James Fitzpiers Fitzgerald, Captain Thomas Lee, and the Problem of “Secret Traitors”: Conflicted Loyalties During the Nine Years’ War, 1594-1603

Existing evidence pertaining to Ireland’s Nine Years’ War (1594-1603) strongly lends itself to the impression that the majority of Old English Palesmen, at least those of higher social status, chose to support the English crown during this conflict rather than their co-religionist Gaelic Irish countrymen. Loyalties, however, were anything but straightforward and could depend on any number of cultural values, social concerns, and economic incentives. Nevertheless, James Fitzpiers Fitzgerald, a ‘Bastard Geraldine’ who served as sheriff of Kildare, seemed to have been driven by a genuine sense of duty to the English crown and establishment. With the outbreak of hostilities in the 1590s, Fitzpiers proved to be a devout crown servitor, risking life and limb to confront the English queen’s Irish enemies. But, in late 1598 he suddenly, and somewhat inexplicably, threw his lot in with Irish Confederacy, defying the government he had once championed. During the ensuing investigation, the Dublin administration accumulated much damning evidence against Fitzpiers, including a patriotic plea from rebel leader Hugh O’Neill which urged Fitzpiers to defend his Irish homeland from the oppressions of English Protestant rule. Yet, at the very same time, a counter case was made by Fitzpiers’ controversial English friend, Captain Thomas Lee, which argued that Fitzpiers’ actions were more loyal than anyone could have imagined. Through an examination of Fitzpiers’ perplexing case, this paper will explore the complicated nature of allegiances in 1590s Ireland and how loyalties were not always what they seemed

The forestry question considered historically

The main object of this paper is not to re-state the case for forestry in Ireland, but to recall public attention to the subject; and in doing so to endeavour to throw light on the solution of a preliminary difficulty which is encountered on the threshold of any attempt to extend our woodlands, viz. :?Where should planting" begin, and what are the districts in which it may be most hopefully undertaken? It appears to me that the past may have some lessons for us on this point, and that something may be done from the point of view of history to supply an answer to this question. The line of my recent reading chancing to have brought vividly before me the extent and value of our former forests, I have asked myself whether light may not be derived from a consideration of the localities in which those forests flourished, of the circumstances which caused their destruction, and of the attempts which have been made in former generations to repair or mitigate the misfortune of their disappearance? It is to these questions, and to these questions only, that I shall endeavour now to give an answer

A memoir of the late John Kells Ingram, LL.D. - sometime President of the Society

In May last, at the first of our meetings which followed Dr. Ingram\u27s lamented death, the President paid a just tribute to the memory of "one of our most distinguished members," and to "the great work which he did for Ireland in this Society." But the observations then made were, necessarily, confined to a brief and passing reference; for the occasion was not appropriate to such a considered notice of Dr. Ingram\u27s career, and particularly of his connection with the Statistical Society, as it has long been our custom to devote to the commemoration of those who have been most conspicuously associated with the Society\u27s work. Since the name of Dr. Ingram must always be held in reverent remembrance amongst us, not merely as one of the most eminent in the list of our Presidents, but as that of, perhaps, the most distinguished authority on economics who has ever adorned the roll of our Society, it has been thought desirable that something in the nature of a formal memoir should be prepared for our Journal. It is hardly needful to remark that, in consenting to become the medium for such a tribute as we desire to pay to Dr. Ingram\u27s memory, I have no pretension whatever to speak with authority on the value or permanence of those weighty contributions to the history of social and economic science by which his name is likely to be most enduringly remembered. Were the passing of such judgment the proper task of the writer of this memorial notice, the Society must have looked elsewhere for its author. But I conceive my function to be the more limited one of combining with a brief record of the main facts of Dr. Ingram\u27s life, an account of his work in this Society, and of the part he took in founding it, together with a statement of the purpose and substance of those important contributions with which, from time to time, he enriched our Journal. In endeavouring to comply with the wishes of our Council, it is impossible to find a more apt precedent for the form of such a notice than that which was supplied by Dr. Ingram himself in his memoir of the late Dr. Neilson Hancock; a memoir which, though it defies imitation in the justness of its proportions, and the lucidity of its exposition, may fittingly become the model for all our future attempts to appraise the work of our worthiest members

Calendar of the manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, K. P., preserved at Kilkenny castle.

Mode of access: Internet