Sir Arthur Rawdon, 2nd Baronet, soldier, and horticulturalist, is born on October 17, 1662. He builds a large part of Moira, County Down in the seventeenth century. Known as the “Father of Irish Gardening” and “The Cock of the North,” he is a keen botanist, and brings over 400 different species of plants to Moira from Jamaica.
Rawdon marries Ellen Graham, daughter of Sir James Graham of Congleton in Cheshire. They have at least two children, John and Isabella.
Rawdon inherits the lands at Moira after his father dies. He rebuilds a mansion, surrounded by trees, sheep and huge gardens. On this estate, he builds the first hothouse in Europe.
Rawdon is a botanist and imports 400 plant species from Jamaica, earning the name “Father of Irish Gardening.” His garden has a labyrinth, ponds, and canals. The trees include the “Locust of Virginia” which is 30 feet high and has a trunk of at least a foot and a half in diameter. For two generations the garden is maintained.
Rawdon dies on October 17, 1695, his thirty-third birthday, and John succeeds to the baronetcy and estate as a minor. The plant collections, perhaps inevitably, decline after his death, though his wife and sisters share his interest in natural history. Some of his plant specimens are still preserved in Hans Sloane‘s herbarium in the Natural History Museum, London.
Today in Moira many places are named after Sir Arthur Rawdon, including Rawdon Court, off Main Street. Off Meeting Street there is Rawdon Place which is a housing street. Parts of the remains of his mansion are still visible.
There are few surviving records of Sarsfield’s early life, although it is generally agreed he is brought up on the family estates at Tully. While some biographies claim he is educated at a French military college, there is no evidence for this.
Sarsfield fights at Entzheim, Turckheim and Altenheim. He and Hamilton are standing next to Turenne when he is killed by a chance shot at Salzbach in July 1675. He remains in France until the war ends in 1678, then returns to London to join a new regiment being recruited by Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick. However, the Popish Plot then results in Sarsfield and other Catholics being barred from serving in the military.
This leaves Sarsfield short of money, and he becomes involved in an expensive legal campaign to regain Lucan Manor from the heirs of his brother William, who dies in 1675. This ultimately proves unsuccessful amid allegations of forged documents, and in 1681 he returns to London, where he makes two separate attempts to abduct an heiress and is lucky to escape prosecution. When Charles’s Catholic brother James becomes king in 1685, Sarsfield rejoins the army and fights in the decisive Battle of Sedgemoor, which ends the Monmouth Rebellion. James is keen to promote Catholics, whom he views as more loyal, and by 1688 Sarsfield is colonel of a cavalry unit.
After Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687, he begins creating a Catholic-dominated Irish army and political establishment. Aware of preparations for invasion by his nephew and son-in-law William of Orange, James sends Sarsfield to Dublin in September to persuade Tyrconnell to provide him with Irish troops. This proves unsuccessful, and in November James is deposed by the Glorious Revolution. Sarsfield takes part in the Wincanton Skirmish, one of the few military actions during the invasion. He remains in England until January when he is allowed to join James in France.
Accompanied by French troops and English exiles, James lands in Ireland in March 1689, beginning the Williamite War in Ireland. Sarsfield is promoted brigadier, elected to the 1689 Irish Parliament for County Dublin, and commands cavalry units in the campaign in Ulster and Connacht. When an Irish brigade is sent to France in October, French ambassador Jean-Antoine de Mesmes proposes Sarsfield as its commander. He notes that while “not…of noble birth […], (he) has distinguished himself by his ability, and (his) reputation in this kingdom is greater than that of any man I know […] He is brave, but above all has a sense of honour and integrity in all that he does”.
James rejects this, stating that although unquestionably brave, Sarsfield is “very scantily supplied with brains.” His role at the Battle of the Boyne is peripheral, although the battle is less decisive than often assumed, Jacobite losses being around 2,000 from a force of 25,000. James returns to France, leaving Tyrconnell in control. He is the leader of the “Peace Party,” who want to negotiate a settlement preserving Catholic rights to land and public office. Sarsfield heads the “War Party,” who feel they can gain more by fighting on. It includes the Luttrell brothers, Nicholas Purcell and English Catholic William Dorrington, a former colleague from Monmouth’s Regiment.
The position of the War Party is strengthened by the Declaration of Finglas, which offers the rank and file amnesty but excludes senior officers. French victories in the Low Countries briefly increases hopes of a Stuart restoration, and the Jacobites establish a defensive line along the River Shannon. Sarsfield cements his reputation with an attack on the Williamite artillery train at Ballyneety, widely credited with forcing them to abandon the first siege of Limerick. The Jacobites also retain Athlone, offset by the loss of Kinsale and Cork, which make resupply from France extremely difficult.
With Tyrconnell absent in France, Sarsfield takes control and in December 1690, arrests several leaders of the peace faction. He then bypasses James by asking Louis XIV directly for French support, and requesting the removal of Tyrconnell and the army commander James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick, James’ illegitimate son. The latter, who later describes Sarsfield as “a man […] without sense”, albeit “very good-natured,” leaves Limerick for France in February.
Tyrconnell returns in January 1691, carrying letters from James making Sarsfield Earl of Lucan, an attempt to placate an “increasingly influential and troublesome figure.” A large French convoy arrives at Limerick in May, along with Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe, appointed military commander in an attempt to end the conflict between the factions. Saint-Ruhr and 7,000 others die at Aughrim in July 1691, reputedly the bloodiest battle ever on Irish soil. Sarsfield’s role is unclear: one account claims he quarrels with Saint-Ruhe and is sent to the rear with the cavalry reserves.
The remnants of the Jacobite army regroup at Limerick. Tyrconnell dies of a stroke in August, and in October, Sarsfield negotiates terms of surrender. He is criticised for this, having constantly attacked Tyrconnell for advocating the same thing, while it is suggested the Williamite army is weaker than he judged. However, the collapse of the Shannon line and surrender of Galway and Sligo leaves him little option. Without French supplies, the military position is hopeless, and defections mean his army is dissolving.
The military articles of the Treaty of Limerick preserve the Jacobite army by allowing its remaining troops to enter French service. About 19,000 officers and men, including Sarsfield, choose to leave in what is known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Sarsfield’s handling of the civil articles is less successful. Most of its protections are ignored by the new regime, although Sarsfield possibly views it as temporary, hoping to resume the war.
On arrival in France, Sarsfield becomes Major-General in the army of exiles, an appointment James makes with great reluctance. In addition to other acts of perceived insubordination, Sarsfield allegedly tells William’s negotiators at Limerick “change but kings with us, and we will fight it over again.” After the planned invasion of England is abandoned in 1692, the exiles become part of the French army, and Sarsfield a French maréchal de camp.
Sarsfield fights at Steenkerque in August 1692, and is fatally wounded at the Battle of Landen in 1693, dying at Huy on August 21, 1693. Despite several searches, no grave or burial record has been found, although a plaque at St. Martin’s Church, Huy, has been set up in commemoration and an announcement in 2023 states that, pending exhumation and identification, his remains have been located. Like much else, his reputed last words, “Oh that this had been shed for Ireland!” are apocryphal.
Butler succeeds to the title at the age of fifteen and was educated at the University of Oxford, taking the degree of LL.D. in 1677. In 1678, he is commissioned as a captain in Colonel Thomas Dongan‘s regiment, which is disbanded before he takes up his post.
In 1692, Butler is created Earl of Newcastle in County Limerick in the Jacobite peerage of Ireland. In France he is named Colonel of the 2nd Queen’s Regiment of Irish Horse in the service of that country and serves with distinction in various battles of the War of the Spanish Succession, also becoming a Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. He is at the Siege of Roses in 1693, and in 1694 is a Brigadier attached to the army of Germany. He serves in Italy and other parts of Continental Europe from 1701 to 1703, sharing all the fortunes of the Irish Brigade. He later serves in the French army as a Lieutenant-General. He is created Brigadier of Cavalry in 1694.
Butler dies at the age of eighty-eight in Paris on June 18, 1740, and is buried at St. Paul’s there. John C. O’Callaghan writes in Irish Brigades in the Service of France (Glasgow, 1870): “The successive claimants of the title of Galmoy were officers in France down to the Revolution; in whose armies, as well as in others, various gentlemen have honourably represented a name, of which the illustrious General Lafayette is related to have said, in the war for the independence of the United States of America, that ‘whenever he wanted anything well done, he got a Butler to do it.'”
Notwithstanding the attainder, the viscountcy is assumed by his nephew, James Butler of the Irish Brigade in France, the son of the Viscount’s brother, Richard Butler of Galmoye.
The Protestant forces are taken by surprise and there is little fighting, reflected in the term “Break,” a Scottish word for rout. Victory secures eastern Ulster for the Jacobites but they fail to fully exploit their success.
While much of the Protestant population of east Ulster supports the claim of William III to thrones of Ireland, England and Scotland, the rest of Ireland, including the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, and the army, support James II. As a result, war breaks out in Ireland after James is deposed in the Glorious Revolution. At the start of the conflict, the Jacobites are left in control of two fortified positions at Carrickfergus and Charlemont in territory which is predominantly Williamite in sympathy. The local Williamites raise a militia and meet in a council at Hillsborough. They make an ineffective assault on Carrickfergus. However, this is easily beaten off and a local Catholic cleric named O’Hegarty reports that the Williamite are badly armed and trained.
The Jacobite commander in the north is Richard Hamilton, an experienced soldier who serves with the French military from 1671 to 1685, when he is appointed a colonel in the Irish Army. In September 1688, he and his regiment are transferred to England. When James flees into exile, he is held in the Tower of London. Released on parole by William in February, he is sent to negotiate with Talbot but drops this mission once back in Ireland. Alexander Osbourne, a Presbyterian clergyman, is sent to offer the Hillsborough council a pardon in return for surrender but they refuse, reportedly encouraged by Osbourne. On March 8, Hamilton marches north from Drogheda with 2,500 men to subdue the Williamites by force.
On March 14 Hamilton crosses the River Lagan and attacks a 3,000 strong Williamite force under Lord Mount Alexander at Dromore. Alexander’s cavalry falls back in disorder following a charge by the Jacobite dragoons. Seeing this, Hamilton orders a general advance of his infantry and the Williamite foot flee toward Dromore itself. They are overtaken in the village by the Jacobite cavalry and slaughtered, roughly 400 being killed and the rest fleeing for their lives.
Lord Mount Alexander rides to Donaghadee and takes a ship to England, while many other Protestants leave for Northern England or Scotland. Hamilton’s men capture Hillsborough, along with £1,000 and large stocks of food but fail to pursue their opponents. This allows the bulk of the militia under Rawdon and Henry Baker to reach Coleraine, then make their way to Derry, where they take part in the successful defence of the city.
The Capture of Bandon begins on February 23, 1689, when the town of Bandon, County Cork, is forcibly seized from its rebellious Protestant inhabitants by force of Irish Army troops under Justin McCarthy. The skirmishing at the town takes place during the early stages of the Williamite War in Ireland. The Jacobite success at Bandon helps suppress any chance of a general Munster uprising against the rule of James II similar to that which occurs in Ulster the same year. The slogan “No Surrender!” is believed to have been first used at Bandon and subsequently taken up, more famously, by the defenders at the Siege of Derry later in the year.
In 1685, the Catholic James II comes to the throne. This leads to a sharp reversal of government policy in Ireland, which had previously favoured the Protestant inhabitants. This is quickly changed by James’ representative Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell. Under Talbot’s administration, the army and civil government are mostly purged of Protestants, who are replaced by Catholics. In Bandon, the previous town burgesses are replaced by Catholic nominees.
Talbot’s actions lead to a growing hostility amongst the Protestant inhabitants across the island toward the King and his Irish government. Bandon is a historic centre of Protestants, dating back to the Plantation of Munster in the Elizabethan era and is a natural focus of dissent against James’s rule. In 1688, a similar opposition in England leads to the Glorious Revolution, in which William III successfully invades with a Dutch Army. Many Protestants now believe William to be their rightful King while Catholics, and some Protestants, remain loyal to James. During the growing turmoil, many rural County Cork Protestants come to shelter in Bandon.
Fearing a potential outbreak of rebellion in Bandon will occur, the government sends a detachment of the Irish Army under Captain Daniel O’Neill to take the town. They reportedly enter on a Sunday morning while the inhabitants are attending church services. The following day, February 24, sometimes referred to as “Black Monday,” the townspeople rise and attack the soldiers. Various sources say between three and eight of the redcoats are killed and the remainder are driven out of the town. Using their captured weapons, the Protestants then make an effort to prepare Bandon to withstand an assault.
Having received word about the growing rebellion in the county, Talbot in Dublin has already dispatched six companies of infantry under Justin McCarthy, an experienced Irish Catholic soldier. Instead of immediately assaulting Bandon, McCarthy first seizes nearby Cork, another major centre of Protestants in the south of the country and clamps down on other potential dissidents. He then proceeds to Bandon with his troops, plus some cavalry and artillery. Although they had previously hung out a banner proclaiming “No Surrender,” the defenders negotiate a surrender in exchange for generous conditions. Despite the usual punishment for rebellion being death, the town corporation is fined £1,000 and the walls are ordered to be demolished.
The comparatively light terms imposed on the town are part of a wider attempt by King James to convince Protestants of his goodwill toward them. It angers more hardline Catholics, including McCarthy’s nephew, Donough MacCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty, who wants a harsher punishment for the rebels.
The fighting at Bandon is part of a succession of defeats of locally raised Protestant troops both across Munster (at Castlemartyr) and Ireland as a whole, with the Ulster-raised Army of the North suffering heavy defeats at the Break of Dromore and the Battle of Cladyford. The advance of the mainly Catholic Jacobite Army is halted by the successful Protestant defence of Enniskillen and Derry. The arrival of large-scale reinforcements under Frederick Schomberg and King William reverse the tide, and Dublin is captured following the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The same year, Bandon is re-taken by Protestant forces following John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough‘s successful Siege of Cork. The walls are not rebuilt, as they are becoming increasingly militarily obsolete.
Talbot is born likely in 1630, probably in Dublin. He is one of sixteen children, the youngest of eight sons of William Talbot and his wife Alison Netterville. His father is a lawyer and the 1st Baronet Talbot of Carton, County Kildare. His mother is a daughter of John Netterville of Castletown, Kildare. The Talbots are descended from a Norman family that had settled in Leinster in the 12th century. They adhere to the Catholic faith, despite the founding of the Reformed Church of Ireland under Henry VIII. Little is recorded of Talbot’s upbringing. As an adult he grows to be unusually tall and strong by standards of the time.
Talbot marries Katherine Baynton in 1669, and they have two daughters, Katherine and Charlotte. Katherine dies in 1679. In 1681, he marries Frances Jennings, sister of Sarah Jennings, the future Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.
Talbot’s early career is spent as a cavalryman in the Irish Confederate Wars. Following a period on the European continent, he joins the court of James, Duke of York, then in exile following the English Civil War, becoming a close and trusted associate. After the 1660 restoration of James’s older brother, Charles, to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, he begins acting as agent or representative for Irish Catholics attempting to recover estates confiscated after the Cromwellian conquest, a role that defines the remainder of his career. James converts to Catholicism in the late 1660s, strengthening his association with Talbot.
When James takes the throne in 1685, Talbot’s influence increases. He oversees a major purge of Protestants from the Irish Army, which had previously barred most Catholics. James creates him Earl of Tyrconnell and later makes him Viceroy, or Lord Deputy of Ireland. He immediately begins building a Catholic establishment by admitting Catholics to many administrative, political and judicial posts.
Talbot’s efforts are interrupted by James’s 1688 deposition by his Protestant son-in-law William of Orange. He continues as a Jacobite supporter of James during the subsequent Williamite War in Ireland, but also considers a peace settlement with William that would preserve Catholic rights. Increasingly incapacitated by illness, he dies of a stroke on August 14, 1691, shortly before the Jacobite defeat. He is thought to have been buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick. By depriving the Jacobites of their most experienced negotiator, his death possibly has a substantial impact on the terms of the Treaty of Limerick that ends the war.
Talbot’s widow, Frances, and his daughter, Charlotte, remain in France, where Charlotte marries her kinsman, Richard Talbot, son of William Talbot of Haggardstown. Their son is Richard Francis Talbot. Talbot’s other daughter, Katherine, becomes a nun. An illegitimate son, Mark Talbot, serves as an officer in France before his death in the Battle of Luzzara in 1702. Talbot’s estate in nearby Carton, renamed Talbotstown, is uncompleted at the time of his death. Tyrconnell Tower on the site is originally intended by him as a family mausoleum to replace the existing vault at Old Carton graveyard but is also left unfinished.
Talbot is controversial in his own lifetime. His own Chief Secretary, Thomas Sheridan, later describes him as a “cunning dissembling courtier […] turning with every wind to bring about his ambitious ends and purposes.” Many 19th and early 20th century historians repeat this view. Recent assessments have suggested a more complex individual whose career was defined by personal loyalty to his patron James and above all by an effort to improve the status of the Irish Catholic gentry, particularly the “Old English” community to which he belonged.
(Pictured: Watercolour portrait of Richard Talbot by John Bulfinch (d.1728) after painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller)
He has been invited by the Protestant noblemen of the country to come and usurp the English throne. Led by Lord Monmouth, a group of Protestant nobles have unsuccessfully attempted to prevent the Catholic James from ascending to the throne on the death of Charles II in 1685. Since then, James has been disturbing the Protestant noblemen who have remained loyal to him in 1685 by giving Catholics more and more freedoms in both England and Ireland.
On May 7, 1688, James II issues a “Declaration of Indulgence” pledging religious toleration. Still the Protestant nobles are comforted by the fact that all the possible heirs to James are Protestant. Thus the country will be safely returned to a Protestant monarch in time and many of James’ reforms will be reversed. All that changes on June 10, 1688, when the Queen gives birth to a male heir, one who is to be raised as a Catholic.
Soon thereafter, an invitation is sent across to William, who is married to James’ sister Mary, to come and save England for Protestantism. This, William is more than happy to do, for Louis XIV of France is threatening to invade the Netherlands and what better way to ensure the support of England in that coming war than to become the King of that country.
The “Glorious Revolution,” as the British would come to call it, is now underway. In less than two months, James II flees for his life and goes into exile in France, never to return. For the native population of Ireland, the eventual results of this revolution are far from “glorious.” The results are death, destruction, poverty, hundreds of years of second-class citizenship in their own land, and a legacy of hatred between Protestant and Catholic in the north of Ireland that persists to this day.
(Pictured: “William III Landing at Brixham, Torbay, 5 November 1688” by Jan Wyck, National Maritime Museum)
Levinge is the second son of Richard Levinge of Parwich Hall, Derbyshire, Recorder of Chester, and Anne Parker, daughter of George Parker of Staffordshire and his wife Grace Bateman. The Levinges (sometimes spelled “Levin”) are a long-established Derbyshire family with a tradition of public service. Through his mother he is a first cousin of Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.
Levinge is one of the first to declare for William III of England at the Glorious Revolution and is sent by the new Government to Ireland as Solicitor-General in 1689. In 1692 he is elected as a member of the Irish House of Commons for Belfast and for Blessington, but chooses to sit for Blessington, a seat he holds until 1695. During this time, he serves as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. In politics he is a moderate Tory, noted throughout his career for his desire to conciliate. In an age of bitter political faction this earns him the uncharitable nickname “Tom Double.” Although he supports the Penal Laws, as no Irish officeholder then could do otherwise, he is very tolerant in religious matters and has several Roman Catholic friends, including his predecessor as Solicitor-General, Sir Theobald Butler.
Levinge later represents Longford Borough from 1698 to September 1713 and Kilkenny City from 1713 to November 1715 in the Irish Parliament. In 1713 he is also returned for Gowran but chooses to sit for Kilkenny. He is created a Baronet of High Park in the County of Westmeath, in the Baronetage of Ireland on October 26, 1704.
Levinge had expressed his interest in being appointed to the English Bench but meets with no success in his efforts to achieve office in England. Under George I of Great Britain, despite being of the “wrong” political persuasion, and his growing age, his famous moderation, and his 30 years’ experience of Irish public life make him acceptable as an Irish judge to the Government, in which he has a powerful supporter in his cousin Lord Macclesfield. In 1721 he becomes Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas for Ireland and a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. He complains bitterly of the poor quality of his junior judges, and asks for suitable replacements, although he complains equally about some of those whose names are put forward as possible replacements. Despite being in great pain from gout in his last years, he remains on the Bench until his death on July 13, 1724.
Levinge divides his time between his ancestral home, Parwich Hall, which he purchases from his childless elder brother, and his newly acquired property Knockdrin Castle, County Westmeath. Most of his estates passes to his eldest son, who extensively rebuilds Parwich.
(Pictured: Knockdrin Castle, County Westmeath, the main Levinge residence in Ireland)
Swift’s father, an attorney, also named Jonathan Swift, dies just two months before he is born. Without steady income, his mother struggles to provide for her newborn. Moreover, he is a sickly child. It is later discovered that he suffers from Ménière’s disease, a condition of the inner ear that leaves the afflicted nauseous and hard of hearing. In an effort to give her son the best upbringing possible, Swift’s mother gives him over to Godwin Swift, her late husband’s brother and a member of the respected professional attorney and judges group Gray’s Inn. Godwin Swift enrolls his nephew with one of his cousins in Kilkenny College, which is perhaps the best school in Ireland at the time. He arrives there at the age of six, where he is expected to have already learned the basic declensions in Latin. He has not and thus begins his schooling in a lower form. He graduates in 1682, when he is 15. His transition from a life of poverty to a rigorous private school setting proves challenging. He does, however, make a fast friend in William Congreve, the future poet and playwright.
In 1682, Swift commences his undergraduate studies at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1686, he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree and goes on to pursue a master’s degree. Not long into his research, huge unrest breaks out in Ireland. The king of Ireland, England and Scotland is soon to be overthrown. What becomes known as the Glorious Revolution of 1688 spurs him to move to England and start anew. For 10 years, Swift works in Surrey‘s Moor Park and acts as an assistant to Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet.
During his Moor Park years, Swift meets the daughter of Temple’s housekeeper, an 8-year-old named Esther Johnson, known as “Stella.” They become lovers for the rest of their lives until Johnson’s death in 1728. It is rumored that they marry in 1716, and that Swift keeps of lock of Johnson’s hair in his possession at all times.
During his decade of work for Temple, Swift returns to Ireland twice. On a trip in 1695, he takes all necessary requirements to become an ordained priest in the Anglican tradition. Under Temple’s influence, he also begins to write, first short essays and then a manuscript for a later book. Temple dies in 1699. Swift completes the task of editing and publishing Temple’s memoirs. He then leans on his priestly qualifications and finds work ministering to a pea-sized congregation just 20 miles outside of Dublin. For the next ten years, he gardens, preaches and works on the house provided to him by the church. He also returns to writing. His first political pamphlet is titled A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome.
In 1704, Swift anonymously releases A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books. Tub, although widely popular with the masses, is harshly disapproved of by the Church of England. Ostensibly, it criticizes religion, but Swift means it as a parody of pride. Nonetheless, his writings earn him a reputation in London and when the Tories come into power in 1710, they ask him to become editor of The Examiner, their official paper. After a time, he becomes fully immersed in the political landscape and begins writing some of the most cutting and well-known political pamphlets of the day, including The Conduct of the Allies, an attack on the Whigs. Privy to the inner circle of Tory government, he lays out his private thoughts and feelings in a stream of letters to his beloved Stella. They are later published as The Journal to Stella.
When he sees that the Tories will soon fall from power, Swift returns to Ireland. In 1713, he takes the post of Dean at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. While leading his congregation at St. Patrick’s, he begins to write what would become his best-known work. In 1726, at last finished with the manuscript, he travels to London and benefits from the help of several friends, who anonymously publish it as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, more simply known as Gulliver’s Travels. The book is an immediate success and has not been out of print since its first run.
Not long after the celebration of this work, Esther Johnson, falls ill. She dies in January 1728. Her death moves Swift to write The Death of Mrs. Johnson.
In 1742, Swift suffers a stroke and loses the ability to speak. He dies on October 19, 1745. He is laid to rest next to Esther Johnson inside Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Henry Luttrell, Irish soldier known for his service in the Jacobite cause, is murdered in Dublin on October 22, 1717, a case that has never been solved. A career soldier, he serves James II in England until his overthrow in 1688. In Ireland he continues to fight for James, reaching the rank of General in the Irish Army.
Luttrell is born in 1655, the second son of Thomas Luttrell of Luttrellstown Castle in County Dublin, an Irish landowner of Catholic heritage. He spends his early life on the Continent, where he kills the so-called 3rd Viscount Purbeck in a duel at Liège.
Following the disintegration of the English Army and William’s capture of London, Luttrell goes to Ireland. He joins the Irish Army under the command of Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, which has remained loyal to James and is undergoing a major expansion. He and other Catholic officers flock to the army, while Protestants are purged. Protestant inhabitants in Ireland rise, proclaiming their loyalty to William of Orange. While an uprising at Bandon in County Cork is quickly put down, a lengthy Siege of Derry begins. He is given command of a cavalry regiment. He also sits in the Patriot Parliament called by King James, as a representative for County Carlow.
In 1689 Luttrell is made Governor of Sligo, which had recently been recaptured from the enemy by Patrick Sarsfield. He immediately sets about improving the town’s fortifications. He is a friend and supporter of Sarsfield and backs his policy of continued resistance following the Jacobite defeat the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Luttrell’s precipitate withdrawal with the cavalry of the left flank at the Battle of Aughrim gives rise to suspicions of disloyalty. During the Siege of Limerick, he is found to be in correspondence with the besiegers, and scarcely escapes hanging, bringing his regiment of horse over to the Williamite side after the surrender of the city. As a reward, he receives the forfeited estates of his elder brother, Simon Luttrell, including Luttrellstown, and is made a major general in the Dutch army.
Luttrell attempts to deprive his brother’s widow, Catherine, of her jointure by discreditable means, but is ultimately obliged to yield it to her.
On October 13, 1704, Luttrell marries Elizabeth Jones and has two sons: Robert Luttrell (d. 1727), and Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton (1713–1787).
Luttrell is shot and mortally wounded in his sedan chair on the night of October 21, 1717, on the Blind-quay in Dublin as he is proceeding from Lucas’ Coffee House on Cork-hill to his house in Stafford Street. He dies the following day, at the age of sixty-three. Despite large rewards, the murderers are never apprehended.
His grandson, Henry Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton, sells Luttrellstown Castle which the family had owned for almost 600 years in 1800. After Luttrellstown Castle is sold Luttrell’s grave is opened and the skull smashed.
(Pictured: Depiction of the Battle of Aughrim (1691) by John Mulvany (c. 1839 – 1906). Luttrell’s conduct during the 1691 battle becomes a subject of historical debate.)
seamus dubhghaill 