Moylan is born to a Catholic family in Cork, County Cork, in 1737. His father, John Moylan, is a well-to-do merchant in Shandon, County Cork. His older brother Francis becomes Bishop of Cork. His family sends him to be educated in Paris. He then works in Lisbon for three years in the family shipping firm. He settles in Philadelphia in 1768 to organize his own firm. He is one of the organizers of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, an Irish American fraternal organization, and serves as its first president.
Moylan joins the American Continental Army in 1775 and upon the recommendation of John Dickinson, is appointed Muster-Master General on August 11, 1775. His brother John acts as United States Clothier General during the war. His experience in the shipping industry affords the United States a well qualified ship outfitter, who helps fit out the first ships of the Continental Navy. On March 5, 1776, he becomes secretary to General George Washington with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is appointed Quartermaster General in the American Continental Army on June 5, 1776, succeeding Thomas Mifflin. He resigns from this office on September 28, 1776. However, he continues to serve as a volunteer of General Washington’s staff through December 1776.
In January 1776, Moylan writes a letter using the term “United States of America,” the earliest known use of that phrase.
Moylan then raises a troop of light dragoons, the 4th Continental Light Dragoons, also known as Moylan’s Horse, on January 3, 1777, at Philadelphia. The regiment is be noted for taking the field in captured British red coats. However, they see action in green coats at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777, and end the year by protecting the Cantonment at Valley Forge. He succeeds General Casimir Pulaski as Commander of the Cavalry in March 1778. Moylan’s Horse sees action at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778.
In the campaign of 1779 Moylan and the 4th Dragoons are stationed at Pound Ridge, New York, and see action when the British raid Norwalk, Connecticut, on July 11, 1779. He and the 4th Dragoons take part in the Battle of Springfield in New Jersey, on June 23, 1780, and General Anthony Wayne‘s expedition at Bull’s Ferry, New Jersey, on July 20, 1780. He commands his Dragoons at the Siege of Yorktown in October 1781, after which he is to take the cavalry to the Southern Campaign. However, his failing health causes him to leave the field and return to Philadelphia, where he constantly appeals to the Continental Congress to man, equip and maintain the Continental Dragoon Regiments.
Moylan is married to Mary Ricketts Van Horne on September 12, 1778, and has two daughters, Elizabeth Catherine, and Maria. His two sons die as children. He dies in Philadelphia on April 11, 1811, and is buried there in the churchyard at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church.
Hoban is a Roman Catholic raised on the Desart Court estate belonging to the Earl of Desart near Callan, County Kilkenny. He works there as a wheelwright and carpenter until his early twenties, when he is given an “advanced student” place in the Dublin Society‘s Drawing School on Lower Grafton Street. He studies under Thomas Ivory. He excels in his studies and receives the prestigious Duke of Leinster‘s medal for drawings of “Brackets, Stairs, and Roofs” from the Dublin Society in 1780. He is an apprentice to Ivory, from 1779 to 1785.
Hoban is in South Carolina by April 1787, where he designs numerous buildings including the Charleston County Courthouse (1790–92), built on the ruins of the former South Carolina Statehouse, which was burned in 1788. PresidentGeorge Washington admires Hoban’s work on his Southern Tour and may have met with him in Charleston in May 1791. Washington summons the architect to Philadelphia, the temporary national capital, in June 1792.
In July 1792, Hoban is named winner of the design competition for the White House. His initial design has a 3-story facade, nine bays across, like the Charleston courthouse. Under Washington’s influence, he amends this to a 2-story facade, eleven bays across, and, at Washington’s insistence, the whole presidential mansion is faced with stone. It is unclear whether any of Hoban’s surviving drawings are actually from the competition.
It is known that Hoban owns at least three slaves who are employed as carpenters in the construction of the White House. Their names are recorded as “Ben, Daniel, and Peter” and appear in a James Hoban slave payroll.
Hoban is also one of the supervising architects who serves on the United States Capitol, carrying out the design of Dr. William Thornton, as well as with The Octagon House. He lives the rest of his life in Washington, D.C., where he works on other public buildings and government projects, including roads and bridges.
Local folklore has it that Hoban designed Rossenarra House near the village of Kilmoganny in County Kilkenny in 1824.
Hoban’s wife, Susanna “Susan” Sewall, is the sister of the prominent GeorgetownCity Tavern proprietor, Clement Sewall, who enlists as a sergeant at age 19 in the Maryland Line during the Revolutionary War, is promoted six months later to ensign and then severely wounded at the Battle of Germantown.
After the District of Columbia is granted limited home rule in 1802, Hoban serves on the twelve-member city council for most of the remainder of his life, except during the years he is rebuilding the White House. He is also involved in the development of Catholic institutions in the city, including Georgetown University, St. Patrick’s Parish, and the Georgetown Visitation Monastery founded by another Kilkenny native, Teresa Lalor of Ballyragget.
Born on April 1, 1743, in St. Bridget’s Parish, Dublin, Butler is the oldest son of Thomas and Eleanor Butler (née Parker). His father is an Irish aristocrat who serves in the British Army. He is the brother of Colonel Thomas Butler and Captain Edward Butler. All three brothers serve in the American Revolution and in the Northwest Indian War against the Northwestern Confederacy of Native American tribes in the Northwest Territories. His two other brothers, William and Percival, serve in the Revolution but do not see later military service.
By 1760, the family moves to the frontier at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Thomas and his sons manufacture long rifles and become friends with Daniel Morgan. The Butler gun shop still stands in Carlisle.
By the 1770s, Butler and his brother William are important traders at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. Butler Street in Pittsburgh is named for them.
At the outset of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress names Butler a commissioner in 1775 to negotiate with the Indians. He visits representatives of the Delaware, Shawnee, and other tribes to secure their support, or at least neutrality, in the war with Britain.
On July 20, 1776, Butler is commissioned a major in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment in the Continental Army, serving first as second in command to his friend Daniel Morgan. He is promoted to lieutenant colonel on March 12, 1777 retroactive to September 1776. On June 7, 1777 he is promoted to colonel and placed in command of 9th Pennsylvania Regiment.
At the conclusion of the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781, General George Washington confers on Butler the honor of receiving Cornwallis’ sword of surrender, an honor which he gives to his second in command, Ebenezer Denny. At the last moment, Baron von Steuben demands that he receive the sword. This almost precipitates a duel between Butler and Von Steuben.
At the victory dinner for his officers, George Washington raises his glass and toasts, “The Butlers and their five sons!”
Following Yorktown, Butler remains in the Continental Army and is transferred to the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment following a consolidation of the Army on January 1, 1783. On September 30 of the same year, he is breveted as a brigadier general. He remains in active service with the Continental Army until it is finally disbanded on November 3, 1783.
In 1783 Butler and his brothers become original members of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati, a military society of officers who had served in the Continental Army.
Butler returns to Pennsylvania, and is a judge in Allegheny County. He also serves in the state legislature. He marries Maria Smith and they have four children, only one of whom lives to have children and continue the line. He also fathers a son, Captain Butler (or Tamanatha) with Shawnee chief Nonhelema. He and his Shawnee son fight in opposing armies in 1791.
In 1791, Butler is commissioned a major general in the levies (i.e. militiamen conscripted into Federal service) under Major General Arthur St. Clair to fight against the Western Confederacy of Native Americans in the Northwest Territories (modern day Ohio). He is killed in action on November 4, 1791 in St. Clair’s Defeat at what is now Fort Recovery, Ohio.
Reportedly Butler is first buried on the battlefield, which site is then lost until it is accidentally found years later. The remains are laid to rest with the remains of the other fallen at Fort Recovery.
Butler is also honored in the name of General Richard Butler KYSAAR, Butler County, Kentucky recognized August 20, 2016. A chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution is named for him as as is the General Richard Butler Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), founded in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In 1783 FitzGerald visits the West Indies before returning to Ireland, where his brother, William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster, has procured Edward’s election to the Irish Parliament as an MP for Athy, a seat he holds until 1790. In Parliament he acts with the small Opposition Irish Patriot Party group led by Henry Grattan, but takes no prominent part in debate. In the spring of 1786 he takes the then unusual step for a young nobleman of entering the Military College, Woolwich, after which he makes a tour through Spain in 1787. Dejected by unrequited love for his cousin Georgina Lennox, he sails for New Brunswick to join the 54th Regiment with the rank of Major.
In April 1789, guided by compass, FitzGerald traverses the country with a brother officer from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Quebec, falling in with Indians by the way, with whom he fraternizes. He accomplishes the journey in twenty-six days, and establishes a shorter practicable route than that hitherto followed. The route crosses the extremely rugged and heavily forested northern part of the present state of Maine. In a subsequent expedition he is formally adopted at Detroit by the Bear clan of the Mohawk with the name “Eghnidal,” and makes his way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, whence he returns to England.
Finding that his brother has procured his election for Kildare County, a seat he holds from 1790 to 1798, and desiring to maintain political independence, FitzGerald refuses the command of an expedition against Cádiz offered him by William Pitt the Younger, and devotes himself for the next few years to the pleasures of society and to his parliamentary duties. He is on terms of intimacy with his first cousin Charles Fox, with Richard Sheridan and other leading Whigs. According to Thomas Moore, FitzGerald is only one of numerous suitors of Sheridan’s first wife, Elizabeth, whose attentions are received with favour. She conceives a child by him, a baby girl who is born on March 30, 1792.
His Whig connections, together with his transatlantic experiences, predisposed FitzGerald to sympathize with the doctrines of the French Revolution, which he embraces enthusiastically when he visits Paris in October 1792. He lodges with Thomas Paine and listens to the debates in the Convention. While in Paris, he becomes enamoured of a young girl named Pamela whom he chances to see at the theatre, and who has a striking likeness to Elizabeth Sheridan. On December 27, 1792, he and Pamela are married at Tournai, one of the witnesses being Louis Philippe, afterwards King of the French. In January 1793 the couple reaches Dublin.
Ireland is by then seething with dissent which is finding a focus in the increasingly popular and revolutionary Society of the United Irishmen, which has been forced underground by the outbreak of war between France and Britain in 1793. FitzGerald, fresh from the gallery of the Convention in Paris, returns to his seat in the Irish Parliament and immediately springs to their defence. Within a week of his return he is ordered into custody and required to apologise at the bar of the House of Commons for violently denouncing in the House a Government proclamation which Grattan had approved for the suppression of the United-Irish attempt to revive the Irish Volunteer movement with a “National Guard.” However, it is not until 1796 that he joins the United Irishmen, who by now have given up as hopeless the path of constitutional reform and whose aim, after the recall of Lord FitzWilliam in 1795, is nothing less than the establishment of an independent Irish republic.
In May 1796 Theobald Wolfe Tone is in Paris endeavouring to obtain French assistance for an insurrection in Ireland. In the same month, FitzGerald and his friend Arthur O’Connor proceed to Hamburg, where they open negotiations with the Directory through Reinhard, French minister to the Hanseatic towns. The Duke of York, meeting Pamela at Devonshire House on her way through London with her husband, tells her that his plans are known and advises that he should not go abroad. The proceedings of the conspirators at Hamburg are made known to the government in London by an informer, Samuel Turner. The result of the Hamburg negotiations is Louis Lazare Hoche‘s abortive expedition to Bantry Bay in December 1796.
In September 1797 the Government learns from the informer Leonard McNally that FitzGerald is among those directing the conspiracy of the United Irishmen, which is now quickly maturing. Thomas Reynolds, converted from a conspirator to an informer, keeps the authorities posted in what is going on, though lack of evidence produced in court delays the arrest of the ringleaders. But on March 12, 1798 Reynolds’ information leads to the seizure of a number of conspirators at the house of Oliver Bond. FitzGerald, warned by Reynolds, is not among them.
As a fellow member of the Ascendancy class, the Government are anxious to make an exception for FitzGerald, avoiding the embarrassing and dangerous consequences of his subversive activities. They communicate their willingness to spare him from the normal fate meted out to traitors. FitzGerald however refuses to desert others who cannot escape, and whom he has himself led into danger. On March 30 the government proclamation of martial law authorising the military to act as they see fit to crush the United Irishmen leads to a campaign of vicious brutality in several parts of the country.
FitzGerald’s social position makes him the most important United Irish leader still at liberty. On May 9 a reward of £1,000 is offered by Dublin Castle for his apprehension. Since the arrests at Bond’s house, he has been in hiding. The date for the rising is finally fixed for May 23 and FitzGerald awaits the day hidden by Mary Moore above her family’s inn in Thomas Street, Dublin.
Tipped off that the house is going to be raided, Moore turns to Francis Magan, a Catholicbarrister and trusted sympathiser, who agrees to hide Fitzgerald. Making its way to Magan’s house on May 18, Fitzgerald’s party is challenged by Major Henry Sirr and a company of Dumbarton Fencibles. Moore escapes with Fitzgerald and takes him back to Thomas Street to the house of Nicholas Murphy.
Moore explains to Magan what had happened and, unbeknownst to her, Magan informs Dublin Castle. The Moore house is raided that day. Mary, running to warn the Leinster Directory meeting nearby in James’s Gate, receives a bayonet cut across the shoulders. That same evening Sirr storms Murphy’s house where FitzGerald is in bed suffering from a fever. Alerted by the commotion, he jumps out of bed and, ignoring the pleas of the arresting officers to surrender peacefully, he stabs one and mortally wounds the other with a dagger in a desperate attempt to escape. He is secured only after Major Sirr shoots him in the shoulder.
FitzGerald is conveyed to New Prison, Dublin where he is denied proper medical treatment. After a brief detention in Dublin Castle he is taken to Newgate Prison, Dublin where his wound, which has become infected, becomes mortally inflamed. His wife, whom the government probably has enough evidence to convict of treason, has fled the country, never to see her husband again, but FitzGerald’s brother Henry and his aunt Lady Louisa Conolly are allowed to see him in his last moments. He dies at the age of 34 on June 4, 1798, as the rebellion rages outside. He is buried the next day in the cemetery of St. Werburgh’s Church, Dublin. An Act of Attainder confiscating his property is passed as 38 Geo. 3 c. 77, but is eventually repealed in 1819.
On his release Coote returns to England, is promoted major in the 47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot in 1783, and in 1784 inherits the substantial estates of his uncle Sir Eyre Coote. He inherits a further £200,000 by remainder on his father’s death in 1796. He resides for a time at Portrane House, Maryborough, Queen’s County, and is elected MP for Ballynakill (1790–97) and Maryborough (1797–1800). Although he opposes the union, he vacates his seat to allow his elder brother Charles, 2nd Baron Castle Coote, to return a pro-union member. He serves with distinction in the West Indies (1793–95), particularly at the storming of Guadeloupe on July 3, 1794, and becomes colonel of the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot (1794), aide-de-camp to King George III (1795), and brigadier-general in charge of the camp at Bandon, County Cork (1796).
Coote is active in suppressing the United Irishmen in Cork throughout 1797, and in June arrests several soldiers and locals suspected of attempting to suborn the Bandon camp. On January 1, 1798 he is promoted major-general and given the command at Dover. He leads the expedition of 1,400 men that destroy the canal gates at Ostend on May 18, 1798, holding out stubbornly for two days against superior Dutch forces until he is seriously wounded and his force overwhelmed. Taken prisoner, he is exchanged and in 1800 commands a brigade in Sir Ralph Abercromby‘s Mediterranean campaign, distinguishing himself at Abu Qir and Alexandria. For his services in Egypt he receives the thanks of parliament, is made a Knight of the Bath, and is granted the Crescent by the Sultan.
In 1801 Coote returns to Ireland. Elected MP for Queen’s County (1802–06), he generally supports the government, and is appointed governor of the fort of Maryborough. He gives the site and a large sum of money towards the building of the old county hospital in Maryborough. In 1805 he is promoted lieutenant-general, and he serves as lieutenant-governor of Jamaica (1806–08). His physical and mental health deteriorates in the West Indian climate, and he is relieved of his post in April 1808. He is second in command in the Walcheren Campaign of 1809 and leads the force that takes the fortress of Flushing. However, he shows signs of severe stress during the campaign and asks to be relieved from command because his eldest daughter is seriously ill.
Coote is conferred LL.D. at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1811. Elected MP for Barnstaple, Devon (1812–18), he usually votes with government, but opposes them by supporting Catholic emancipation, claiming that Catholics strongly deserve relief because of the great contribution Catholic soldiers had made during the war. He strongly opposes the abolition of flogging in the army. Despite a growing reputation for eccentricity, he is promoted full general in 1814 and appointed Knight Grand Cross (GCB) on January 2, 1815, but his conduct becomes increasingly erratic. In November 1815 he pays boys at Christ’s Hospital school, London, to allow him to flog them and to flog him in return. Discovered by the school matron, he is charged with indecent behaviour. The Lord Mayor of London dismisses the case and Coote donates £1,000 to the school, but the scandal leads to a military inquiry on April 18, 1816. Although it is argued that his mind had been affected by the Jamaican sun and the deaths of his daughters, the inquiry finds that he is not insane and that his conduct is unworthy of an officer. Despite the protests of many senior officers, he is discharged from the army and deprived of his honours.
Coote continues to decline and dies in London on December 10, 1823. He is buried at his seat of West Park, Hampshire, where in 1828 a large monument is erected to him and his uncle Sir Eyre Coote.
Coote first marries Sarah Robard in 1785, with whom he has three daughters, all of whom die young of consumption. Secondly he marries in 1805, Katherine, daughter of John Bagwell of Marlfield, County Tipperary, with whom he has one son, his heir Eyre Coote III, MP for Clonmel (1830–33). He also has a child by Sally, a slave girl in Jamaica, from whom Colin Powell, United States Army general and Secretary of State, claims descent.
Sackville then enters the army. He is elected Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1751, serving in this post for two years. He marries Diana Sambrooke, daughter of John Sambrooke and Elizabeth Forester, on September 3, 1754. They have two sons and three daughters.
In 1747 and 1748, Sackville again joins the Duke of Cumberland. He becomes colonel of the 7th Irish horse and serves in Holland. There is a break in his military career between wars (1750-1755) when he serves as first secretary to his father.
In June 1758 Sackville is second in command of a British expedition led by Marlborough which attempts an amphibious Raid on St. Malo. While it fails to take the town as instructed, the raid is still considered to be largely successful as a diversion. Follow-up raids are considered against Le Havre, Caen and other targets in Normandy but no further landings are attempted and the force returns home. Later in 1758 they join the allied forces of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany. When Marlborough dies, Sackville becomes Commander of the British contingent of the army, although still under the overall command of the Duke of Brunswick.
In the Battle of Minden on August 1, 1759, British and Hanoverian infantry of the centre make an advance on the French cavalry and artillery in that sector. As the disrupted French begin to fall back on Minden, Ferdinand calls for a British cavalry charge to complete the victory, but Sackville withholds permission for their advance repeatedly. For this action, he is cashiered and sent home. John Manners, Marquess of Granby, replaces him as commander of the British contingent for the remainder of the war.
Sackville refuses to accept responsibility for refusing to obey orders. Back in England, he demands a court-martial, and makes it a large enough issue that he obtains his demand in 1760. The court finds him guilty, and the verdict not only upholds his discharge, but rules that he is “…unfit to serve His Majesty in any military Capacity whatever.” The king has his name struck from the Privy Council rolls.
Sackville is a Member of Parliament at intervals from 1733. He serves terms in both the Dublin and the Westminster bodies, sometimes simultaneously, but does not take sides in political wrangles. Between 1750 and 1755 he serves as Chief Secretary for Ireland, during his father’s second term as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
On November 10, 1775, Sackville is appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies replacing William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth in the post. He becomes a target for the opposition, and is eventually persuaded to step down in exchange for a peerage, and in February 1782 he is made Baron Bolebrooke, in the County of Sussex, and Viscount Sackville, of Drayton in the County of Northamptonshire. His political career ends with the fall of the North government in March 1782.
The controversy over Sackville’s handling of the war continues. Some members are opposed to his taking a seat in the House of Lords, an almost unprecedented incident. In spite of this he is admitted to the Lords, where he is staunchly defended by Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow, and his declining health soon makes the issue irrelevant. He retires to his country home at Stoneland Lodge and dies there on August 26, 1785. He maintains to his dying day that he had not been a coward at Minden. Following his death, a defence of his reputation, The character of the late Viscount Sackville, is written by Richard Cumberland.
(Pictured: “George Germain,” 1766 painting by George Romney (1734-1802))
Montgomery is born into a wealthy family in Swords, Dublin, on December 2, 1738. He attends Trinity College Dublin before dropping out to become a Junior Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) in the British Army. He serves with distinction during the Seven Years’ War, more commonly known as the French and Indian War, and is promoted several times, finally attaining the rank of captain before the end of the war. He is released from duty due to his health and returns to Great Britain to recover. In Britain, he discusses politics and affiliates with the Whigs political party in Parliament, who later supports American independence. When his health finally recovers, he resigns his commission from the British Army and moves to New York, settling into the life of a farmer. On July 24, 1773, he marries Janet Livingston, who is from an anti-British patriot family. He continues to cement his beliefs and begins to identify as an “American” rather than a “Briton.”
Eventually, Montgomery’s political beliefs turn into political action. In May 1775, he is elected as one of the ten deputies to represent Dutchess County in the New York Provincial Congress and is chosen to organize the militias and defenses of New York. After George Washington is chosen to be the commander of the Continental Army in June of the same year, the New York Provincial Congress is asked to choose two people for the rank major general and brigadier general for service in the new army. Philip Schuyler is appointed to the rank of major general. Montgomery protests the promotion, arguing that Schuyler does not have enough combat experience to be an effective leader. Later, the New York Provincial Congress appoints Montgomery as brigadier general because of his military experience. General Washington personally appoints the reluctant Montgomery to be Schuyler’s second in command. This move is just in time as Schuyler falls ill during at the start of the invasion of Canada, thus giving Montgomery control of the campaign.
Once in command, Montgomery begins a successful campaign in Canada as General Benedict Arnold is marching through the wilderness of modern-day Maine to meet him in Quebec. He captures numerous strongpoints and eventually the city of Montreal falls to the Patriots. His numerous victories and kind treatment of British prisoners take a toll on the Patriot militias under his command, who demand rest and the same provisions given to the British prisoners. The commanding general is reluctant to lead his soldiers, who he has seen as undisciplined. It takes a personal letter from General Washington to reassure him that there is insubordination and lack of discipline all throughout the Continental Army and that resignation is not the answer. Nevertheless, he continues to Quebec to meet Arnold and his army.
When Montgomery and his men arrive outside Quebec, his force consists of some 300 men compared to Arnold’s 1,000 men. Now a major general, he establishes siege lines around the city of Quebec and demands the surrender of the defenders within. The terms of surrender are rejected numerous times, leaving him and Arnold with no other choice but to assault the city. He hopes that snow will hide the movement of his troops, thus, he plans on waiting for snowfall in order to attack. General Arnold, however, is worried about his men. A December 31 enlistment expiration is looming, that could drastically reduce the size of the assaulting force. Montgomery discovers waiting for the right time is not an option and coordinates an attack for the early hours of December 31, 1775. That morning, Montgomery leads a group of his men toward the interior of Quebec. With sword drawn and lantern out, the Patriots advance toward a blockhouse where the British and Canadian defenders notice this movement and let loose a volley of grapeshot and muskets, which instantly kills Montgomery and the men close to him.
Montgomery’s body is discovered after the failed attacks by the Continentals. The British defenders of Quebec bring his body to General Guy Carleton, who orders it be buried with respect and dignity. He is laid to rest in Quebec on January 4, 1776. News of his death causes widespread mourning, both in America and in the British Isles. Many Patriots elevate his status to a hero and martyr for independence and the American cause, while British members of parliament, especially the Whigs, use his death to mark the failures in the British response to the insurrection in their colonies. In July 1818 his remains are reinterred in New York.
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.
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 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
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 can not 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.
General Charles Edward Saul Jennings, Irish soldier and revolutionary who serves France in the eighteenth century and is sometimes romanticised as Brave Kilmaine, is born on October 19, 1751 in Sauls Court, Dublin.
Jennings is the second son of Theobald Jennings, a physician of Polaniran (Ironpool), Tuam, County Galway, and Eleonore Saul, daughter of Laurence Saul, a wealthy Dublin distiller. Educated privately in Dublin, he leaves Ireland in 1769, settling in Tonnay-Charente in the south of France, where his father had set up practice. His father had, several years previously, assumed the fictitious title of ‘baron of Kilmaine’ in the hope of improving his position in French society, and he subsequently assumes the same title.
In 1774 Jennings joins the Royal Dragoons as a trooper, transferring in 1778 into the Légion de Lauzun, a corps made up mostly of foreign volunteers. After the campaign in Senegal (1778–79) he returns to France and is commissioned as a sous-lieutenant. He then campaigns with Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, during the American Revolutionary War and teaches cavalry tactics at Metz on his return. Promoted to captain in 1788, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he is stationed at Verdun and, despite a short period in prison, continues to serve with his regiment. In 1791, when several of the regiment’s officers flee from France, he remains and is one of the first officers to swear allegiance to the national assembly.
Promoted to Chef d’escadron in April 1792, Jennings serves under Charles François Dumouriez during the invasion of the Netherlands, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Valmy and the Battle of Jemappes, where he reinforces the French centre at a critical point, ensuring victory. A series of rapid promotions follow. He is made a colonel in January 1793, a general of brigade in March 1794, and a general of division in May1794.
After a series of reverses in the summer of 1793, in which the French lose the fortress-towns of Condé and Valenciennes, the committee of public safety appoints Jennings to command the Armée du Nord on May 15, 1793, with the rank of full general. In August, in order to preserve his force in the face of overwhelming opposition, he retreats from a position 120 miles north of Paris known as ‘Caesar’s camp.’ Although the allied army swings away to invest Dunkirk, he is arrested and imprisoned for endangering the city, and remains in prison until after the fall of Robespierre in July 1794. Within a few days, due to the turbulent political situation, he is rearrested and not released until December 1794. In May 1795 he cooperates with Napoléon Bonaparte in suppressing the Jacobin uprising in Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris and, having reestablished his credentials, commands the cavalry during the invasion of Italy (1796). Bonaparte regards him highly, and he distinguishes himself at the Battle of Lodi on May 10, 1796, seizing the city of Milan five days later. He defeats a large Austrian force in the Battle of Borghetto before investing and taking the fortress-town of Mantua in February 1797.
When peace terms are agreed with Austria, Jennings returns to France, taking command of the centre column of the Armée d’Angleterre, which had been raised to invade Britain and Ireland. However, his deteriorating health makes some observers question his suitability for such an appointment. An associate of Thomas Paine and James Napper Tandy, and a friend of Wolfe Tone, he is forced to watch the gradual reduction of his army as Napoleon diverts troops for his campaign in Egypt. Tone is at first suspicious of him, given that many Irish-born French officers had deserted the revolutionary cause, but comes to admire him.
After the defeat of Admiral Bombard’s expedition to Ireland and Tone’s arrest on November 3, 1798, Jennings requests that the French government should take a senior British prisoner as hostage and subject him to the same treatment as Tone. After Tone’s death he assists Matilda Tone and her children. In early 1799 he is appointed military governor of Switzerland but is forced to resign due to his failing health.
In a fragile condition Jennings leaves Switzerland and returns to Passy in Paris, where his domestic griefs and chagrins add to the poignancy of his bodily sufferings, for his constitution is now completely broken up. He dies of dysentery on December 11, 1799, at the age of 48. He is buried with full military honours.
Jennings is historically honored at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where his name can be seen on the inside triumphal arch, on the Northern pillar, Column 05. Underneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (World War I). There is a personal portrait of Jennings in the ‘Hotel de Ville’ (City Hall) at Tonnay-Charente, where his father Dr. Theobald Jennings practiced as a physician.
A monument was erected in Jennings’s memory in Tonnay-Charente in the 19th century. Rue du Général Kilmaine, a street in Tonnay-Charente, is named in his honour in the 19th century.
Hand, the son of John Hand, is baptised in Shinrone. Among his immediate neighbours are the Kearney family, ancestors of United States PresidentBarack Obama. He is a descendant of either the families of Mag Fhlaithimh (of south Ulaidh and Mide) or Ó Flaithimhín (of the Síol Muireadaigh) who, through mistranslation became Lavin or Hand.
In 1774, Hand moves to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he practices medicine. On March 13, 1775, he marries Catherine Ewing. Lancaster is the region of some of the earliest Irish and Scotch-Irish settlements in Pennsylvania. As a people, they are well known for their anti-English and revolutionary convictions. He is active in forming the Lancaster CountyAssociators, a colonial militia. He is a 32nd degree Freemason, belonging to the Montgomery Military Lodge number 14.
Hand enters the Continental Army in 1775 as a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel William Thompson. He is promoted to colonel in 1776 and placed in command of the 1st Continental, then designated the 1st Pennsylvania. Promoted to brigadier general in March 1777, he serves as the commander of Fort Pitt, fighting British loyalists and their Indian allies. He is recalled, after over two years at Fort Pitt, to serve as a brigade commander in Major GeneralLa Fayette‘s division.
In 1778, Hand attacks the Lenape, killing Captain Pipe‘s mother, brother, and a few of his children during a military campaign. Failing to distinguish among the Native American groups, he had attacked the neutral Lenape while trying to reduce the Indian threat to settlers in the Ohio Country, because other tribes, such as the Shawnee, had allied with the British.
After a few months, he is appointed Adjutant General of the Continental Army and serves during the Siege of Yorktown in that capacity. In recognition of his long and distinguished service, he is promoted by brevet to major general in September 1783. He resigns from the Army in November 1783.
Hand returns to Lancaster and resumes the practice of medicine. A Federalist, he is also active in civil affairs. Beginning in 1785, he owns and operates Rock Ford plantation, a 177-acre farm on the banks of the Conestoga River, one mile south of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Georgian brick mansion remains today and the farm is a historic site open to the public.
Hand dies from typhoid fever, dysentery or pneumonia at Rock Ford on September 3, 1802, although medical records are unclear with some sources stating he died of cholera. There is no evidence Lancaster County suffered from a cholera epidemic in 1802. He is buried in St. James’s Episcopal Cemetery in Lancaster, the same church where he had served as a deacon.
seamus dubhghaill 