Mr John Tyndall | Ordnance Survey Office | Kinsale
Leighlin Bridge | Oct. 13th. 1841.
My dear John
I am sure you are nearly worn out of patience expecting something in the shape of a letter from me I have been very much unsettled since the 29th of September in consequence of removing to the house your uncle Will lived in.1 This is the chief cause of my not writing to you ere this. You say we live in strange times at present in Leighlin Bridge. You say what’s true, as all the bad feeling that existed during the Election is still in full force, and exclusive dealing the order of the day. You sent ‘the Age’ newspaper to me and in it a short paragraph taken from the Carlow Sentinel2 about Bill Bergan being beat in this town. Such also is the truth, and severely, and every one that’s seen or heard of the transaction says it was a miracle I was not murdered myself as I was with him a little before the severe assault was given. Now to give you the particulars of that base act. I was standing at your uncle Bill’s door speaking to him and some other person that now I forget. Bergan passed by. At the time we took no notice of him, nor he of us; but as soon as he reached Tom Hughes’s corner3 the yell of ‘black sheep’4 was set up. As soon as I heard it, I walked down the street after him, thinking that by my presence I might be a check on any person I knew; which I evidently was, for no person but a stranger made use of it as I passed along the street. When he reached the top of the bridge he was surrounded by a mob of strange reapers. When I saw him thus situated I walked quick up to him and advised the reapers to let him pass through the town peaceably, that if they done any thing to him they would be the sufferers. I might as well be whistling jigs to a mile-stone5 as speaking to them; and when I saw the storm rising I advised Bergan to return with me. He refused to do so. I then thought it would not be well done to shrink from him at this stage of the proceedings. I proceeded onwards, thinking the agitation would subside and during my passage to the corner of the street leading to old Leighlin I received two blows with the fist and a very severe kick and at the same time was surrounded by four or five hundred villians with reaping hooks in their hands and did not know one of them. When I saw that I could neither protect myself nor the unfortunate man I was with (though up to this I received more injury than he did) I told him to step with his back to the wall of Mary Hanlon’s corner6 till I’d bring the police. So I ran over the bridge amidst the most noisy yells and groans, and when I came to the Barracks7 they were not there. So I hastened back through the gang I passed before, without receiving the least insult. When I came up to Bergan he was weltering8 in his gore. I then found that the police were on duty at Mr Faulkner’s, a magistrate, who lived where Mr Wynne lived,9 I then ran towards the place but met them where Mr Watson lived.10 We then met Willy Tyndall your uncle who was in the crowd during the whole transaction but dare not come near me for if he did us both would be killed. He said he knew one of the leaders in this tragedy. We then went in search of them, and during our absence the Woodhouses11 with some other persons brought Bergan over the bridge to have his wounds dressed by Doctor Morris12 – who savage like refused to do so. There was a trial on him at the dispensary the other day, but he was acquitted, as there was a point of law in his favour: that was he acted in his private capacity not as apothecary for the dispensary. When will you come home? If you dont like the Survey dont stop with them. I am very tired John and must stop, but we are all well here.
I am your affectionate father | John Tyndall
I forgot to tell you that when Morris refused I went for Doctor Roach13 who was dining at his mother’s. He left his dinner and came with me, it was Caleb was alluded to in ‘the Age’ as he heard Morris refuse the Woodhouses to dress Bergan.
RI MS JT/1/10/3247
LT Transcript Only
removing to the house your uncle Will lived in: William Tyndall appears to have moved to Carlow. According to Griffith’s Valuation (County Carlow, p. 179), John Tyndall, Snr, occupied 22 Bridge Street, a property valued at £1 5s. 0d, his landlord being William Stewart.
You sent ‘the Age’ … Carlow Sentinel: see letter 0100, n. 3.
Tom Hughes’s corner: Thomas Hughes lived at the corner Chapel Street (now Saint Laserian's Street) and Poe’s Hill, which is a link between Chapel Street and Milford Street. William Bergan’s pursuers came from County Kilkenny, to the west of Leighlin Bridge.
black sheep: a disreputable or unsatisfactory member (of a family, etc.); a bad character (OED); but in this context probably means traitor to the cause (of the repeal of the union between Ireland and Britain).
whistling jigs to a mile-stone: ‘whistling jigs to a milestone, in hopes of making it dance’ is an Irish saying meaning that the other persons were unresponsive. See, for example, Countess of Blessington, Grace Cassidy; or, the Repealers. A Novel, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London: Richard Bentley, 1834), vol. 2, p. 75.
Mary Hanlon’s corner: A Margaret Hanlon lived at the corner where Milford Street and Chapel Street meet, Old Leighlin.
the Barracks: probably the Constabulary on Carlow Street, Tyndall’s father having crossed the bridge.
weltering: the action of turning or twisting the body about (OED).
where Mr Wynne lived: presumably when Lieutenant George Wynne had been stationed in Leighlin Bridge he lived in Rathvinden Cottage, the home of the magistrate Henry Faulkner.
where Mr Watson lived; Thomas Watson lived on Milford Street, Old Leighlin, facing the River Barrow.
the Woodhouses: not identified.
Doctor Morris: described as ‘a dispensing apothecary’ in CS, 18 September 1841, p. [3].
Doctor Roach: see letter 0074, n. 22.
Please cite as “Tyndall0102,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0102