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Illustration: Joe McLaren from ‘Ireland’s Forgotten Past’ (Thames & Hudson, 2020)
In August 1649, Oliver Cromwell, the most powerful figure in the new Commonwealth of England, stepped ashore at Ringsend in Dublin to commence a nine-month military campaign that would earn him immortality as the most despised human in Irish history.
His mission was to annihilate the Confederation, an alliance of Irish Catholic nobles, gentry and clergymen who had pledged allegiance to the deposed House of Stuart.
The execution of King Charles, the Stuart king, in January 1649 had hardened the Confederation’s resolve and, despite bubbling internal divisions, the Kilkenny-based alliance had secured control of nearly all of Ireland by the close of July.
The glaring exception was Dublin, to which city the Confederate army now marched.
And then they blew it.
Credit must be given to Michael Jones, the commander of Dublin’s pro-Cromwell or Parliamentarian garrison, who launched a surprise attack on the incoming forces while they were at rest in Rathmines.
Thousands of Confederates were killed or captured while Jones also nabbed their artillery and supplies. The Bleeding Horse, a venerable pub on Dublin’s Camden Street, was reputedly named for a wounded horse that stumbled into the stables of a tavern on this site in the wake of the battle.
Jones’s victory was a game-changer from which the Confederation never recovered. Understandably Cromwell regarded it as ‘an astonishing mercy, so great and seasonable that we are like them that dreamed.’
Within two weeks, the fifty-year-old Cromwell had arrived in Ireland with a fleet of thirty-five ships laden with artillery and 3,000 battle-hardened troops. His son-in-law Henry Ireton followed two days later with seventy-seven more ships.
The ensuing campaign is remembered for its brutality, particularly in the port towns of Drogheda and Wexford where Cromwell’s Ironsides ruthlessly put the defeated Confederate garrisons to the sword. Still greater calamity followed with a widespread famine and an outbreak of bubonic plague. By the time the last Confederates submitted – in Cavan – in 1653, it is estimated that between 20% and 40% of Ireland’s pre-war population of 1.5 million had perished.
And yet there’s always someone who can turn a war to their advantage. Step forward, Daniel Byrne, a Catholic tailor based beside Christchurch Cathedral on Dublin’s Winetavern Street. Daniel – whose surname was also spelled as Burn, or Birn – is believed to have been a grandson of Sir Phelim O’Byrne whose father Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, Lord of Ranelagh, was the arch-nemesis of Queen Elizabeth’s Tudor generals for many long years.[1] While Daniel’s uncles were leading lights in the Confederacy, he played a more prudent hand. According to his kinsman, Garrett Byrne of Fallowbeg:
‘This Daniel … was bred up in the business of a clothier, and afterwards carried on the trade of a tailor, and kept forty men constantly working at that business. He used to buy all the white cloth in Dublin, get it coloured red, and clothe forty thousand men with the same for General Cromwell, and never call for money until all was finished, and then received drafts from Cromwell on the Treasury, where he got cash, for which he purchased estates.’
When I first wrote this story, I marvelled at the apparent precision of Garrett Byrne’s figure of 40,000 soldiers in Cromwell’s New Model Army. In his book ‘God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland’, Dr Micheál Ó Siochrú estimated that about 43,000 Parliamentarian soldiers served in Ireland over the period between circa 1645 and 1653. (That figure includes casualties, replacements and troops withdrawn or replaced over that period, rather than a mass of troops all at the same time.) However, I had to reevaluate my thoughts in August 2024 after an email from Stuart Orme, curator of the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon, England, that urged me to treat such figures with “a great deal of caution; particularly the contemporary figure of 40,000 coats being produced.”
“Early Modern narrative texts tend to be very vague and overestimate figures,” wrote Stuart, “which is a real headache for those trying to work out things like reports of casualties at battles, when counting seems to be a case of ‘one, two, many, lots’! The New Model Army was originally established in 1645 at a theoretical strength by law of 24,000 men; most regiments were rarely at full strength, and at its height it was rarely over 35,000. That number included the significant detachments on garrison duty in England, Scotland, and Wales (although supplemented by local militia on occasion). Cromwell’s army on campaign in Ireland was perhaps 15,000 men at most I suspect, and that varied over time. Armies much over that size rarely existed during the Civil Wars in Britain and Ireland, not least with a comparatively small population (8.5 million across the Three Kingdoms); issues over supplies and pay; and the threat of disease with overwhelmed water supplies (a far bigger killer than battles for soldiers and civilians at the time at a ratio of 3:1) as a result. The largest army of the wars was the combined Parliamentarian/Scots Covenanter one at the Siege of York / Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, which was c. 25,000 and only concentrated for a couple of weeks.
Bearing in mind all above, and the logistics of making coats in an age before sewing machines, my guess is that you might want to remove a 0 from the figure quoted. At a push he might have made 4,000 (still an amazing achievement for the time!)”
Daniel Rothwell concurs that the figure of 43,000 should be treated with caution, and may well have begun life as 4,300. “As being in a guild at that time was all about contacts, I imagine that for a time every sailmaker and sack stitcher in Dublin and beyond may have become involved.”
There were also 9,000 Irish Protestants but presumably only the “regular” army only were uniformed. One should also bear in mind a broadsheet published in Dublin in 1648, entitled: “The humble Petition of us the Parliaments poore Souldiers in the Army of Ireland, whereof many are starved already, and many dead for want of Chirurgions.” (See image here or here) The cartoon accompanying the broadsheet was one of many produced at the time that satirised the very poor state of Parliament’s forces before Cromwell reached Ireland. That changed rapidly after his arrival as one of his oft forgotten skills was meeting the essential need for logistical support. He recognised that this would be particularly important in Ireland, which had been the graveyard (literally and metaphorically) of many poorly supplied English armies before then. Daniel Byrne may well have been part of that logistical reboot
Red coats were indeed standard dress for Cromwell’s infantry, the colour having been officially adopted in 1645. The choice of the earthy red was simply because its ‘Venetian Red’ pigment was the cheapest and most widely available at the time. However, the fashion stuck and over the next 250 years, the ‘redcoats’ of British soldiers would become one of the most emblematic sights of the Empire.
One wonders how the future would have been altered if the most economical pigment was, say, khaki green or brown. I recall standing by the Dwyer McAllister cottage in County Wicklow, where there was a famous shoot-out in the wake of the 1798 Rebellion, and espying someone in a red anorak walking through the hills a mile away. I assume the United Irishmen would have had similar advance warning when the redcoat militia units came into the hills to track them down, just as the Afghans and Zulus and Shawnee and Sikhs would do in the coming century. The redcoats are akin to the shimmering white cottontails that betray a bunny rabbit’s location time and time again when they seek to hide from their prey. Red was certainly not a subtle colour for a uniform although, of course, there is the argument that the enemy could never tell whether someone inside a redcoat was bleeding or not.
The Fairy Earl of Kildare, painted by an unknown artist in about 1632, two years after his marriage to Lady Joan Boyle. (Artist unknown)
When I consulted Stuart Orme about whether any of these uniforms are visible today, he replied:
“There aren’t any surviving examples of soldier’s uniforms from this period – whilst armour, buff coats, weapons and equipment does, fabric struggles to survive over that period of time in general. Ordinary soldier’s clothing wouldn’t have been regarded as a priority to keep anyway, and as cloth was handmade and therefore expensive most clothes at the time would have been patched, repaired and reused until it literally fell apart.
There’s little in the way of uniformity at this time; although the New Modelled Army had contract books which set out broad specifications for equipment and clothing (which survive I believe in the UK National Archives) as there was no factory system there would have been variations and no two soldiers would have been dressed or equipped alike, let alone before men adapted or changed it themselves on campaign.”
Daniel Byrne was clearly a person of note in the Cromwellian period. He warranted an oath in J. T Gilbert’s three volume History of Dublin (1861). His wealth enabled him to deal purchase land and houses, while the Commonwealth granted him 400 acres of Ossory in the Queen’s County [now Laois]. [Was that grant personally approved by Cromwell?]
He also pumped much of his tailor’s fortune into buying a larger chunk of the county. In 1657, a year before Cromwell’s death, he endeavoured to buy the Morett and Timogue estates, comprising fifteen townlands near Timahoe, from Wentworth FitzGerald, Lord Ossory (later the17th Earl of Kildare). [2] [Could it be that he received payment for the uniforms this year? A treasury record would be useful.] Wentworth’s father, the 16th earl, also known as the Fairy Earl, was poverty stricken at this time, and may have been confined to London, possibly even in a debtors’ prison. It seems likely that Wentworth was this acting for his father. The castles and lands of ‘Tymogue and ‘Morette’ had been granted to Lord Kildare’s ancestor over 350 years earlier.[3] However, Daniel may not have been able to take possession of the Manors, which were subject to a lease of 1584 connected to Gearoid Iarla (Gerald the Earl), the Wizard Earl of Kildare. The deed of sales survives among the Marchioness of Lansdowne’s ‘Irish Estate’ papers at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England. [4]
Deed from John Whitney to Daniel Byrne of lands in Queen’s County, 1661, from the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. With thanks to Daniel Byrne-Rothwell.
A still juicier acquisition came in 1661 when he secured ownership of the Manor of Shean near the Great Heath of Maryborough, including part of the Road of Dala (Slige Dala Meic Umhoir), an ancient trackway running south from the Hill of Tara. According to the tale told by Garrett Byrne of Fallowbeg, Shean’s owner, Colonel John Whitney, had become ‘greatly indebted’ to Daniel who proposed that if Whitney married his daughter, he would not only ‘forgive the debt, but redeem his estate from all other incumbrances.’ [5] Whitney refused, declaring that he ‘could not think of smothering his blood by marrying a tailor’s daughter.’ Daniel called in the debt. Realising he would now have to sell his estate, Whitney advised Daniel that he had thought the matter through and maybe marrying a tailor’s daughter wasn’t such a bad idea after all. This time it was Daniel’s turn to decline on the basis that he couldn’t possibly marry his beloved daughter of to a man on the cusp of selling up. Whitney folded and Daniel bought the Shean estate for £5000.
He permitted Whitney to remain in the castle at Shean but the colonel continued to mock his professional status. On one occasion, he was invited to dinner at the castle. Whitney, who had ensured there was no knife or fork in front of his guest, invited him to tuck in.
‘There is plenty of meat, but nothing to cut it,’ said Daniel.
‘Why don’t you draw your scissors and clip it, Sir?’ suggested Whitney.
‘I drew it time enough to clip the lordship of Shean from your back, Sir,’ retorted the Tailor Byrne, for which he was ordered ‘to quit the Castle.’[6]
In 1664 Daniel secured confirmation of his right to a coat of arms based on that of the O’Byrnes of Glenmalure, County Wicklow, the principal dynasty, from whom he claimed a direct lineal descant.[7] Seven years later, he bought his eldest son Gregory the baronetcy of Timogue, to be held for him and his male heirs forever. However, Sir Gregory, who studied law at Gray’s Inn in London, appears to have got somewhat ahead of himself. While walking with his old man through the streets of Dublin one day, he said: ‘Father, you ought to walk to the left of me, I being a knight and you but a mechanic.’ [8]
‘No, you puppy,’ replied Daniel. ‘I have the precedency in three ways: first, because I am an older man; secondly, because I am your father; and thirdly, because I am the son of a gentleman, and you are but the son of a poor taylor. [sic]’
When he died in 1684, Daniel was buried as a Catholic in Dublin’s St Audeon’s Church, alongside his wife Anne, mother of their seven children. She was the daughter of a Dublin merchant, Richard Taylor of Swords; the Taylor family name adds another layer to Daniel’s earlier retort to his son’s impudence.
Sir Gregory became a tax assessor for the Queen’s County and served as a member in the Patriot Parliament called by the pro-Catholic king, James II. As a captain in the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot-guards, he served for the king at both the Siege of Derry and the battle of the Boyne; his younger brother Joseph Byrne was killed in action at the battle of Aughrim. Sir Gregory later appears to have gone into exile in France, dying in 1712. He was ancestor of both the Polish O’Byrne family (also known as d’Obyrn or Obyrn) and the von Obyrns of Saxony in Germany. [9]
On about 15 March 1670, Sir Gregory married Margaret (Penelope) Copley, the daughter of Colonel Christopher Copley from Wadsworth in Yorkshire and his wife Lady Mary Jones, a daughter of Roger Jones, 1st Viscount Ranelagh. Following her death on 20 July 1685, Lady Byrne was buried at St Audoen’s Church, Dublin. She and Sir Gregory Byrne were the parents of Mary Byrne and Sir Daniel Byrne (1676 – 25 September 1715). Sir Gregory was married secondly to Alice Fleming (d. 13 December 1753), the daughter of Randall Fleming, 16th Lord Slane, and Penelope Moore, daughter of Henry Moore, 1st Earl of Drogheda (d. 1676). [10]
The Battle of Aughrim. Illustration: Derry Dillon
Acknowledgments
With thanks to Daniel Byrne-Rothwell, Jackie Hyland, Katarzyna Gmerek, Edward Byrne, Simon Kerry (Bowood), Dr Lizzie Rogers (Bowood), Cathryn Spence (Bowood), Susie Warren and Stuart Orme (Curator, The Cromwell Museum, Huntingdon).
Further Reading
- Gmerek, Katarzyna, Follow me up to Warsaw, a contribution to the history of the O’Byrnes in Poland, in: Eastern European Perspectives on Celtic Studies, ed. by Michael Hornsby and Karolina Rosiak, Cambridge; Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, p. 132-162.
- Rothwell-Byrne, Daniel, ‘The Byrnes and the O’Byrnes – Volume 2’ (House of Lochar, 2010)
- Ó Siochrú, Dr Micheál, ‘God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland’ (Faber and Faber, 2009)
- Ronald Hutton’s excellent lecture on Cromwellian finances:
End-Notes
Viewed from the Great Heath, I think these hills are Killone and Kilmurry.
[1] Daniel is said to have been a son of Phelim O’Byrne’s son Turlough; after the defeat of the Confederation, Turlough’s brothers Brian and Hugh fled to Europe and joined the Spanish army. Some accounts suggest that Daniel’s father was named Laughlin and that his older brother Denis inherited the family pile at Ballentlee, or Ballintlea, in County Laois. Elsewhere it is suggested that Ballintlea was a castle between Redcross and the sea in County Wicklow. Daniel is recorded on Cromwell’s List of ‘Innocents’, Catholics who had shown loyalty to the Commonwealth.
[2] By Fiant 559 dated 1563 Queen Elizabeth I, made a grant of a castle in Shaen plus 15 townlands to George Delves, whose surname also appears on the Tudor map of ‘Leis’ from c. 1563. Delves surrendered his grant and the estate was regranted to John Whitney on 26 April 1569 (This was part of the lands granted in the plantation of the Queen’s and King’s Counties). Whitney appears to have leased the eastern end of the estate, i.e the lands running from the present day Great Heath, namely Garryduff, Killeny, Killone, Killmurry, Ballythomas, Ballyduff and Killeen to Viscount Valentia. In 1639 the estate was raised to the status of Manor with Courts Baron and Leet and the right of nomination to the churches of Straboe, Killeny and Killmurry and rights of common of pasture on the Great Heath. The Heath was referred to as Rath Shaen in the grants. The name survives to this day on one of the ring forts on the Heath. In later deeds, relating to the manor of Shaen, registered in the Registry of Deeds, Dublin, in the first decade of the 19th century. The right of grazing attached to the manor was stated to be unlimited. Legally, presently, the concept of unlimited rights would not be acceptable. I presume the lavish right of grazing bestowed on Shaen was because the townland of Rath Shaen was originally part of the estate and surrendered when the manor of Shaen was created in 1639. The manor of Dysart (Pigott’s) Estate was created also in 1639. Dysart has numerous listings of rights of pasture on the Great Heath, registered in the Registry of Deeds.
By indenture of fine between Daniel Byrne, John Whitney and Elizabeth his wife (Whitney certainly had a wife at this period) deposed; a list of messages, cottages, lofts, gardens, acreages of land, meadow, pasture, wood and underwood, furze and Heath, moor, lands listed conveyed for £5000. There are several lists of lands in various locations in the Bowood papers and Registry of Deeds and copies published. I have seen one price given as £6000, this may be a mistake on my behalf in notation. The money was to be paid in good and lawful money of England. (Bundle 1 No. 3a)
The Bowood papers list several other exchanges between Whitney and Byrne
- (Trinity B 6:2) Whitney to Byrne, Exemplification Recovery
- This Jackie Hyland believes to be a device to break the entail. (Bundle No 4)
- Shyan (Shaen) recovery from Mr. Whitney to Mr Byrne (Bundle No 4).
- Whitney and Wife to Byrne Fine (Bundle No 2).
With thanks to Jackie Hyland.
[3] The Red Book of the Earls of Kildare indicates these lands were granted by ‘Alan de La Lousch’ aka Alan la Zouche, 1st Baron la Zouche of Ashby (1267-1314), to John FitzGerald, son of Thomas, ancestor the Earls of Kildare, in 1295 and 1312 respectively. Quit Claim by Emeilia de Longespee to all night in Tymogue, St. Fintans and Morette to John son of Thomas 1298. The lands remained in the possession of the Kildare family for the next two centuries. By letters patent, Queen Elizabeth I, regranted in 1568, the Manors of Morette and Tymogue and the advowson of these lands to the Earl of Kildare. Most of the Kildare lands were restored at this period.
[4] It was previously said that this deed was signed by Oliver Cromwell but this transpires not to be the case. I also originally understood that he had purchased Timogue and Morett from Sir Walter Whelan for a sum of £150,000, but this seems to have been incorrect. Sir Walter Whelan’s estate had been property of the O’Kelly family until swiped by the Fitzgeralds, of whom ‘Short Garret’ Fitzgerald of Luggacurren was recalled as ‘a consummate tyrant over the peasantry’. After the 1641 rebellion the FitzGeralds were obliged to sell the property to Sir Walter, a Roman Catholic, who resided in Timogue castle and built a chapel nearby. This included the old lordships of Timogue and Tully.
Jackie Hyland mentioned seeing ‘The Earl of Kildare agreement and Morette and Tymogue signed, sealed and witnessed by Wentworth Earl of Kildare’, as well as ‘a true copy of the Earl of Kildare’s agreement with Daniel Burn for Morette and Tymogue that relate to the sale of the manors.’ The Commonwealth is written in the last paragraph of the true copy. The lease for 137 years at a rent of £34-6-3 was registered (N.A.I) in Ireland. A major difficulty would arise when Robert Fitzgerald purported to have obtained a new lease from the Commonwealth and the unexpired 37 years of the old lease.
By the agreement dated 14 August 1657, Byrne was to pay Lord Kildare £850, of which £100 was to be in Gold, £400 in good and passable coin, with the balance in an unknown form. The agreement stipulated that if the earl recovered the Manor and lands from Robert Fitzgerald or the Commonwealth before the expiration of the said leases, Byrne was to pay an additional £200 str. In a preceding paragraph which is not clear to me, Byrne was to pay thirteen pounds fifteen shillings, which was then the rent and at the expiration of the said leases, ten pounds str per annum forever. The deed was followed by a lease and release dated 27/28 October 1657 to Sir William Usher. He by like terms dated 19/20 March 1668 Ushed to Daniel Byrne.
Byrne took action in the Court of King’s Bench against the tenants in possession in 1686, before a jury, which found the lease to be forged and contrived. The Quit Rent Office took action in 1721 for the arrears of the quit rent of £34-6-3. At the trial, Denis Delaney, one of the jurors, swore an affidavit and James Galbally, present at trial, gave evidence, the action found lands and premises discharged from Quit Rent and the charge. It appears that Stephen Fitzgerald was given a lease of Morette and part of the Tymogue estate by Daniel Byrne.
This is taken as evidence of title that the sale to the Earl of Shelbourne was progressing. Jackie has a note written down at the end of the above which may lead to the correct location: LMR Box 1 Bundle 1,2,3,4; LMR Box 7 in pencil.
[5] In 1571, Queen Elizabeth granted Shaen, together with Killeen and other lands, to John Whitney in tail male. For some reason, on 23rd May 1640 Charles I by letters patent granted the Manor of Shaen to his descendant Robert Whitney, father of the John who dealt with Daniel Byrne.
Deed from JOHN WHITNEY to DANIEL BYRNE of lands in Queen’s County. Reference Code NAI Lodge/7/75. Calendar from Patent Rolls of Chancery, 06/11/1661.
As may be seen, Byrne paid £5000 for them. Pole Cosby also remarked upon the sale of Shaen, but inaccurately claimed that “Colonel Whitney” sold them for £1,500, owing money for clothes and loans.
At Bowood, Jackie Hyland saw a copy of a Mortgage Deed of March 1669 that named Sir Gregory Byrne and Daniel Byrne, £1800 str Daniel Wybrants and Thady Fitzpatrick. The Lands are the whole of the Manor of Shaen and the Manor of Morette, Ballynepark, Tully and Shanganagh More. It appears that in the 18th century, the Manor of Morette plus the eastern end of the Manor of Shaen to create the Manor of Kilmurry, thus creating the Manors of Shaen, Kilmurry and Tymogue. Other papers seen were 1698, Sir Gregory and Daniel Bynre Mortgage of £1000 to Steven Fitzgerald. Bundle 5 No 1. 20th March 1671, Settlement Daniel Byrne (original purchaser) to Lord Ranelagh, Scurloge V Sir Gregory Byrne, Copy Decree, Bundle 5 No 55.
The Shelbourne title to the Queen’s county estates can be found in an ‘Attested copy of conveyance of Sir Peter Leicester’s (late Byrne)’ lands to the Earl of Shelbourne. Jackie Hyland adds: ‘This is to be found in a bound cream coloured volume [at Bowood] next to 126 from Box 7, likely a reference to Queen’s County leases. The price was £100,769. After debts and portions, Sir Peter was left with £83,854-16-4.’
Daniel Rothwell send me these additional notes:
‘The Byrne’s (alias Leycester’s), in 1755 they sold “all the Several Manors or lordships of Shaen, Tymogue and Kilmurry” to John Petty, Earl of Shelburne. Shaen remained in this nobleman’s family until 1801, when the Marquis of Lansdown sold the Manor to Cornelius, Lord Lismore. Between 1731 and 1738 Thomas Kemmis obtained a lease – probably for 21 years – of a portion of the lands of Shaen. Prior to 1744 he held in addition 290 acres in Killeen, also by lease. He resided at Shaen until 1757, when he removed to Killeen – apparently in consequence of his lease of the former lands having expired, since the next year C. H. Coote Esq. obtained a lease of Shaen demesne, 688 acres, for three lives. At the sale of the freehold of these lands in 1801 C. H. Coote Esq. is mentioned as holding Shaen demesne at a rent of £321. 0. 0., also Straboe and Derrygarron, 560 acres, at £234. 0. 0. per annum: Thomas Kemmis Esq. Kilmainham and Killeen, 544 acres plantation measure, at a rent of £226.0.0. by lease of three lives from 1757, and John Kemmis Esq. 184 acres in Eyne, at a rent of £115.9.4. by lease for 21 years from 1794. It is also stated that the Manor of Shaen was entitled to an unlimited right of Commonage over the great Heath of Maryborough, and that the then house of Shaen was a substantial building erected by the late Dean Coote, whilst there were also good family houses with proper offices upon Strabo, Killeen, and Ballydavis, occupied by John Kemmis Esq., Captain Warburton and Mr. Fitzgerald.
On 10 February 1808 Thomas Kemmis, third son of Thomas Kemmis previously referred to, purchased from Lord Lismore “The fee simple and inheritance of the Castle, Manor, towns and lands of Shaen, alias Syan, alias Shrin, in the Queen’s Co.,” together with its several sub-denominations and an unlimited right of commonage belonging to the said Manor on the lands called the Great Heath adjoining thereto, with all right etc: belonging to the said Castle and Manor etc. Among the sub-denominations referred to are Kilmainham, Killeen, Eyne, Shaen demesne and wood, Straboe, Ballydavis, etc.
Little now remains of the ancient Castle save a few remains which mark where it stood upon an eminence near the present mansion. From an engraving dated 1779 it appears to have been at that date a square keep with a more modern building attached to it. It was used as a residence by Thomas Kemmis Senior until he remove to Killeen in 1757, but probably its place was then taken by the new house which, as already mentioned, Dean Coote built during his tenancy, and which was situated at the foot of the Castle hill. Between 1811 and 1827 the Rev. Thomas Kemmis erected the present mansion upon the site of Dean Coote’s house, a portion of which he incorporated in the building; his father having about 1810 built the wall around the demesne.’
[6] Whitney wasn’t the only one to scoff at Byrne’s nouveau riche lifestyle but the tailor had a quick wit. William Dawson, a landlord of renown ancestor of the Earl of Portarlington, whose forbears were millers but who was by then a landed gent of renown. As they set out to hunt one morning, Byrne was offered a dram by Dawson. ‘Take it off, Daniel, it is but a thimbleful,’ said Dawson, somewhat pointedly. Daniel knocked it back and replied, ‘Yes, Willy, I would take it if it was a hopper-full,’ alluding to the hoppers in the Dawson mills.
[7] The arms that Daniel used were slightly altered to include a silver border around the family shield and a dart in the O’Byrne mermaid’s hand instead of a comb.
[8] William King, Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin had this to say in his ‘State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James’s Government,’ (published, London, 1691):
“There was another sort of people had mighty favour with them; I mean converts to their [Catholic] religion. A man may, I confess, upon just motives, or such as seem just to him, change his opinion and religion, and cannot justly be condemned of dishonesty for so doing; but he is certainly a very dishonest man that dissembles or alters his opinion, without any other visible motive besides gain or preferment… Sir Gregory Birn turned, in order to carry a Suit at Law against Captain FitzGerald, which he is supposed to have carried by very indirect means, as most that heard the Tryal believed, it being strongly surmised by them, that he had suborned witnesses, and corrupted the sheriff to pack a Jury. Nay it is shrewdly suspected that he went sharer in some considerable causes, and not only appeared for them on the bench, but also secretly incouraged and fomented them. Before him a deed should be judged forged or not forged according as it served a Popish Interest. And a Protestant needed no more to gain a cause against another Protestant, than to turn Papist; which manifestly appear’d in Sir Gregory Birn’s Case, who merely by turning Papist, as is noted before, in the midst of his Suit against Captain Robert FitzGerald, got a Deed condemned of forgery, and recovered five or six hundred pounds per annum; notwithstanding Mr Daniel Birn his father, some years before, for pretending it was forged, had been sued in an action of the case; and forced to pay two hundred pound damages: and though there appeared in Court a bond under Birn’s hand, obliging him to pay two hundred pound to the witnesses, in case they should prove Captain FitzGeralds deed to be forged, yet the proof was accepted. But these were common things in this Court, and the mischief had been much greater had not a Writ of Error lyen from his Court to the Kings Bench in England.”
In an email to me from August 2024, Daniel Rothwell made a very valid point about the delicate position Sir Gregory must’ve found himself in, and the nuances of changing side at the right moment, not too similar to Democrats and Republicans in 2024! As Daniel put it:
“We know that Sir Gregory Byrne of Timogue was in the “Patriot Parliament” in 1689 as MP for Queen’s Co. and that this was the very that Parliament, under Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, repealed the Cromwellian land settlement. As Daniel Byrne benefited from the Commonwealth, is it likely that Timogue came under this? Did the repeal of the Cromwellian settlement not make Sir Gregory (perhaps to his shock) virtually landless in May 1689?
Sir Gregory was not in a good position to draw attention to himself by asking for an exemption regarding his land in Laois. “My dad got some land because he supported the man who killed your dad.” By serving as a good Jacobite officer and soldier, he may have hoped to be in a position where he could make such a request. But King James lost.
The thing is that come the Treaty of Limerick, 1691, the English Parliament declared James II’s Dublin Parliament and all of its acts and laws, null and void. It was totally cancelled and unfortunately it was decided to burn all its records in 1695. To be fair, this was probably more of an act of kindness towards the members of James’ parliament on the part of the new regime. Better for them that no written record exist of their sayings and doings. But if Gregory had been facing a major problem in regard to the provisions of the very Parliament he had been a member of, then this must have been great for him as suddenly he had an estate again because, “officially,” the repeal of the Cromwellian land settlement never happened. This did indeed mean that he had a fight on his hands to contend the Williamite confiscations but at least he had something to fight over.
To me, Gregory seems to have refrained from following James into exile in favour of legally fighting his corner and retaining an estate if possible.
The fate of Timogue became a three generation problem, and I think that probably killed his son Daniel with the stress. For one thing, Daniel appears to have been told by his father that it was his marriage portion only to find that knotted the land up in a load of perhaps dubious deals. It was a problem solved only by Daniel’s widow, Lady Dorothea, for the sake of her son John. She had already been reduced to making her younger son, another Daniel, an apprentice clothworker in London. It’s an interesting scenario, if Sir Gregory as a Jacobite lost his estate because of Jacobite legislation and regained it because of Williamite legislation.”
[9] Sir Gregory’s second wife Alice was a daughter of the 16th Baron Slane and only sister of Christopher Fleming, Viscount Longford. Having initially marched out in James II’s forces as a Jacobite, Viscount Longford saw the way the war was going and changed sides to try and save his family fortune. He did not succeed.
Their son Charles got into trouble in his youth for killing a blacksmith whose wife he had kissed; that cost his father dear. Charles later settled at Byrne’s Grove near Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny. Another son James fetched up as a footguard in Warsaw and was ancestor to the D’Byrn and von Byrne families.
Alice Byrne (nee Fleming) was married secondly to Thomas Warren, who may have been a kinsman of the Warrens of Wells House in County Wexford, which was built in late 1600s by John Warren. John, who owned more than 6,000 acres at wells House and served as Sheriff of Dublin, was attainted by William of Orange’s Parliament for supporting James II. His son Richard Warren, who fled to France and was created a Knight and Baronet by “King James III” (aka the Old Pretender), was responsible for a daring rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie (aka Charles III, mark 1).
In 1756, Sir Peter Byrne (1732–1770), a great-grandson of Sir Gregory, took on the surname ‘Leicester’ and sold his estate to the Marquess of Lansdowne.
[10] George Edward Cokayne, Complete Baronetage, Vol 4 (1904). Curiously, Alice Fleming was also related to Roger Jones through her mother, Lady Penelope, a great-niece of Viscount Ranelagh who had married Frances Moore, aunt of the above Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda. Jones had taken the title of Ranelagh from the former lands of Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, a large portion of which he had been granted in 1628. It was not unusual for marriage settlements to be made between new settlers and the dispossessed. Sir Daniel Byrne, eldest son of Sir Gregory and Dame Margaret was therefore of the blood of both the old and the new lords of Ranelagh.