Irish national directory, and Downshire.
[4] Though he had joined the democratic movement from patriotic motives he explained that he now saw that "the object of the papists was the ruin and destruction of the country and the establishment of a tyranny far worse than what was complained of by the reformers".
[3] Coigly (who was subsequently executed) had been seeking to coordinate rebellion in Ireland with French cross-Channel landings and insurrection by jacobins ("United Britons") in London and the mill districts of northern England.
[6] In Hamburg played a part in the arrest in November 1798 of Tandy (returned from his aborted landing in Ireland), James Bartholomew Blackwell, William Corbet and Hervey Montmorency Morres.
[3] On the news of his father's death, and with hopes of renewing of the United Irish struggle blasted in the debacle of Emmet's July rising in Dublin, in August 1803 Turner returned to Ireland.