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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Protestant Ascendancy (1691-1800)


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Birth of Nicholas Joseph Callan, Priest & Scientist

Father Nicholas Joseph Callan, Irish priest and scientist, is born on December 22, 1799, in Darver, County Louth. He is Professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College in Maynooth, County Kildare from 1834, and is best known for his work on the induction coil.

Callan attends school at an academy in Dundalk. His local parish priest, Father Andrew Levins, then takes him in hand as an altar boy and Mass server and sees him start the priesthood at Navan seminary. He enters Maynooth College in 1816. In his third year at Maynooth, he studies natural and experimental philosophy under Dr. Cornelius Denvir. He introduces the experimental method into his teaching and has an interest in electricity and magnetism.

Callan is ordained a priest in 1823 and goes to Rome to study at Sapienza University, obtaining a doctorate in divinity in 1826. While in Rome he becomes acquainted with the work of the pioneers in electricity such as Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), who is a pioneer in bioelectricity, and Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), who is known especially for the development of the electric battery. In 1826, he returns to Maynooth as the new Professor of Natural Philosophy (now called physics), where he also begins working with electricity in his basement laboratory at the college.

Influenced by William Sturgeon and Michael Faraday, Callan begins work on the idea of the induction coil in 1834. He invents the first induction coil in 1836. An induction coil produces an intermittent high voltage alternating current from a low voltage direct current supply. It has a primary coil consisting of a few turns of thick wire wound around an iron core and subjected to a low voltage (usually from a battery). Wound on top of this is a secondary coil made up of many turns of thin wire. An iron armature and make-and-break mechanism repeatedly interrupts the current to the primary coil, producing a high voltage, rapidly alternating current in the secondary circuit.

Callan invents the induction coil because he needs to generate a higher level of electricity than currently available. He takes a bar of soft iron, about 2 feet long, and wraps it around with two lengths of copper wire, each about 200 feet long. He connects the beginning of the first coil to the beginning of the second. Finally, he connects a battery, much smaller than the enormous contrivance just described, to the beginning and end of winding one. He finds that when the battery contact is broken, a shock can be felt between the first terminal of the first coil and the second terminal of the second coil.

Further experimentation shows how the coil device can bring the shock from a small battery up the strength level of a big battery. So Callan tries making a bigger coil. With a battery of only 14 seven-inch plates, the device produces power enough for an electric shock “so strong that a person who took it felt the effects of it for several days.” He thinks of his creation as a kind of electromagnet, but what he actually makes is a primitive induction transformer.

Callan’s induction coil also uses an interrupter that consists of a rocking wire that repeatedly dips into a small cup of mercury (similar to the interrupters used by Charles Grafton Page). Because of the action of the interrupter, which can make and break the current going into the coil, he calls his device the “repeater.” Actually, this device is the world’s first transformer. He induces a high voltage in the second wire, starting with a low voltage in the adjacent first wire. The faster he interrupts the current, the bigger the spark. In 1837 he produces his giant induction machine using a mechanism from a clock to interrupt the current 20 times a second. It generates 15-inch sparks, an estimated 60,000 volts and the largest artificial bolt of electricity then seen.

Callan experiments with designing batteries after he finds the models available to him at the time to be insufficient for research in electromagnetism. Some previous batteries had used rare metals such as platinum or unresponsive materials like carbon and zinc. He finds that he can use inexpensive cast iron instead of platinum or carbon. For his Maynooth battery he uses iron casting for the outer casing and places a zinc plate in a porous pot (a pot that had an inside and outside chamber for holding two different types of acid) in the centre. Using a single fluid cell, he disposes of the porous pot and two different fluids. He is able to build a battery with just a single solution.

While experimenting with batteries, Callan also builds the world’s largest battery at that time. To construct this battery, he joins together 577 individual batteries (“cells“), which use over 30 gallons of acid. Since instruments for measuring current or voltages have not yet been invented, he measures the strength of a battery by measuring how much weight his electromagnet can lift when powered by the battery. Using his giant battery, his electromagnet lifts 2 tons. The Maynooth battery goes into commercial production in London. He also discovers an early form of galvanisation to protect iron from rusting when he is experimenting on battery design, and he patents the idea.

Callan dies at the age of 64 in Maynooth, County Kildare, on January 10, 1864. He is buried in the cemetery in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.

The Callan Building on the north campus of NUI Maynooth, a university which is part of St. Patrick’s College until 1997, is named in his honour. In addition, Callan Hall in the south campus, is used through the 1990s for first year science lectures including experimental & mathematical physics, chemistry and biology. The Nicholas Callan Memorial Prize is an annual prize awarded to the best final year student in Experimental Physics.


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Birth of John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury

John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury PC, KC, Irish lawyer, politician and judge known as The Lord Norbury between 1800 and 1827, is born at Beechwood, Nenagh, County Tipperary, on December 3, 1745. A greatly controversial figure in his time, he is nicknamed the “Hanging Judge” and is considered to be one of the most corrupt legal figures in Irish history. He is Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland between 1800 and 1827.

Toler is the youngest son of Daniel Toler, MP, and Letitia, daughter of Thomas Otway (1665–1724), of Lissenhall, Nenagh, County Tipperary. His elder brother Daniel Toler is also a politician, serving as High Sheriff for Tipperary and also as MP for Tipperary. The Toler family is originally from Norfolk, East Anglia, England, but settles in County Tipperary in the 17th century. He is educated at Kilkenny College and at Trinity College, Dublin.

After graduating from university Toler enters the legal profession and is called to the Irish Bar in 1770. In 1781 he is appointed a King’s Counsel. He is returned to the Parliament of Ireland for Tralee in 1773, a seat he holds until 1780, and later represents Philipstown between 1783 and 1790 and Gorey from 1790 until the Acts of Union 1800. In 1789 he is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, which he remains until 1798 when he is promoted to Attorney-General for Ireland and sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland. In his role as Attorney-General he is responsible for the prosecution of those involved in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. According to the Dictionary of National Biography “his indifference to human suffering … disgusted even those who thought the occasion called for firmness on the part of government.” In 1799, he brings forward a law which gives the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland power to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and to impose martial law.

In 1800 Toler is appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland and raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Norbury, of Ballycrenode in the County of Tipperary. His appointment to the bench is controversial and John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, is said to have quipped, “Make him a bishop, or even an archbishop, but not a chief justice.” His tenure as Chief Justice lasts for 27 years, despite the fact that, the Dictionary of National Biography opines, “his scanty knowledge of the law, his gross partiality, his callousness, and his buffoonery, completely disqualified him for the position. His court was in constant uproar owing to his noisy merriment. He joked even when the life of a human being was hanging in the balance.” This earns him the nickname the “Hanging Judge.” His most famous trial is that of Irish nationalist leader Robert Emmet. He interrupts and abuses Emmet throughout the trial before sentencing him to death. In spite of this, with his strong belief in the Protestant Ascendancy, he is considered to have had great influence over the government in Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century.

However, Toler’s position eventually becomes untenable even to his strongest supporters, especially with the British government‘s aim of establishing a better relationship with the Catholic majority. His reputation is tainted in 1822, when a letter written to him by William Saurin, the Attorney-General for Ireland, is discovered, in which Saurin urges him to use his influence with the Irish Protestant gentry which makes up local juries against the Catholics. Saurin is dismissed soon afterwards. He finds his greatest adversary in Daniel O’Connell, to whom Toler is “an especial object of abhorrence.” At O’Connell’s instigation the case of Saurin’s letter is brought before the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by Henry Brougham. Toler survives this as well as an 1825 petition drawn up by O’Connell, which calls for his removal on the grounds of him falling asleep during a murder trial and later being unable to present any account of the evidence given. However, it is not until George Canning becomes Prime Minister in 1827 that Toler, then 82, is finally induced to resign. His resignation is sweetened by him being created Viscount Glandine and Earl of Norbury, of Glandine in King’s County, in the Peerage of Ireland. Unlike the barony of Norbury these titles are created with remainder to his second son Hector John. His eldest son Daniel is then considered mentally unsound.

Toler marries Grace, daughter of Hector Graham, in 1778. They have two sons and two daughters. In 1797 Grace is raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baroness Norwood, of Knockalton in the County of Tipperary, in honour of her husband. She dies in 1822 and is succeeded in the barony by her eldest son, Daniel. Toler survives her by nine years and dies at the age of 85 at his Dublin home at 3 Great Denmark Street on July 27, 1831. He is succeeded in the barony of Norbury by his eldest son Daniel and in the viscountcy and earldom according to the special remainder by his second son, Hector. In 1832 the latter also succeeds his elder brother in the baronies of Norwood and Norbury. He is considered to be the father of the astronomer John Brinkley.

(Pictured: John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury, coloured etching by unknown artist, early 19th century, National Portrait Gallery, NPG D9303)


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Birth of Thomas Russell, Founding Member of the Society of United Irishmen

Thomas Paliser Russell, founding member and leading organiser of the Society of United Irishmen, is born in Dromahane, County Cork, on November 21, 1767.

Born into an Anglican family with a military tradition. Russell is intended for an ecclesiastical career in the Church of Ireland, but in 1783 sails with his brother’s regiment to India and fights at the battle of Cannanore. He is, however, disgusted by what he regards as “the unjust and rapacious conduct pursued by the authorities in the case of two native women,” and returns disaffected to Ireland in 1786. After briefly studying for the church ministry, he spends the next four years as a half-pay officer in Dublin pursuing studies of science, philosophy and politics.

In 1790, Russell meets Theobald Wolfe Tone in the visitors’ gallery of the Irish House of Commons and a lifelong friendship begins. At the end of the year, he is commissioned to Belfast as an ensign in the 64th infantry regiment of foot. Being convivial, good looking, charismatic and charming, he fits quickly into Belfast society. He is deeply religious and holds strong millennialist beliefs. On the other hand, he is also of a restless nature, drinks heavily, and is highly promiscuous.

Russell becomes a founder member of the first Society of United Irishmen in Belfast in 1791, writes for the Northern Star, and acts as secretary for the Dublin United Irishmen. He is the most socially radical of all United Irish leaders, an outspoken opponent of slavery and industrial exploitation.

Russell posts bail for a friend in order to secure his release from a debtor’s prison. When the friend defaults, Russell has to sell his ensigncy in July 1791. After several months, and to avoid further debt, he accepts the offer of Thomas Knox, 1st Viscount Northland, the father of an old army friend, to become seneschal (a kind of stipendiary magistrate) to the Northlands’ manor court at Dungannon. However, he resigns within a year, apparently disgusted by the sectarian animosities there. His financial situation worsens until he becomes librarian at the Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge (the later Linen Hall Library) in 1794.

Russell is arrested on September 16, 1796, is charged with treason, and detained without trial in Newgate Prison, Dublin, until March 1799. He is then sent to Fort George in the north of Scotland. The longest serving United Irish prisoner, he is released in June 1802 on condition of exile to Hamburg. However, he soon makes his way to Paris where he meets Robert Emmet who, with William Putnam McCabe are advancing the plans for insurrection pending the French renewal of the war against England. Having little confidence in the French, however, he returns to Ireland in March 1803 to organise the North in conjunction with the veteran of the Battle of Antrim, James Hope. However, he meets with little success as much of the North is subdued following the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

In 1803 Russell joins a general insurrection that is to take place throughout Ireland with blows being struck simultaneously at Dublin, Belfast, and Downpatrick. Unknown to him, Robert Emmet is unable to secure help and promised firearms. In Dublin after a brief street battle on the evening of July 23, 1803, Emmett calls off the rising.

Russell manages to hide for a number of weeks in Dublin but is caught in the authorities’ dragnet on September 9. He is sent under heavy escort to Downpatrick Gaol. There, convicted of high treason, he is hung and beheaded on October 12, 1803. His remains are buried in the graveyard of the parish church, Down Cathedral, in a grave paid for by his friend Mary Ann McCracken.


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Birth of William Grattan Tyrone Power, Stage Actor, Comedian & Author

William Grattan Tyrone Power, Irish stage actor, comedian, author and theatrical manager known professionally as Tyrone Power, is born in Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, on November 20, 1797. He is an ancestor of actor Tyrone Power and is also referred to as Tyrone Power I.

Power is the son of Tyrone Power, reported to be “a minstrel of sorts,” by his marriage to Maria Maxwell, whose father had been killed while serving in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. His father is related to the Powers who are of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry and to George de la Poer Beresford, 1st Marquess of Waterford.

The young Power takes to the stage, achieving prominence throughout the world as an actor and manager. He is well known for acting in such Irish-themed plays as Catherine Gore‘s King O’Neil (1835), his own St. Patrick’s Eve (1837), Samuel Lover‘s Rory O’More (1837) and The White Horse of the Peppers (1838), Anna Maria Hall‘s The Groves of Blarney (1838), Eugene Macarthy’s Charles O’Malley (1838), and William Bayle Bernard‘s His Last Legs (1839) and The Irish Attorney (1840). In his discussion of these works, Richard Allen Cave argues that Power, both in his acting as well as his choice of plays, seeks to rehabilitate the Irishman from the derogatory associations with “stage Irishmen.”

Power has a number of notable descendants by his wife Anne, daughter of John Gilbert of the Isle of Wight:

  • Sir William James Tyrone Power (1819–1911), Commissary General in Chief of the British Army and briefly Agent-General for New Zealand
  • Norah Power, who married Dr. Thomas Guthrie
  • Sir Tyrone Guthrie, British theatrical director (1900–1971)
  • Maurice Henry Anthony O’Reilly Power (1821–1849), trained as a barrister but later took up acting
  • Frederick Augustus Dobbyn Nugent Power (1823–1896), civil engineer, left a large estate of £197,000, equivalent to £15.6 million or 28 million US dollars in 2006
  • Clara Elizabeth Murray Power (born 1825)
  • Mary Jane Power (born 1827)
  • Harold Littledale Power (1833–1901), actor, wine merchant, mine agent & engineer
  • Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869–1931), English theatre and silent movie star
  • Tyrone Power (1914–1958), American Hollywood star of the 1930s to 1950s
  • Romina Power (born 1951), American singer and film actress
  • Taryn Power (1953–2020), film actress
  • Tyrone Power, Jr. (born 1959), American film actor

Power is said to have purchased the land that is later occupied by Madison Square Garden, New York, shortly before his death. The lawyer who holds the papers cannot be found so the Power family is unable to claim right to the property.

Power is lost at sea on March 17, 1841, when the SS President disappears without trace in the North Atlantic shortly after departing for England. Anne Power is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary The Virgin Church in High Halden, Kent, England.


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Execution of William Orr, Member of the United Irishmen

William Orr, a member of the United Irishmen, is executed by the British on October 14, 1797, in what is widely believed at the time to be “judicial murder” and whose memory leads to the rallying cry “Remember Orr” during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He is regarded as the first United Irish martyr.

Little is known of Orr’s early life. He is born in 1766 to a Presbyterian farming family and bleach-green proprietor, at Ferranshane outside Antrim town. The family is in comfortable circumstances and, as a result, he receives a good education. His appearance and manner are at the time considered noteworthy as he stands 6′ 2″ in height and is always carefully and respectably dressed, a familiar feature in his apparel being a green necktie, which he wears “even in his last confinement.” His popularity amongst his countrymen is also noted, particularly among the Northern Presbyterian patriots. He becomes active in the Irish Volunteers and then joins the United Irishmen. Sometime in the mid-1790s, he contributes several articles to their newspaper, the Northern Star.

Orr is charged at Carrickfergus Town Hall with administering the United Irishmen oath to a soldier named Hugh Wheatly, an offence which had recently been deemed a capital charge under the 1796 Insurrection Act. The offence is aggravated from a legal point of view because of the allegation that it is a serving soldier whom he is alleged to have administered the oath to. The prosecution makes the most of this “proof” of the “treasonable” aim of the United Irishmen to “seduce from their allegiance” the “men who are the Kingdom’s only safeguard against the foreign foe.”

The United Irishmen know from the evidence of some of their own number that Orr had not administered the oath on the occasion alleged. They also have the evidence of another eyewitness, James “Jemmy” Hope. The soldier witness Wheatly perjures himself and it is proved he is of bad character. The person who did tender the oath is a well-known member of the Society, William McKeever, who subsequently escapes to the United States. It is widely believed at the time that the authorities wish to make an example of Orr to act as a deterrent to potential United Irishmen recruits.

The actual case, which does not appear in the course of the proceedings but everyone, according to T. A. Jackson, is “in the know” and fully aware that the United Irishmen’s oath had been administered to a soldier “whether it was Orr or another who administered the oath was merely incidental.”

Orr is represented by John Philpot Curran, and the trial leads to a speech, which, according to T. A. Jackson, “is among the most remarkable of his many remarkable speeches.” It is a charge of libel against the Press newspaper, the journal founded by Arthur O’Connor to replace the Northern Star. The Press had published an open letter to the Viceroy, remarking scornfully on his refusal to show clemency to Orr. Curran’s defence is a counter-attack — an indictment of the Government, root and branch.

The only evidence used against Orr is the unsupported evidence of the soldier Wheatly and after hearing Curran’s defence of the prisoner, “there could be no possible doubt of his innocence.” Even the presiding judge, Barry Yelverton, 1st Viscount Avonmore, is said to have shed tears at the passing of the death sentence, although Orr’s friend, the poet and United Irishman William Drennan expresses his disgust at this display with the words “I hate those Yelvertonian tears.”

The sentence was hardly passed on Orr when regret is to seize on those who had aided in securing that verdict. The witness Wheatly, who subsequently goes insane and is believed to have died by his own hand, makes an affidavit before a magistrate admitting that he had sworn wrongly against Orr. Two members of the jury make depositions stating that they had been “induced to join in the verdict of guilty while under the influence of drink,” while two others swear that they had “been terrified into the same course by threats of violence.”

These particulars are placed before the Viceroy, but Lord Camden, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is “deaf to all appeals” (including from his sister Lady Londonderry). “Well might Orr exclaim within his dungeon” he said “that the Government had laid down a system having for its object murder and devastation.”

Though his execution is postponed three times, Orr is hanged in the town of Carrickfergus on October 14, 1797, surrounded by an extra strong military guard. It is said that the population of the town, to express their sympathy with the “patriot” being “murdered by law,” and to mark their repugnance of the conduct of the Government towards him, quit the town on the day of his execution.

Orr’s fate “excited the deepest indignation throughout the country” and it is commented on “in words of fire” by the national writers of the period, and for many years after the rallying cry of the United Irishmen is “Remember Orr.” The journalist Peter Finnerty, who publishes an attack on Yelverton and Camden for their conduct in the matter, is later convicted of seditious libel, despite an eloquent defence by Curran.

(Pictured: William Orr from a sketch by E. A. Morrow)


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Birth of William Sharman Crawford, Irish Politician

William Sharman Crawford, Irish politician with liberal and radical views, is born William Sharman on September 3, 1780 in at Moira Castle in County Down.

Sharman is the eldest son of Colonel William Sharman, for many years a member of the Parliament of Ireland for Lisburn, who dies in 1803 leaving him large estates. In 1805 he marries a wealthy heiress, Mabel Fridiswid Crawford, whose surname and arms he adds to his own.

Sharman Crawford supports Catholic Emancipation and the rights of tenants. He is also a member of the landed gentry. He is High Sheriff of Down for 1811. He is a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dundalk in 1835–37 and for Rochdale in 1841–52. He greatly increases the prosperity of the tenants on his large estates by extending and confirming the Ulster custom of tenant-right. The main objective of his long parliamentary career is to give legal effect to this right and extend it to other parts of Ireland.

In 1848 with James MacKnight, editor of the liberal Londonderry Standard, Sharman Crawford forms the Ulster Tenant Right Association which is supported by a group of radical Presbyterian ministers. He also supports MacKnight in forming, with Charles Gavan Duffy, editor of the Young Ireland newspaper The Nation, the all-Ireland Tenant Right League.

Sharman Crawford is the father of James Sharman Crawford, member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Down, (1874-78), Arthur Sharman Crawford, unsuccessful candidate for Down in 1884 and John Sharman Crawford, unsuccessful candidate for Down in 1880. His daughter is Mabel Sharman Crawford, adventurer, feminist and writer.

Sharman Crawford dies unexpectedly and peacefully at Crawfordsburn, County Down on October 17, 1861. He is buried in the family vault at Kilmore, County Down, where there is a monumental inscription. A great stone obelisk is erected in his memory on a hill at Rademon Estate, near Crossgar, County Down.


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Birth of Richard Lalor Shiel, Politician, Writer & Orator

Richard Lalor Sheil, Irish politician, writer and orator, is born at Drumdowney, Slieverue, County Kilkenny on August 17, 1791. The family is temporarily domiciled at Drumdowney while their new mansion at Bellevue, near Waterford, is under construction.

Shiel’s father is Edward Sheil, who acquires considerable wealth in Cadiz in southern Spain and owns an estate in County Tipperary. His mother is Catherine McCarthy of Springhouse, near Bansha, County Tipperary, a member of the old aristocratic family of Mac Cárthaigh Riabhach of Springhouse, who in their time were Princes of Carbery and Counts of Toulouse in France. He is taught French and Latin by the Abbé de Grimeau, a French refugee. He is then sent to a Catholic school in Kensington, London, presided over by a French nobleman, M. de Broglie. For a time, he attends the lay college in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. In October 1804, he is removed to Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, and in November 1807 enters Trinity College, Dublin, where he specially distinguishes himself in the debates of the Historical Society.

After taking his degree in 1811 Sheil is admitted a student of Lincoln’s Inn and is called to the Irish bar in 1814. He is one of the founders of the Catholic Association in 1823 and draws up the petition for inquiry into the mode of administering the laws in Ireland, which is presented in that year to both Houses of Parliament.

In 1825, Sheil accompanies Daniel O’Connell to London to protest against the suppression of the Catholic Association. The protest is unsuccessful, but, although nominally dissolved, the association continues its propaganda after the defeat of the Catholic Relief Bill in 1825. He is one of O’Connell’s leading supporters in the agitation persistently carried on until Catholic emancipation was granted in 1829.

In the same year Shiel is returned to Parliament for Milborne Port, and in 1831 for County Louth, holding that seat until 1832. He takes a prominent part in all the debates relating to Ireland, and although he is greater as a platform orator than as a debater, he gradually wins the somewhat reluctant admiration of the House. In August 1839, he becomes Vice-President of the Board of Trade in Lord Melbourne‘s ministry.

After the accession of Lord John Russell to power in 1846, Shiel is appointed Master of the Mint, and in 1850 he is appointed minister at the court of Tuscany. He dies in Florence on May 23, 1851. His remains are conveyed back to Ireland by a British ship-of-war, and interred at Long Orchard, near Templetuohy, County Tipperary.

George W. E. Russell says of Shiel, “Sheil was very small, and of mean presence, with a singularly fidgety manner, a shrill voice, and a delivery unintelligibly rapid. But in sheer beauty of elaborated diction not O’Connell nor anyone else could surpass him.”

Shiel’s play, Adelaide, or the Emigrants, is performed at the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin, on February 19, 1814, with success, and, on May 23, 1816, it is performed at Covent Garden in London. The Apostate, produced at the latter theatre on May 3, 1817, establishes his reputation as a dramatist. His other principal plays are Bellamira (written in 1818), Evadne (1819), Huguenot (produced in 1822) and Montini (1820).

In 1822, Sheil begins, with William Henry Curran, to contribute to The New Monthly Magazine a series of papers entitled “Sketches of the Irish Bar.” Curran, in fact, does most of the writing. These pieces are edited by Marmion Wilme Savage in 1855 in two volumes, under the title of Sketches Legal and Political. Sheil’s Speeches are edited in 1845 by Thomas MacNevin.

In 1816, Shiel marries a Miss O’Halloran, niece of Sir William MacMahon, Master of the Rolls in Ireland. They have one son, who predeceases Sheil. His wife dies in January 1822. In July 1830, he marries Anastasia Lalor Power, a widow. He then adds the middle name Lalor.


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The Execution of William Michael Byrne

William Michael Byrne, a key figure in the Society of United Irishmen in the years leading to the Irish Rebellion of 1798 against the British government, is executed in Dublin on July 25, 1798.

Byrne is one of the two sons of Colclough Byrne of Drumquin, Hackettstown and Mary Galway of Cork, a great grand-niece of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond. He lives most of his adult life at Park Hill in the Glen of the Downs, County Wicklow. In late 1796, he enlists in the yeomanry, serving in the Newtown Mount Kennedy cavalry.

Byrne joins the Society of the United Irishmen in the spring of 1797 and later that same year is appointed by the Leinster committee to organise the half barony of Rathdown. As a delegate for Rathdown barony, he is a well respected and competent figure. With the assistance of his Protestant friend Thomas Miller of Powerscourt, he undertakes the organisation of military and civil branches of the United Irishmen in Rathdown, recruiting 2,000 men by late 1797. In October 1797 he is forced to resign from the yeomen after refusing to swear the oath of loyalty and his activities begin to come to the attention of Dublin Castle.

According to the informant A.B. (Thomas Murray), Byrne attends the inaugural meeting of the United Irishmen’s Wicklow county committee in December. It is held in the Annacurra home of William’s first cousin, John Loftus. Murray’s information tells that Byrne established networks of contacts between the Leinster committee and the Cork United Irishmen along with other contacts in Munster.

Byrne’s career comes to an end when he, along with fourteen other Leinster delegates, are arrested on March 12, 1798 at the house of Oliver Bond. They had been betrayed by Thomas Reynolds, treasurer of Kildare United Irishmen and member of the provincial committee. Reynolds had been informed that plans for an insurrection were about to be finalised by the committee. Byrne is arrested in possession of incriminating documents which are described by Attorney-General for Ireland Arthur Wolfe as being ‘very treasonable printed papers.’

On July 4, 1798 Byrne with four others is brought before a commission of oyer and terminer on charges of high treason. The case mounted by the state against him is based principally on the evidence of Reynolds and also that given by his former comrade William Miller of Powerscourt. The weight of the evidence is overwhelming, rendering an effective defence impossible.

Byrne’s lawyer, John Philpot Curran KC, the leading defence counsel of the period, attempts to cast Reynold’s character and motives in a foul light but it is futile. In his last days, efforts are made to spare his life if he would only express regret for his actions and accuse Lord Edward FitzGerald for having led him to this point. He refuses, meeting his end with great dignity and stoicism.

Byrne is convicted of high treason and executed on July 25, 1798 outside Green Street Courthouse, Dublin.

The Dublin Magazine notes that Byrne “met his fate with a degree of courage perhaps unequalled.” For his service to the state, Reynolds is honoured by Dublin Corporation with the freedom of the city on October 19, 1798, spending much of his life thereafter in fear of assassination.


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Birth of Mary Ann McCracken, Humanitarian & Social Reformer

Mary Ann McCracken, Irish businesswoman, radical humanitarian, supporter of the Society of United Irishmen and a noted social reformer, is born in Belfast on July 8, 1770.

McCracken’s father is Captain John McCracken, a Presbyterian of Scottish descent and a prominent shipowner. Her mother, Ann Joy, comes from a French Protestant Huguenot family, which made its money in the linen trade and founded the Belfast News Letter. Her liberal and far-sighted parents send her to David Manson‘s progressive co-educational school, where ‘young ladies’ received the same education as the boys. She excels at mathematics.

As an adult, McCracken manages a successful muslin business in Belfast, which pioneers the production of patterned and checked muslin. She runs the business together with her sister and has at least one agent in Dublin.

McCracken is the sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the founding members of the Society of United Irishmen. In the aftermath of her brother’s defeat at the Battle of Antrim on June 7, 1798, she helps Henry Joy and some colleagues hide in the hills of south Antrim, bringing them clothes and money. She is arranging for a ship to take him to the United States when he is recognised by three Carrickfergus soldiers and arrested there on July 7, 1798.

McCracken shares her brother’s interest in reviving the oral-music tradition of Ireland and is a founding member of the Belfast Harp Society (1808–1813). She supports Edward Bunting in his collecting of traditional music, introducing him to people who can help, acting as his unofficial secretary and contributes anonymously to the second volume of his work The Ancient Music of Ireland in 1809. Bunting lives with the McCrackens for thirty-five years, before moving to Dublin 1819 and thereafter corresponds regularly with McCracken.

McCracken, like her brother, holds radical beliefs and these extend not just to the politics of the time, but to many social issues, such as poverty and slavery. She is dedicated to the poor of Belfast and from her earliest childhood she works to raise funds and provide clothes for the children of the Belfast Poorhouse, now known as Clifton House, Belfast. Following a visit from Elizabeth Fry she forms the Ladies Committee of the Belfast Charitable Society and is chair from 1832–1855. Thanks to the efforts of the committee a school, and later a nursery, is set up to educate the orphans of Belfast. She takes particular pains to find a suitable teacher, displaying a high level of dedication and compassion for her cause. The committee also inspects the homes where children of the poorhouse are apprenticed out.

McCracken leads the Women’s Abolitionary Ccmmittee in Belfast during the height of the anti-slavery movement and continues to promote the cause long after the spirit of radicalism had died in Belfast. By the 1850s, the liberality of the 1790s had largely evaporated in the aftermath of the failure of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and the subsequent executions or exile of the leading protagonists.

At the age of 88, McCracken is to be seen at the Belfast docks, handing out anti-slavery leaflets to those boarding ships bound for the United States, where slavery is still practised. Her continued campaign long after the deaths of her counterparts serves to demonstrate the strength of radicalism that exists in certain circles of Belfast society at the close of the eighteenth century.

After her brother’s execution in Belfast, McCracken takes over the care of his illegitimate daughter, Maria, which is not universally accepted in her wider family. She lives with Maria and her family until her death at the age of 96 on July 26, 1866. She is buried in grave number 35 at Clifton Street Cemetery.

A blue plaque has been placed by the Ulster History Circle on the house at 62 Donegall Pass, Belfast, where McCracken lived for much of her later life.


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Death of Maximilian Ulysses Browne, Austrian Military Officer

Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf von Browne, Baron de Camus and Mountany, an Irish refugee, scion of the Wild Geese and an Austrian military officer, dies in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia on June 26, 1757. He is one of the highest-ranking officers serving the Hapsburg Emperor during the middle of the 18th century and one of the most prominent Irish soldiers never to fight for Ireland.

Browne is born in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Count Ulysses von Browne (b. Limerick 1659) and his wife Annabella Fitzgerald, a daughter of the House of Desmond. Both families had been exiled from Ireland in the aftermath of the Nine Years’ War.

Browne’s early career is helped by family and marital connections. His father and his father’s brother, George (b. Limerick 1657), are created Counts of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Charles VI in 1716 after serving with distinction in the service of the Holy Roman Emperors. The brothers enjoy a lengthy, close friendship with John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who is primarily responsible for their establishment in the Imperial Service of Austria. On his father’s death he becomes third Earl of Browne in the Jacobite peerage. His wife, Countess Marie Philippine von Martinitz, has valuable connections at court and his sister, Barbara (b. Limerick 1700), is married to Freiherr Francis Patrick O’Neillan, a Major General in the Austrian Service. So, by the age of 29 Browne is already colonel of an Austrian infantry regiment.

Browne justifies his early promotion in the field, and in the Italian campaign of 1734 he greatly distinguishes himself. In the Tirolese fighting of 1735, and in the Turkish war, he wins further distinction as a general officer.

Browne is a lieutenant field marshal in command of the Silesian garrisons when in 1740 Frederick II and the Prussian army overruns the province. His careful employment of such resources as he possesses materially hinders the king in his conquest and allows time for Austria to collect a field army. He is present at Mollwitz, where he receives a severe wound. His vehement opposition to all half-hearted measures brings him frequently into conflict with his superiors but contributes materially to the unusual energy displayed by the Austrian armies in 1742 and 1743.

In the following campaigns Browne exhibits the same qualities of generalship and the same impatience of control. In 1745 he serves under Count Traun and is promoted to the rank of Feldzeugmeister. In 1746 he is present in the Italian campaign and the battles of Piacenza and Rottofreddo. He and an advanced guard force their way across the Apennine Mountains and enter Genoa. He is thereafter placed in command of the invasion of France mounted in winter 1746-47, leading to the Siege of Antibes, but he is obliged to break off the invasion and return to Italy in February 1747 after Genoa rises in rebellion against the Austrian garrison he had left behind. In early 1747 he is appointed commander of all imperial forces in Italy, replacing Antoniotto Botta Adorno. At the end of the war, he is engaged in the negotiations on troop withdrawals from Italy, which leads to the convention of Nice on January 21, 1749. He becomes commander-in-chief in Bohemia in 1751, and field marshal two years later.

Browne is still in Bohemia when the Seven Years’ War opens with Frederick’s invasion of Saxony in 1756. His army, advancing to the relief of Pirna, is met, and, after a hard struggle, defeated by the king at the Battle of Lobositz, but he draws off in excellent order, and soon makes another attempt with a picked force to reach Pirna, by wild mountain tracks. He never spares himself, bivouacking in the snow with his men, and Thomas Carlyle records that private soldiers made rough shelters over him as he slept.

Brown actually reaches the Elbe at Bad Schandau, but as the Saxons are unable to break out, he retires, having succeeded, however, in delaying the development of Frederick’s operations for a whole campaign. In the campaign of 1757, he voluntarily serves under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine who is made commander-in-chief. On May 6 of that year, while leading a bayonet charge at the Battle of Prague, Browne, like Kurt Christoph, Graf von Schwerin, on the same day, meets his death. He is carried mortally wounded into Prague, and there dies on June 26, 1757.