In 1792 the two brothers visited Paris, and this excursion seems to have
formed the turning point of their lives and fortunes. The French
Revolution was in full swing, and in the society of Roland, Brissot, and
other Republican leaders, the young Irishmen imbibed the love of
freedom, and impatience of tyranny and oppression, which they clung to
so faithfully, and which distinguished them so remarkably during the
remainder of their lives. On returning to Ireland in January, 1793, the
brothers joined the ranks of the United Irishmen. John at once became a
prominent member of the society, and his signature appears to several of
the spirited and eloquent addresses by which the Dublin branch sought
from time to time to arouse the ardour and stimulate the exertions of
their compatriots. The society of United Irishmen looked for nothing
more at this period than a thorough measure of parliamentary reform,
household suffrage being the leading feature in their programme; but
when the tyranny of the government drove the leaguers into more violent
and dangerous courses, when republican government and separation from
England were inscribed on the banners of the society instead of
electoral reform, and when the selfish and the wavering had shrunk
aside, the Sheareses still remained true to the United Irishmen, and
seemed to grow more zealous and energetic in the cause of their country
according as the mists of perplexity and danger gathered around it.

To follow out the history of the Sheareses connection with the United
Irishmen would be foreign to our intention and to the scope of this
work. The limits of our space oblige us to pass over the ground at a
rapid pace, and we shall dismiss the period of the Sheareses' lives
comprised in the years between 1793 and 1798, by saying that during that
period, while practising their profession with success, they devoted
themselves with all the earnestness of their nature to the furtherance