William Drennan, his medical life. Presidential address to Ulster Medical Society delivered on 15 October 1998.

Thomas Drennan was one of a number of dissenting ministers, educated in Glasgow, who formed a distinct group and through which political ideas were developed and articulated. Drennan was related by marriage to Francis Hutcheson and went in 1720 to assist him in a Dissenting school in Dublin. It was Hutcheson, who returned to Glasgow as Professor of Moral Philosophy, who was to provide the basis for the teaching espoused by this group and which was to influence the development ofWilliam Drennan' s political thinking. Hutcheson believed that political and social questions were ultimately moral ones and that the system which provided for "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" was the moral framework within which all relationships were to operate. It was his view that in every sort of government, the people governed had the right of defending themselves against the abuse of power. This thinking, taken by a generation of emigrants to the American colonies, was to provide the impetus for that struggle for independence and was subsequently through William Drennan and his colleagues to stimulate the formation of the United Irishmen.