In 1798, like her brother in Dublin, in Belfast McTier was in a heavily garrisoned town in which there was little prospect of a rebel demonstration. Neither was implicated in the United Irish insurrection which was defeated to the north of Belfast at Antrim and to its south at Ballynahinch. Her position in Belfast was nonetheless fraught, as she daily anticipated a raid by the authorities upon her house. "You seem to think", she wrote to her brother, "that I should fly. Why, I have not one fear. 'Tis only the rich area alarmed, or the guilty. I am neither".