In the final decades of the eighteenth century, dissenting fervour among asignificant element of Ulster-Scots in the North of Ireland, many of whom were Presbyterians of different stripes, can be gauged by the literary output of the Norther Star, an Irish newspaper that was the mouthpiece for the politically radical and republican Society of United Irishmen. The Belfast-based newspaper was consequently suppressed by the British army in 1797, and the execution of the Co. Down, Presbyterian minister James Porter in 1798 is commonly attributed to his scathing and satirical political squibs on landlordism in Ulster, published in the Northern Star. Subsequently, this paper seeks to demonstrate that while Ulster-Scots literature published in the decades following the rebellion can rightly be characterised by political apostasy, and the abandonment of radicalism; individual writers chose to express their reactions through a variety of literary forms, attitudes and themes, which range from outright disillusionment to rapprochement with the establishment.