Mr John Tyndall | Ordnance Survey Office | Youghal
Leighlin Bridge | June 23rd, 1841.
My dear John
I received your last letter1 in due time and am happy to hear from you, and that you are well. I have now to let you know the present state of the County Carlow2 as well as I am able to perform such a task. We have been cursed for the last nine or ten days with all the leading agitators from the Corn Exchange Dublin3 such as Danl O’Connell, John O’Connell, Tom Steel, Tom Reynolds,4 with several other mountobanks like them. They marched into this town on this day week and the Chapel Band playing before them, with a shirtless rabble surrounding the vehicle that carried them. They set up a platform in the inn yard and decorated the Butter Crane House with green bows.5 As soon as your uncle Caleb heard of the latter transaction, he darts down amidst the whole band of jugglers, mounts the house and throws every green bow to the ground, when the whole band of thimblemen6 groaned and hissed him till they were tired. The house belonged to Caleb himself, therefore he had a right, if he wished, to take them down. Don’t you wonder they did not dash his brains out. If they gave one blow its my opinion lives would have been lost. They then commenced spouting out the most filthy abuse against the Tories and Orange-men7 amidst the partial cheers of the shoeless and shirtless crew that surrounded the platform. There was not a man of the least respectability amongst them unless Terence O’Neill, Monk Byrne, and Woodcock.8 Nothing can surpass the excitement here and through the whole County from this rebel gang. Old Danl9 with the rest of the minor fry marched into Borris10 on Monday last, at the head of (as report speaks) forty thousand men. Mr Doyne, the worthy agent of the Kavanagh Estate, took time by the forelock and had the chief part of the freeholders at Borris House with the outward gates locked. They did not attempt an entrance, but their abuse of Mr Doyne and the Kavanagh family was abominable.11 There is many bets here with regard to the result of the coming Election. Some of the protestants are in high spirits while some, knowing the treachery of popery, are not so sanguine. My opinion is that Bruen will be returned along with his colleague Mr Bumbury. Nothing can surpass the rage of the surpliced ruffians12 and their flocks equally so. I still believe, notwithstanding their threats of extermination, that Bruen will gain the victory. I am very glad that you will not be at home during the contest because there will be mobs from the Countys Kilkenny, Wexford, Kildare, and Queens, to gain their point if possible by brute force, because they know full well they have no chance any other way. If the Barony boys13 prove true on this occasion they will gain for themselves immortal fame after all the threats and curses that has been heaped on them by all the priests in the County. I am barely able to write this letter my mind is so uneasy. Still I will say Bruen will be the victor. God grant he may! is the sincere prayer of your affectionate father. John Tyndall
N.B. | We are all well, write before you go to Kinsale I saw a letter from Francis Heydon. He is discharged14
RI MS JT/1/10/3225
LT Transcript Only
your last letter: probably letter 0064.
present state of the County Carlow: See CS, 3 July 1841, p. 2 for events at Leighlin Bridge on 27 June; letters 0073 and 0074.
Corn Exchange Dublin: A number of prominent meetings of the Loyal National Repeal Association of Ireland had been held at the Corn Exchange, Dublin.
Tom Steel, Tom Reynolds: Despite being a Protestant and a landowner, ‘Honest’ Thomas Steele (1788–1848) had been one of the most prominent advocates of Catholic emancipation and continued as a staunch supporter of Daniel O’Connell. A merchant and Vice President of the National Trades Political Union, Thomas Reynolds (b. 1793) was active in O’Connell’s Repeal movement.
Butter Crane House with green bows: Caleb Tyndall was the Weighmaster of the Butter Crane in Leighlin Bridge and since 1819 had been employed in that capacity by Captain William Stewart. Green bows were a symbol of the Irish nationalists.
thimblemen: tricksters – derived from the shell game (thimblerig) often used by swindlers to defraud players.
Orange-men: members of the Protestant Orange Order founded in 1796 in County Armagh.
Monk Byrne, and Woodcock: possibly Denis Byrne, who had been trained for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Carlow, 1824–30; in 1840 Captain Thomas Woodcock (probably of Coolnakisha) faced criminal charges for causing an affray (Freeman’s Journal, 24 April, p. [3] and 2 June 1840, p. [3]).
Old Danl: Daniel O’Connell.
Borris: a small town on the River Barrow about 8 miles south of Leighlin Bridge, where the Kavanagh family estate was located.
Mr Doyne … was abominable: Charles Henry Doyne (1809–67), whose family possessed a large estate in Tullow, was the land agent for the extensive and wealthy Kavanagh Estate at Borris; ‘with such a large block of tenant farmer votes under his control, he wielded enormous power’ at times of political turmoil – J. O’Toole, The Carlow Gentry (Carlow: n.p., 1993), p. 24. Doyne was deemed a hero at the December 1840 election for saving the Kavanagh Estate and again on 14 June 1841 for confronting Daniel O’Connell when he tried to initiate agitation in St Mullins (CS, 19 June 1841, p. [3]).
surpliced ruffians: Catholic priests.
Barony boys: A local gang or society of Protestants who opposed Daniel O’Connell and the Catholic Repealers.
William Heydon … discharged: Although the name Francis Heydon is given here, it was his brother William who was discharged from the Survey on 12 June 1841 (NAI OS/1/18).
Please cite as “Tyndall0066,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0066