The Military in Kilkenny 1800-1870
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(_, o . U \ (ob , NUI MAYNOOTH OMscoll ha h£ireann Mä Nuad National University of Ireland Maynooth The military in Kilkenny 1800-1870 by Liam Böiger B.A. Thesis for the degree of PhD Department of History National University of Ireland Maynooth Head of Department: Professor R. V. Comerford Supervisor of Research: Dr. Jacinta Prunty October 2005 Contents Acknowledgements ii Abbreviations iii List of graphs and tables iv List of illustrations v List of maps vi Introduction 1 Chapter I A soldier’s life, not a happy one: conditions, 28 recruitment and troop numbers Kilkenny 1800-1870 Chapter II The army in the field: Kilkenny 1800-1870: 83 the politics of dissent Chapter III Army reform, 1800-1870 135 Chapter IV The military presence in Kilkenny, 1800-1870: 164 curse or blessing? Chapter V Kilkenny’s forgotten armies: 202 the yeomanry 1800-1834 and militia 1800-1870 Conclusion 241 Appendices 249 Bibliography 268 Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis is primarily due to my tutor Jacinta Prunty whose abundant kindness and insistence on the achievement of high standards has guided my every step along this scholarly path. What has finally appeared is a testimony to her patient perseverance. The errors and omissions this study contain are solely those of the author, for which my tutor is no way responsible. Important encouragement and advice was also rendered by Professor R. V. Comerford, the head of the modem history department at NUI Maynooth. I am also indebted to a number of authors of major theses on nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland, consulted at Irish and English universities and acknowledged in the bibliography. During the course of this study I have been facilitated by the staff o f many institutions. These included the National Archives o f Ireland, the National Archives in Kew, the National Library of Ireland, the British Library, Kilkenny and Waterford county libraries, Rothe House Library (Kilkenny) and the Royal Irish Academy. The assistance of Olive Hogan of The National Archives at Kew was especially significant in locating much o f the primary material relevant to this study. I also wish to thank sincerely the staff of the John Paul II and Russell libraries at Maynooth. I am also indebted to a host of friends, who when consulted, gladly shared their knowledge of Kilkenny nineteenth-century history with the author o f this thesis. Among these were Peter Bluett, Joe Dowling, Maire Downey, Louis Feeley, Tom Halpin, Eamon Kiely, John Kirwan, Edward Law, Gary Lynch, Frank McEvoy, Pat O’Brien, Proinsias O Drisceoil, Michael O’Dwyer, Bill Sandall, Willie Smyth, Walter Walsh and Willie White. F. Glenn Thompson’s expertise in the field of militia and yeomanry uniforms and accoutrements proved invaluable to this study. Others to supply valuable military information and back-up photographs were Corporal Desmond McAuley at James Stephens Barracks at Kilkenny, Commodant K. Milner at Columb Barracks, Mullingar, and John Ryan of Piltown. A key factor in the production of this thesis was the ever-ready availability of my typist Tom Sinnott. His service and enduring patience with at times a frustrated author were way beyond the call o f duty, for which I thank him sincerely. Finally, I thank my immediate and extended family for their patience while the project was ongoing. Abbreviations BL British Library CLAS Cinnlae Amhlaoibh Ui Shuileabhain (The diary of Humphrey O’Sullivan) CRF Criminal Record Files, N.A.I. CSO Chief Secretary’s Office, Dublin Castle. N.A.I. CSOOP Chief Secretary’s Office, Official Papers. N.A.I. CSORP Chief Secretary’s Office, Registered Papers. N.A.I. DDA Dublin Diocesan Archives FLJ Finn’s Leinster Journal HC House of Commons (Papers) IWM Imperial War Museum (London) KJ Kilkenny Journal KM Kilkenny Moderator KP Kilkenny People NAI National Archives of Ireland NAM National Army Museum, London NLI National Library of Ireland OP Official Papers, N.A.I. soc State of the Country Papers, N.A.I. TCD Trinity College, Dublin TNA The National Archives, Kew Graphs and Tables 1.12 Number of soldiers occupying Kilkenny military barracks October 1864 to March 1867 4.1 Population 1800 and 1821, Kilkenny city parishes 4.2 List of occupations in John Street, Kilkenny 1788 4.3 List of occupations in John Street and Barrack Street, Kilkenny 1824 4.4 List of publicans in John Street and Barrack Street, Kilkenny 1824 4.5 Places of birth of residents of Kilkenny Poor Law Union 1881 and 1891 4.6 St. Mary’s parish, Kilkenny, fertility inside and outside marriage. 5.1 Number of recruits levied for militia service in Kilkenny city and within the baronies of the county and fines payable in lieu of absence 5.2 Deserters from the county Kilkenny Royal Army of Reserve, December 1803 5.3 Officers of Kilkenny militia 1854 5.6 Daily payment of Irish yeoman: cavalry and infantry, 1800 5.7 Numbers of Protestants residing in thirteen county Kilkenny rural parishes 1831-1861 iv Illustrations 1.5 Kilkenny military barracks c. 1985 1.8 Recruiting and the Irish language 1806 1.9 Recruit weighing machine c. 1860 1.10 View of Kilkenny city taken from a vantage point in the Butts (St. Canice’s parish) 1860-1880 2.1 ‘A standing army - stranded at Clontarf 1843 2.2 Artists impression o f military camp at Piltown, county Kilkenny 1848 2.3 Two views of Kilkenny military barracks c. 1900 4.7 The courtyard at Kilkenny Castle c. 1977 4.8 Painting: ‘Listed for the Connaught Rangers’ c. 1874 4.9 Painting: ‘Marching from the Watergate with invalids’ 1833 4.10 Painting: ‘Kilkenny Horse Fair’ 1922 5.4 Collar and two armlets, Kilkenny militia c. 1793 5.5 Second Lieutenant, Kilkenny militia 1878 v Maps 1.1 Civil parishes and baronies of county Kilkenny in the mid nineteenth century 1.2 Map of Southern Army District, 25 July 1814 1.3 Location of Kilkenny barracks: Irish Historic Towns Atlas, No. 10, Kilkenny; reconstruction map 1842 1.4 Plan of military barracks at Kilkenny, 25 May 1846 1.6 Plan of Kilkenny Barracks, 4 September 1874 1.7 Site plan at Castlecomer, 23 April 1840 1.11 Ireland, Barrack stations, 8 March 1856. vi Introduction The year now in its last hours has had more events of vast moment, more strange and startling episodes crowded into its allocated days than any year in our generation. What a wonderful time it has been for supply matter for the future historian. Editorial (Kilkenny Moderator, 31 December 1870). This thesis aims to portray the origin, growth and decline o f the military in Kilkenny during the tumultuous period 1800-70. This study will chart Kilkenny’s cyclical military significance from its prominence in the early nineteenth century as a strategic centre in the fight against threatened invasion to its post-Crimean insignificance in army terms. From its Norman foundation in the late twelfth century the town of Kilkenny was both a military and commercial and market centre. As a city, post 1609, it dispatched its soldiers to the great battlefields of Europe: Fontenoy, Waterloo, Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman. Kilkenny’s military experiences cannot be regarded solely as a microcosm of the national experience but a blend of international, national and local themes. Neither can Kilkenny’s locus on Europe’s geographical periphery be taken as evidence of marginality or the inevitable condition of local places. Dominated by its impressive Ormonde Castle, Kilkenny was the home of a distinguished lineage of famous soldiers and therefore pre eminently an appropriate focus for such a study as this. For much o f their lives, James, the first Duke o f Ormonde, 1610-88, and James, the second Duke of Ormonde, 1666-1745, were pivotal power-brokers in this country and commanded armies both at home and in Europe. Soldiering enthusiastically with William of Orange during the 1670s, the second Duke became a general in the allied armies campaigning in the low countries. ‘Wild geese’ soldiers from Kilkenny’s satellite gentry families - Archers, Rothes and Hewetsons - accompanied Ormonde into exile and established a tradition of overseas military service.1 Both of Kilkenny’s eighteenth century barracks, cavalry and infantry, had by the time of the Act of Union, fallen into a state o f decline and disrepair. One outcome of this amalgamation of the two parliaments was a large-scale barrack building programme throughout Ireland. The commander of the forces in Ireland in January 1807 1 Nathalie Genet Rauffiac, ‘The Irish Jacobite exile in France 1692-1715’ in Toby Barnard and Jane Fenlon (eds.), The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610-1745 (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 195-210. proposed that ‘the worst o f these ruinous habitations which at present [are] appropriated as barracks, to the injury of the health as well as the comfort of the soldiers’ should be replaced by permanent barracks.2 The siting of Kilkenny’s new military barracks in 1803 on the city’s north-east perimeter conformed with military thinking of that time that sought to transfer stations from crowded unhealthy city- centre sites to larger, healthier self-contained locations on the outskirts o f towns. Thus isolated, undue intrusion from the general public onto these establishments was minimised. The security rationale surrounding the buildings and maintenance of this magnificent and costly barracks will be outlined. Over the period of this study a number of major architectural additions to the barracks were undertaken and from mid-century onwards health and sanitation conditions were addressed on an on-going basis. Their significant impact on soldiers’ living conditions will be explored. Known for a time as Victoria Barracks, in honour of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, the Kilkenny barracks represented a bulwark of continuity to local loyalists, provided a guarantee of their personal security, and bolstered their claims to political and social supremacy.