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Tag Archives: Kildare (County Kildare)


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Birth of Andrew Kettle, Agrarian Reformer & Nationalist Politician

Andrew Joseph Kettle, a leading Irish nationalist politician, progressive farmer, agrarian agitator and founding member of the Irish National Land League, is born on September 26, 1833, in Drynam House, Swords, County Dublin.

Kettle is one among six children of Thomas Kettle, a prosperous farmer, and his wife, Alice (née Kavanagh). His maternal grandmother, Mary O’Brien, had smuggled arms to United Irishmen in the district in 1798, while her future husband, Billy Kavanagh, had been a senior figure in the movement. He is educated at Ireland’s most prestigious Catholic boarding school, Clongowes Wood College. His education is cut short when he is called to help full-time on the farm. Though an autodidact and always a forceful writer, he is beset later by an exaggerated sense of his “defective education and want of talking powers.” Fascinated by politics, he enjoys the repeal excitement of 1841–44 and in his late teens speaks once or twice at Tenant Right League meetings in Swords. Through the 1850s and most of the 1860s he sets about expanding the family farm into a composite of fertile holdings in Swords, St. Margaret’s, Artane, and Malahide (c.150 acres). Getting on well with the Russell-Cruise family of Swords, his first landlords, he benefits from a favourable leasehold arrangement on their demesne in the early 1860s. The farm is mostly in tillage, though Kettle also raises some fat cattle and Clydesdale horses, which he eventually sells to Guinness’s.

Kettle first enters politics in 1867, when he disagrees with John Paul Byrne of Dublin Corporation in public and in print over the right of graziers to state aid during an outbreak of cattle distemper. In 1868, he joins an agricultural reform group initiated by Isaac Butt. He becomes friendly with Butt and later claims to have converted him to support tenant-right. His memoirs, which are somewhat egocentric, contain a number of such questionable claims. It is, however, the case that he habitually writes up, for his own use, cogent summaries of the direction of current political tendencies, which sometimes become useful confidential briefs for Butt and later Charles Stewart Parnell. He is among the published list of subscribers to the Home Rule League in July 1870.

In 1872, disappointed by the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870, Kettle organises a Tenants’ Defence Association (TDA) in north County Dublin, soon sensing the need for a central body to coordinate the grievances of similar groups around the country. The Dublin TDA effectively acts as this central body, under his guidance as honorary secretary. At the 1874 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, the Dublin TDA decides to challenge the electoral control of certain corporation interests in County Dublin. Kettle secures the cautious approval of Cardinal Paul Cullen for any candidate supporting the principle of denominational education. He is also one of a deputation to ask Parnell to fight the constituency, which the latter loses. He becomes closely acquainted with Parnell, who frequently attends Dublin TDA meetings after his election for Meath in April 1875.

Taking a sombre view of the threat of famine in the west of Ireland after evidence of crop failure appears in early summer 1879, Kettle calls a conference of TDA delegates at the European Hotel in Bolton Street, Dublin, in late May. After a heated debate in which a proposal for a rent strike is greatly modified, Parnell comes to seek Kettle’s advice on whether to become involved in the evolving land agitation in County Mayo. Kettle urges him to go to the Westport meeting set for June 8, 1879, and claims later to have stressed in passing that “if you keep in the open you can scarcely go too far or be too extreme on the land question.” If the incident is correctly recounted, this is a most important statement, which virtually defines Parnell’s oratorical strategy throughout the land war. In October 1879, Kettle agrees to merge the TDA with a new Irish National Land League, set up at a meeting in the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, chaired by Kettle. As honorary secretary of the Land League, Kettle frankly admits that he is able to attend meetings without “the necessity of working.” His attendance is, however, among the most regular of all League officers, with him taking part in 73 of 107 meetings scheduled between December 1879 and October 1881.

In March 1880, Kettle disputes Michael Davitt‘s reluctance to use League funds in the general election. He canvasses vigorously together with Parnell in Kildare, Carlow, and Wicklow and is later pressed by his party leader into standing for election in County Cork, though aware that the local tenant movement has already prepared their own candidates. His association with Parnell antagonises the catholic hierarchy in Munster, who issues a condemnation of his candidacy. The hurly-burly of this election creates the persistent impression that Kettle is anti-clerical in politics, and he is defeated by 151 votes.

On a train journey to Ballinasloe in early April 1880, Kettle confides to Parnell his idea that land purchase can be facilitated by the recovery of tax allegedly charged in excess on Ireland by the British government since the act of union. At League meetings in June and July 1880, he advances his “catastrophist” plan: to cease attempts to prevent the development of an irresistible crisis among the Irish smallholding population, by diverting the application of League funds from general relief solely to the aid of evicted tenants, who might be temporarily housed “encamped like gypsies and the land lying idle,” in the belief that the British government will thereby be compelled to introduce radical remedial legislation. Smallholders do not have enough faith in either League or parliamentary politicians to listen.

At a meeting of the League executive in London and in Paris, before and after Davitt’s arrest on February 3, 1881, Kettle presents his plan that the parliamentary party should, if faced with coercive legislation, withdraw from Westminster, “concentrate” in Ireland, and call a general rent strike. Republicans on the League executive continually find themselves embarrassed by Kettle’s radical calls to action motivated solely by the project of agrarian reform. Parnell is later supposed to have lamented party failure to execute the plan at this juncture.

Kettle is arrested in June 1881 for calling for a collective refusal of rent. After two weeks in Naas jail he is transferred to Kilmainham Gaol, where in October he is, with some misgivings, one of the signatories to the No Rent Manifesto. Discharged from Kilmainham in late December 1881 owing to poor health, he returns principally to work on the family farm for most of the 1880s, though he claims to have formulated a draft solution for the plight of the agricultural labourer and “pushed it through” in correspondence with Parnell. He reemerges in 1890 to defend Parnell after the divorce scandal breaks. Attempting to establish a new ”centre” party independent of extreme Catholic and Protestant interests, he stands for election as a Parnellite at the 1891 County Carlow by-election, where he is comprehensively beaten, having endured weeks of insinuating harangues by Tim Healy, and raucous mob insults to the din of tin kettles bashed by women and children at meetings around the county. He is intermittently involved in County Dublin politics in the 1890s and 1900s and maintains a brusque correspondence on matters of the day in the national press.

Kettle dies on September 22, 1916, at his residence, St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, anguished by the death on September 9 of his brilliant son, Tom Kettle, near the village of Ginchy during the Battle of the Somme. He is buried at St. Colmcille’s cemetery, Swords.

Kettle marries Margaret McCourt, daughter of Laurence McCourt of Newtown, St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, farmer and agricultural commodity factor. They have five sons and six daughters.




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Opening of the Dublin to Carlow Branch of the GS&WR Line

The Great Southern & Western Railway (GS&WR) line between Dublin and Carlow opens on August 4, 1846.

The GS&WR is an Irish gauge (1,600 mm (5 ft. 3 in.)) railway company that operates in Ireland from 1844 until 1924. The GS&WR grows by building lines and making a series of takeovers, until in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it is the largest of Ireland’s “Big Four” railway networks. At its peak the GS&WR has an 1,100-mile (1,800 km) network, of which 240 miles (390 km) are double track.

The core of the GS&WR is the Dublin Kingsbridge – Cork main line, Ireland’s “Premier Line,” and still one of her most important main line railways. The company’s headquarters are at Kingsbridge station. At its greatest extent, the GS&WR includes, in addition to the Dublin – Cork main line, the Dublin – Waterford and Mallow – Waterford lines and numerous branch lines.

There are earlier attempts to set up main line railways into the south of Ireland, but the 1840s efforts of Peter Purcell, a wealthy landowner and mail coach operator, and his associates ultimately prove successful with the implementation of a bill passed on August 6, 1844, for the GS&WR. Purcell is actively assisted by engineer John Benjamin Macneill, who has done surveys for the London and Birmingham Railway and has connections in London. The GS&WR’s vision to provide a single railway for most of the south of Ireland finds favour with United Kingdom Prime Minister Robert Peel as having likely more profitably for wealthy investors and because a single company will be easier to control. These factors likely ease the passage of relevant legislation.

William Dargan, Ireland’s foremost railway contractor, builds much of the GS&WR’s main line and a number of its other routes.

The directors choose to begin by construction of the 32.5 mile (52.3 km) stretch of the Dublin – Cork main line as far as Cherryville Junction just west of Kildare and the 23.5 mile (37.8 km) branch to Carlow with contracts shared between McCormack and Dargan. Work begins in January 1845 with services commencing on August 4, 1846. Trains are scheduled to take about 2 hours, 35 minutes for the 56 mile (90 km) stretch to Carlow and coach connections are arranged to Kilkenny, Clonmel, Waterford and the evening mail coach for Cork.

In July 1848, the main line reaches Limerick Junction, where it meets the Waterford and Limerick Railway and thus links Dublin and Limerick by rail.

In October 1849, the main line reaches the outskirts of Cork, where the GS&WR opens a temporary terminus at Blackpool. The final 1-mile (1.6 km) of line from Blackpool to the centre of Cork includes a 1,355-yard (1,239 m) tunnel and is not completed for another six years. Services through the tunnel begin in December 1855, running to and from a second temporary terminus beside the River Lee. Finally, the present Cork terminus in Glanmire Road opens in July 1856.


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Birth of Dermot Weld, Former Jockey & Successful Racehorse Trainer

Dermot K. Weld, former jockey, and one of Ireland’s most successful racehorse trainers, is born on July 29, 1948, in Kildare, County Kildare. He sets the record in 2000 for the most winners trained in Ireland with 2,578. He wins the Irish Flat Training Championship eight times in 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998. As a trainer, he wins the Melbourne Cup in Australia twice, all five of the Irish Classics, the Epsom Derby and Epsom Oaks, the Hong Kong Mile, Derby Italiano, American Derby, and Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Weld is educated at Newbridge College and University College Dublin (UCD), becoming a qualified veterinarian in 1970, at the time, the youngest qualified vet in Ireland. In 2016, he is awarded UCD Alumnus of the Year in Veterinary Medicine.

Weld starts his career as an amateur jockey, obtaining a training licence in 1972. He then takes over the stable at Rosewell House, in The Curragh, from his father, Charlie Weld, who is also a successful racehorse trainer. He goes on to win the Irish Flat Training Championship eight times in 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1998.

Weld sets a new record for the most winners trained in Ireland with 2,578 in August 2000, holding the record until Willie Mullins overtakes it in May 2024. During his training career, he saddles over 4,000 winners (to 2016).

Weld is played by Brendan Gleeson in the feature film The Cup (2011).


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The Gibbet Rath Executions

The Gibbet Rath executions, sometimes called the Gibbet Rath massacre, refers to the execution of several hundred surrendering rebels by government forces during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 at the Curragh of Kildare on May 29, 1798.

News of the outbreak of the rebellion prompts Major-General Sir James Duff, Military Commander in Limerick, to gather a force of about 600 men, mainly Dublin militia members, backed up by seven artillery pieces, and sets out on a forced march to Dublin on May 27. His twin objectives are to restore communications between the two cities and to crush any resistance encountered on the way. As the soldiers enter County Kildare, they discover the bodies of several rebel victims, among them Lieutenant William Giffard, the son of the commander of the Dublin militia, Captain John Giffard, which reportedly inflames the soldiers.

However, by the time Duff’s column arrives in Monasterevin in County Kildare, at 7:00 a.m. on May 29, the bulk of the rebel forces have already accepted a government amnesty from Generals Gerard Lake and Ralph Dundas, following their defeat at the Battle of Kilcullen and had surrendered at Knockaulin Hill, several kilometres to the east of the Curragh on May 27. Not aware that the rebels are gathering to surrender on the Curragh plain, Duff reinforces his column and marches to the nearby town of Kildare, and on to the adjacent southwest corner of the Curragh.

Duff’s force had by now grown to 700 militia, dragoons and yeomanry with four pieces of artillery, three having been presumably left at Monasterevin. The designated place of surrender, the ancient fort of Gibbet Rath, is a wide expanse of plain with little or no cover for several kilometres around but neither the rebels nor Duff’s force have seemingly any reason to fear treachery as a separate peaceful surrender to General Dundas at Knockaulin Hill, who is accompanied only by two dragoons, has been successfully accomplished without bloodshed.

By the time of Duff’s arrival at Gibbet Rath on the morning of May 29, an army of between 1,000 and 2,000 rebels is waiting to surrender in return for the promised amnesty. They are subjected to an angry tirade for their treason by Duff who orders them to kneel for pardon and then to stack their arms. Shortly after the weapons are stacked, an infantry and cavalry assault results in the death of about 350 men. Accounts of why the massacre began differ. Rebel claims that Duff orders his troops to attack the disarmed and surrounded men are denied by Duff himself who claims that the rebels fired on his men, while another source records “one man in the crowd, saying he would not hand over his fire-lock loaded, blazed it off in the air”.

However, Duff redrafts his own official report of the engagement before submission to Dublin Castle, his final draft is transmitted without references to his knowledge of the surrender preparations. The original report reads as follows with the items in brackets excised from his final report:

“My Dear Genl. (I have witnessed a melancholy scene) We found the Rebels retiring from this Town on our arrival armed. We followed them with Dragoons; I sent on some of the Yeomen to tell them, on laying down their arms, they should not be hurt. Unfortunately some of them Fired on the Troops; from that moment they were attacked on all sides, nothing could stop the Rage of the Troops. I believe from Two to Three hundred of the Rebels were killed. (They intended, we are told, to lay down their arms to General Dundas). We have 3 men killed & several wounded. I am too fatigued to enlarge. I have forwarded the mails to Dublin.”

The grieving Captain John Giffard expresses his own satisfaction as follows:

“My troops did not leave my hero unavenged – 500 rebels bleaching on the Curragh of Kildare—that Curragh over which my sweet innocent girls walked with me last Summer, that Curragh was strewed with the vile carcasses of popish rebels and the accursed town of Kildare has been reduced to a heap of ashes by our hands.”

General Duff receives no censure for the massacre and, upon his arrival in Dublin the following day, is feted as a hero by the population who honour him with a victory parade. General Dundas, by contrast, is denounced for having shown clemency toward the rebels. However, because of the massacre, wavering rebels are discouraged from surrendering and there are no further capitulations in County Kildare until the final surrender of William Aylmer in July. Dr. Chambers considers that Lake and Duff are not in communication about the surrenders, being on opposite sides of the Curragh. Duff and his 500 men arrive in Kildare after a forced march from Limerick and find it sacked by the rebels, along with the piked body of Duff’s nephew.

Duff is later involved in an unsuccessful campaign after the Battle of Vinegar Hill to trap and destroy a surviving rebel column in Wexford led by Anthony Perry who fights and eludes Duff’s forces at the battle of Ballygullen/Whiteheaps on 5 July.

(Pictured: The statue of Saint Brigid at the Market Square of Kildare which is dedicated to the memory of the victims at Gibbet Rath)


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Birth of Alan Dukes, Former Fine Gael Politician

Alan Martin Dukes, former Fine Gael politician, is born in Drimnagh, Dublin, on April 20, 1945. He holds several senior government positions and serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1981 to 2002. He is one of the few TDs to be appointed a minister on their first day in the Dáil.

His father, James F. Dukes, is originally from Tralee, County Kerry, and is a senior civil servant and the founding chairman and chief executive of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), while his mother is from near Ballina, County Mayo.

The Dukes family originally comes from the north of England. His grandfather serves with the Royal Engineers in World War I and settles in County Cork and then County Kerry afterward where he works with the Post Office creating Ireland’s telephone network.

Dukes is educated by the Christian Brothers at Coláiste Mhuire, Dublin, and is offered several scholarships for third level on graduation, including one for the Irish language. His interest in the Irish language continues to this day, and he regularly appears on Irish-language television programmes.

On leaving school he attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he captains the fencing team to its first-ever Intervarsity title.

Dukes becomes an economist with the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in Dublin in 1969. After Ireland joins the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, he moves to Brussels where he is part of the IFA delegation. In this role, he is influential in framing Ireland’s contribution to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). He is appointed as chief of staff to Ireland’s EEC commissioner Richard Burke, a former Fine Gael politician.

In the 1979 European Parliament election, Dukes stands as a Fine Gael candidate in the Munster constituency. He has strong support among the farming community, but the entry of T. J. Maher, a former president of the IFA, as an independent candidate hurts his chances of election. Maher tops the poll.

He stands again for Fine Gael at the 1981 Irish general election in the expanded Kildare constituency, where he wins a seat in the 22nd Dáil. On his first day in the Dáil, he is appointed Minister for Agriculture by the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, becoming one of only eight TDs so appointed. He represents Kildare for 21 years.

This minority Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government collapses in February 1982 on the budget but returns to power with a working majority in December 1982. Dukes is again appointed to cabinet, becoming Minister for Finance less than two years into his Dáil career.

He faces a difficult task as finance minister. Ireland is heavily in debt while unemployment and emigration are high. Many of Fine Gael’s plans are deferred while the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition disagrees on how to solve the economic crisis. The challenge of addressing the national finances is made difficult by electoral arithmetic and a lack of support from the opposition Fianna Fáil party led by Charles Haughey. He remains in the Department of Finance until a reshuffle in February 1986 when he is appointed Minister for Justice.

Fine Gael fails to be returned to government at the 1987 Irish general election and loses 19 of its 70 seats, mostly to the new Progressive Democrats. Outgoing Taoiseach and leader Garret FitzGerald steps down and Dukes is elected leader of Fine Gael, becoming Leader of the Opposition.

This is a difficult time for the country. Haughey’s Fianna Fáil runs on promises to increase spending and government services, and attacking the cutbacks favoured by Fine Gael. However, on taking office, the new Taoiseach and his finance minister Ray MacSharry immediately draw up a set of cutbacks including a spate of ward and hospital closures. This presents a political opportunity for the opposition to attack the government.

However, while addressing a meeting of the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce, Dukes announces, in what becomes known as the Tallaght Strategy that: “When the government is moving in the right direction, I will not oppose the central thrust of its policy. If it is going in the right direction, I do not believe that it should be deviated from its course, or tripped up on macro-economic issues.”

This represents a major departure in Irish politics whereby Fine Gael will vote with the minority Fianna Fáil Government if it adopts Fine Gael’s economic policies for revitalising the economy. The consequences of this statement are huge. The Haughey government is able to take severe corrective steps to restructure the economy and lay the foundations for the economic boom of the nineties. However, at a snap election in 1989, Dukes does not receive electoral credit for this approach, and the party only makes minor gains, gaining four seats. The outcome is the first-ever coalition government for Fianna Fáil, whose junior partner is the Progressive Democrats led by former Fianna Fáil TD Desmond O’Malley.

The party’s failure to make significant gains in 1989 leaves some Fine Gael TDs with a desire for a change at the top of the party. Their opportunity comes in the wake of the historic 1990 Irish presidential election. Fine Gael chooses Austin Currie TD as their candidate. He had been a leading member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) movement in the 1960s and had been a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) before moving south.

Initially, Fianna Fáil’s Brian Lenihan Snr is the favourite to win. However, after several controversies arise, relating to the brief Fianna Fáil administration of 1982, and Lenihan’s dismissal as Minister for Defence midway through the campaign, the Labour Party’s Mary Robinson emerges victorious. To many in Fine Gael, the humiliation of finishing third is too much to bear and a campaign is launched against Dukes’ leadership. He is subsequently replaced as party leader by John Bruton.

Bruton brings Dukes back to the front bench in September 1992, shortly before the November 1992 Irish general election. In February 1994, Dukes becomes involved in a failed attempt to oust Bruton as leader and subsequently resigns from the front bench. Bruton becomes Taoiseach in December 1994 and Dukes is not appointed to cabinet at the formation of the government.

In December 1996, Dukes returns as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications following the resignation of Michael Lowry. At the 1997 Irish general election, he tops the poll in the new Kildare South constituency, but Fine Gael loses office. He becomes Chairman of the Irish Council of the European Movement. In this position, he is very involved in advising many of the Eastern European countries who are then applying to join the European Union.

In 2001, Dukes backs Michael Noonan in his successful bid to become leader of Fine Gael.

After 21 years, Dukes loses his Dáil seat at the 2002 Irish general election. This contest sees many high-profile casualties for Fine Gael, including Deputy Leader Jim Mitchell, former deputy leader Nora Owen and others. Many local commentators feel that Dukes’ loss is due to a lack of attention to local issues, as he is highly involved in European projects and has always enjoyed a national profile.

He retires from frontline politics in 2002 and is subsequently appointed Director General of the Institute of International and European Affairs. He remains active within Fine Gael and serves several terms as the party’s vice-president. From 2001 to 2011, he is President of the Alliance française in Dublin, and in June 2004, the French Government appoints him an Officer of the Legion of Honour. In April 2004, he is awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

In December 2008, Dukes is appointed by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan Jnr as a public interest director on the board of Anglo Irish Bank. The bank is subsequently nationalised, and he serves on the board until the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) is liquidated in 2013.

From 2011 to 2013, Dukes serves as chairman of the Board of Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. In 2011, he founds the think tank Asia Matters, which inks an agreement with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in May 2019.

Dukes has lived in Kildare since first being elected to represent the Kildare constituency in 1981. His wife Fionnuala (née Corcoran) is a former local politician and serves as a member of Kildare County Council from 1999 until her retirement in 2009. She serves as Cathaoirleach of the council from 2006 to 2007, becoming only the second woman to hold the position in the body’s one-hundred-year history. They have two daughters.


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Execution of James Dickey, Member of the Society of United Irishmen

James Dickey, a young barrister from a Presbyterian family in Crumlin, County Antrim, in the north of Ireland, is hanged at Corn Market, Belfast, on June 26, 1798. He is active in the Society of United Irishmen and is hanged with Henry Joy McCracken for leading rebels at the Battle of Antrim.

The Society of United Irishmen is formed in October 1791 by leading citizens in Belfast who seek a representative government in Ireland based on principles they believe have been modelled by the American and French Revolutions. At their first meeting they embrace the argument of Theobald Wolfe Tone for a “brotherhood of affection” between Irishmen of all religious persuasions. Tone argues that in Ireland the landed Anglican Ascendancy and the English appointed Irish executive employ division between Protestants and Catholics to balance “the one party by the other, plunder and laugh at the defeat of both.”

Despairing of reform, and in the hope of French assistance, in May 1798, the United Irishmen take up arms against the Dublin government and the British Crown. Beginning in Kildare, the insurrection spreads to other counties in Leinster before finally reaching the Presbyterian districts surrounding Belfast. On June 5, the Antrim societies of United Irishmen meet in Templepatrick where they elect textile manufacturer Henry Joy McCracken as their General. The next day McCracken issues a proclamation calling for the United army of Ulster to rise. The initial plan meets with success, as the towns of Larne, Ballymena, Maghera and Randalstown are taken and the bridge at Toome is damaged to prevent the government rushing reinforcements into Antrim from west of the River Bann.

According to the memoirs of James Burns from Templepatrick, Dickey commands the insurgents at Randalstown and kills Samuel Parker, a “traitor, with his own hands, while standing at his own door, where he went for the purpose.”

McCracken leads a body of about 6,000 rebels in an attack on Antrim town. As promised, Catholic Defenders turn out, but in the march upon the town tensions with the Presbyterian United Irish causes some desertions and a delay in McCracken’s planned assault. McCracken’s men are defeated, and his army melts away. On June 15, Dickey, together with McCracken, James Hope, James Orr and about fifty other rebel survivors from Antrim, arrive at Slemish, near Ballymena. There they set up camp for three weeks before leaving under threat of attack from Colonel Green of the Tay Fencibles.

Dickey is captured by the Sutherland fencibles on Divis, a hill northwest of Belfast. He is court-martialed and hanged at Corn Market, Belfast on June 26, 1798. Famously, before his hanging he refuses to wear a black hood saying to the hangman, “Sir, don’t cover my face!” According to local legend he shouts, “Don’t think gentlemen, I am ashamed to show my face among you, I am dying for my country!” However, a loyalist source hostile to the United Irish cause, Henry Joy of the Belfast News Letter, has Dickey on the scaffold recanting his commitment to the “brotherhood of affection” between Catholic and Protestant. He supposedly warned the assembled that had “the Presbyterians of the north succeeded in their [republican] designs, they would ultimately have had to contend with the Roman Catholics.” It is testament to the sentiment that in the north is to largely expunge the memory of his, and McCracken’s, sacrifice.

Dickey is 22 years old at the time of his execution. His head is placed on a spike outside the Market House on Belfast’s High Street.

Dickey’s brother, John Dickey of Crumlin, is also implicated in the rebellion. He is informed on by neighbours who had noticed that he was making pikes and attending secret meetings of the United Irishmen late at night. Arrested and court-martialed, he refuses the terms granted by the government to the “State Prisoners” in Dublin. He is transported to the West Indies for penal servitude but manages to escape and makes his way to the United States.


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Birth of Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden

Arthur Wolfe, 1st Viscount Kilwarden KC, Anglo-Irish peer, politician and judge, who held office as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, is born on January 19, 1739, at Forenaughts House, Naas, County Kildare.

Wolfe is the eighth of nine sons born to John Wolfe (1700–60) and his wife Mary (d. 1763), the only child and heiress of William Philpot, a successful merchant at Dublin. One of his brothers, Peter, is the High Sheriff of Kildare, and his first cousin Theobald is the father of the poet Charles Wolfe.

Wolfe is educated at Trinity College Dublin, where he is elected a Scholar, and at the Middle Temple in London. He is called to the Irish Bar in 1766. In 1769, he marries Anne Ruxton (1745–1804) and, after building up a successful practice, takes silk in 1778. He and Anne have four children, John, Arthur, Mariana and Elizabeth.

In 1783, Wolfe is returned as Member of Parliament for Coleraine, which he represents until 1790. In 1787, he is appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, and is returned to Parliament for Jamestown in 1790.

Appointed Attorney-General for Ireland in 1789, Wolfe is known for his strict adherence to the forms of law, and his opposition to the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities, despite his own position in the Protestant Ascendancy. He unsuccessfully prosecutes William Drennan in 1792. In 1795, Lord Fitzwilliam, the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, intends to remove him from his place as Attorney-General to make way for George Ponsonby. In compensation, Wolfe’s wife is created Baroness Kilwarden on September 30, 1795. However, the recall of Fitzwilliam enables Wolfe to retain his office.

In January 1798, Wolfe is simultaneously returned to Parliament for Dublin City and Ardfert. However, he leaves the Irish House of Commons when he is appointed Chief Justice of the Kings Bench for Ireland and created Baron Kilwarden on July 3, 1798.

After the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Wolfe becomes notable for twice issuing writs of habeas corpus on behalf of Wolfe Tone, then held in military custody, but these are ignored by the army and forestalled by Tone’s suicide in prison. In 1795 he had also warned Tone and some of his associates to leave Ireland to avoid prosecution. Tone’s godfather, Theobald Wolfe of Blackhall (the father of Charles Wolfe), is Wolfe’s first cousin, and Tone may have been Theobald’s natural son. These attempts to help a political opponent are unique at the time.

After the passage of the Acts of Union 1800, which he supports, Wolfe is created Viscount Kilwarden on December 29, 1800. In 1802, he is appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

In 1802 Wolfe presides over the case against Town Major Henry Charles Sirr in which the habitual abuses of power used to suppress rebellion are exposed in court.

In the same year Wolfe orders that the well-known Catholic priest Father William Gahan be imprisoned for contempt of court. In a case over the disputed will of Gahan’s friend John Butler, 12th Baron Dunboyne, the priest refuses to answer certain questions on the ground that to do so would violate the seal of the confessional, despite a ruling that the common law does not recognize the seal of the confessional as a ground for refusing to give evidence. The judge apparently feels some sympathy for Gahan’s predicament, as he is released from prison after only a few days.

During the Irish rebellion of 1803, Wolfe, who had never been forgiven by the United Irishmen for the execution of William Orr, is clearly in great danger. On the night of July 23, 1803, the approach of the Kildare rebels induces him to leave his residence, Newlands House, in the suburbs of Dublin, with his daughter Elizabeth and his nephew, Rev. Richard Wolfe. Believing that he will be safer among the crowd, he orders his driver to proceed by way of Thomas Street in the city centre. However, the street is occupied by Robert Emmet‘s rebels. Unwisely, when challenged, he gives his name and office, and he is rapidly dragged from his carriage and stabbed repeatedly with pikes. His nephew is murdered in a similar fashion, while Elizabeth is allowed to escape to Dublin Castle, where she raises the alarm. When the rebels are suppressed, Wolfe is found to be still alive and is carried to a watch-house, where he dies shortly thereafter. His last words, spoken in reply to a soldier who called for the death of his murderers, are “Murder must be punished; but let no man suffer for my death, but on a fair trial, and by the laws of his country.”

Wolfe is succeeded by his eldest son John Wolfe, 2nd Viscount Kilwarden. Neither John nor his younger brother Arthur, who dies in 1805, have male issue, and on John’s death in 1830 the title becomes extinct.

(Pictured: Portrait of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Arthur Wolfe (later Viscount Kilwarden) by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, between 1797 and 1800, Gallery of the Masters)


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Birth of Lady Louisa Conolly

Lady Louisa Conolly, an English-born Irish noblewoman, is born on December 5, 1743, perhaps at Goodwood House in Westhampnett, Chichester, West Sussex, England. She is the third of the famous Lennox sisters and is notable among them for leading a wholly uncontroversial life filled with good works.

Born Lady Louisa Augusta Lennox, she and her sisters are portrayed in Stella Tillyard‘s book Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox and in the BBC television series based on it. The Lennox sisters are the daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan. The 2nd Duke’s father, Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, is an illegitimate son of King Charles II of England.

Conolly is still a child when her parents die within a year of each other in 1750 and 1751. After this, she is brought up by her much older sister Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster, in Kildare. In 1758, at age 15, she marries Thomas Conolly (1738–1803), grand-nephew of William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. Her husband, a wealthy landowner and keen horseman, is also a successful politician who is elected to Parliament as early as 1759. The couple lives in the Palladian mansion Castletown House in County Kildare, the decoration of which she directs throughout the 1760s and 1770s. The Conolly summer residence, Cliff House, on the banks of the River Erne between Belleek, County Fermanagh, and Ballyshannon, County Donegal, is demolished as part of the Erne Hydroelectric scheme, which constructs the Cliff and Cathaleen’s Fall hydroelectric power stations. Cliff hydroelectric power station is constructed on the site of Cliff House and is commissioned in 1950.

The Conollys, themselves unhappily childless, at that point take up the welfare of young children from disadvantaged backgrounds as a lifelong project, contributing both money and effort towards initiatives which enable foundlings and vagabonds to acquire productive skills and support themselves. They develop one of the first Industrial Schools where boys learn trades, and she takes active personal interest in mentoring the students. In middle age, she also virtually adopts her niece Emily Napier (1783–1863), the daughter of her sister Lady Sarah Lennox. Emily, who spends long months with her aunt in Kildare, marries Sir Henry Bunbury, 7th Baronet, and moves to Suffolk, although she remains close to her aunt until her death.

Thomas Conolly dies on April 27, 1803. Upon his death, a major part of his estates, which includes Wentworth Castle, passes to a distant relative, Frederick Vernon. Conolly receives the Castletown House and estate, as also certain liquid investments and valuable urban properties, which enable her to live in comfort and continue her activities until her own death on August 6, 1821, of an abscess on her hip. She wills these substantial properties to a great-nephew, Edward Michael Pakenham, grandson of Thomas’ sister Harriet, later the MP for Donegal.

In 1999, a 6-part miniseries called Aristocrats, based on the lives of Conolly and her sisters, airs in the UK.

(Pictured: “Lady Louisa Conolly” by George Romney, 1776)


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Phoenix Park Rail Tunnel Reopens to Passenger Traffic

The Phoenix Park Rail Tunnel, a railway tunnel in Dublin funded by the National Transport Authority, reopens to regular passenger traffic on November 21, 2016, improving services for rail commuters in Kildare and Dublin.

The tunnel is built in 1877 and begins at the Liffey Railway Bridge near Heuston Station, running underneath the Phoenix Park for 690 metres before re-emerging close to the junction of the Infirmary Road and North Circular Road. It joins with the Dublin-Sligo railway line near Glasnevin, before continuing to Dublin Connolly station.

The tunnel is originally built by the Great Southern and Western Railway company to connect Kingsbridge station (now Heuston Station) to the Dublin Docklands and is primarily used for freight. Historically the line has not been used for regular passenger trains, with most traffic through the tunnel being freight or carriages and engines shunted between Connolly and Heuston for maintenance. It has occasionally been used for special passenger services, including traffic for major Gaelic Athletic Association fixtures.

The tunnel reopens to regular passenger traffic on November 21, 2016. As of late 2018, this traffic is predominantly weekday services.

(Pictured: Southern end of the Phoenix Park Tunnel, Dublin, Ireland)


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Death of Sir Thomas de Rokeby, Justiciar of Ireland

Sir Thomas de Rokeby, a soldier and senior Crown official in fourteenth-century England and Ireland, who serves as Justiciar of Ireland, dies on April 23, 1357. He is appointed to that office to restore law and order to Ireland, and has considerable early success in this task, but he is recalled to England after the military situation deteriorates. He is later re-appointed Justiciar, and returns to Ireland to take up office, but dies soon afterwards.

The Rokebys are a prominent landowning family from Mortham in North Yorkshire. He is probably the son of Thomas de Rokeby, who dies in 1318. His nephew, also named Thomas, the son of his brother Robert, is closely associated with him in his later years and the elder Thomas is often called “l’oncle” to distinguish him from his nephew.

Rokeby first comes to public attention in 1327 when, after his return from prison in Scotland, he receives the thanks of the new King Edward III for being the squire who had first pointed out the approach of the Scots army during the invasion of the previous July. As a reward he is knighted and given lands worth £100 a year. He sees action against the Scots regularly between 1336 and 1342 and has charge of Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle while they are held by the English. He is High Sheriff of Yorkshire from 1342 to 1349. He is one of the English commanders at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346, and it is said, “gave the Scots such a draught as they did not care to taste again.” He is then entrusted with bringing King David II of Scotland as a captive to London, and he receives further grants of land as a reward for his good services.

In 1349 Rokeby is appointed Justiciar of Ireland, and given a large armed retinue to accompany him, as it is recognised by the English Crown that “Ireland is not in good plight or good peace.” While there is some surprise at the appointment of an old soldier to such a sensitive political position, the more informed view is that Rokeby is well suited to the task of enforcing justice by military force. He arrives in December and makes a quick circuit of the south of Ireland, mainly to keep watch on the powerful but troublesome magnate Maurice FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond.

Rokeby is praised by his contemporaries for his regard for justice and his zeal in checking extortion by Crown officials. He undertakes a general overhaul of the Irish administration, aimed particularly at the detection and prevention of corruption and the removal of incompetent officials. Arguably he shows excessive zeal in arresting and imprisoning the Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, Robert de Emeldon, a man who enjoys the King’s personal regard. Admittedly the charges against Emeldon are very serious, including rape, robbery and manslaughter, but the King, out of regard for their long friendship and Emeldon’s record of good service to the Crown in Ireland, had already pardoned Emeldon for killing one Ralph de Byrton, a knight, in 1336. Emeldon is once more pardoned and quickly released.

In November 1351 Rokeby holds a Great Council at Kilkenny. It deals partly with the problem of official corruption already mentioned, partly with the problem of defence of the Pale, and partly with the question of intermarriage and other close contacts between the Anglo-Irish and the Old Irish. Otway-Ruthven notes that little of the legislation is new, apart from the application to Ireland of the English Statute of Labourers of 1351, and that much of it is repeated in the better-known Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366.

In 1353 the Clan MacCarthy of Muskerry, the dominant clan in central County Cork, who had until then been loyal to the English Crown, rebels. Rokeby shows considerable skill in crushing the uprising and succeeds in replacing the rebellious head of the clan, Dermot MacCarthy, with his more compliant cousin Cormac. Cormac’s descendants gain great wealth, extensive lands and the title Earl of Clancarty.

This promising state of good order does not last long. A rebellion by the O’Byrne Clan of Wicklow in 1354 is followed by a general uprising headed by the MacMurrough-Kavanagh dynasty. Although Muirchearteach MacMurrough-Kavanagh, the self-styled King of Leinster, is captured and executed, Rokeby suffers several military defeats. He is unable to suppress the O’Byrnes’ rebellion, and other risings take place in Tipperary, Kildare and Ulster.

Rokeby, now an ageing and discouraged man, is recalled in 1355. His replacement, rather surprisingly, is that Earl of Desmond whom it had been one of his main tasks to keep in check. Desmond dies a year later on July 26, 1356. Rokeby is reappointed Justiciar, and returns to Ireland, only to die soon afterwards on April 23, 1357 at Kilkea Castle.

Rokeby is married and his wife is named Juliana, but little else is known of her. They have no children, and his estates pass to his nephew, the younger Thomas.

(Pictured: Portrait of Sir Thomas de Rokeby, painting by Godfried Schalcken)