A Gentleman of Limerick: The Story of Francis Arthur of Limerick, by Michael Kelly

Comments by Paddy Waldron at the book launch

The People's Museum of Limerick, 2 Pery Square, 7 Nov 2024, 7:30p.m.

Tá fáilte romhaibh go léir.

Thank you to Michael and Dominic for inviting me to speak here this evening.

This seems to be book launch season in Limerick. Liam Irwin had a bishop (and former schoolmate) launching the book in his honour last week. Patsy Peril had an elected councillor launching his autobiography the previous week. That left only an unordained unelected self-taught genealogist masquerading as a historian to launch Michael's book.

The main peril of speaking at a launch like this is that all the obvious things that I might say could have already been said by previous speakers.

I would like to be able to congratulate the three authors of this work, but only one of them is with us today. Patrick Edmond Arthur died 210 years ago and his younger sister Margaret Jane Leahy died 155 years ago.

I must complement the Jesuit order for preserving the original manuscript at Stonyhurst and Michael for finally bringing it to publication in the bicentenary year of Francis Arthur's death in Dunkirk.

Michael and I have not known each other quite as long as Liam Irwin and Bishop Fleming.  He first tracked me down 13 years ago this week.

His greataunt Adelaide Augustus Arthur, known to me as Aunt Addie, married my greatuncle Willie Waldron back in 1926.

I met Michael's brother Paul a few times here in Limerick while I was growing up, but I don't think that I have seen Paul (until tonight) since we buried the ashes of Uncle Willie's last sister in the family grave in Mount St. Lawrence back in 1992.

The Arthurs and Waldrons have a lot more in common.

Michael tells us that the Arthur surname first came to Ireland with the Normans, but was adopted by a Dalcassian family with a similar name. Y-DNA comparison will be needed to confirm to which lineage present-day Arthur men belong.

Similarly, the Waldron surname apparently first came to Ireland with the Ulster Plantation in 1609, but was adopted by Irish families with similar names like Mac Bhaildrín agus de Bhaldraithe.

Three generations of my Waldron ancestors lived at various addresses in Ellen Street and Patrick Street in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

I didn't realise until I read this book that those streets were named after two of Addie's relatives - the wife and father of Francis Arthur of the title.

The idea of building on flood plains is not new - this book reveals that Francis Arthur came up with a similar idea back in the 1700s. Opera Square is now under construction on part of the same flood plain.

Unlike Tony Browne, I have not memorised Lenihan's History of Limerick, nor have I even read it from cover to cover, let alone read all of Lenihan's copious footnotes.

Francis Arthur is just a footnote to Lenihan's history, albeit that footnote runs to no less than ten pages.

I had forgotten Francis Arthur's story, but must have read that long footnote when researching the Clare and Limerick ancestry of the well-known present day celebrity Alexander Kemal, initially rediscovered by Declan Barron of the Clare Roots Society.

You probably know Alexander Kemal better by his middle name Boris. His Y-DNA comes from his paternal grandfather Osman Kemal, but his surname comes from Osman's maternal grandmother Margaret Hannah Johnson. Boris's Clare and Limerick ancestry comes from Osman's wife Yvonne Williams. Yvonne's GGGGgrandmothers include Alicia Sexton, sister-in-law of Francis Arthur. James Gorman, one of Alicia's fourteen children, plays a bit part in this book.

You will learn from Michael's book how Francis Arthur was forced by anonymous enemies to become a refugee in his own country back in 1798, or at least in 1801 when the Act of Union came into force and his place of exile in London and his home city here in Limerick both became part of the new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

My first thought was that something like this could never happen in Limerick again.

Then my thoughts turned to the 124th anniversary of the start of Francis Arthur's court martial, Friday the 23rd of June 1922. Ireland and Limerick then stood on the verge of another conflict, the Civil War.

The Crown Forces, whose predecessors are the villians of this book, had handed over the Castle Barracks in Limerick to the National Army, but had merely vacated the city's other three barracks, which were occupied by anti-Treaty forces.

The following week, the Four Courts and the Public Record Office of Ireland were blown up, taking with them hundreds of years of Irish history, possibly including records of Francis Arthur's court martial.

On the late evening of the 22nd of June, a body of armed men, estimated as from ten to a dozen, visited the homes of four members of the clerical staff of Limerick Post Office, two houses in Verona Esplanade, half a mile from where we are this evening, and two more nearby on the South Circular Road.

The victims were warned to clear out of Ireland before 12 noon the following Monday or be shot at sight.

The charges against them appear to have been that they had refused to join a strike of the Limerick Post Office staff on the 14th of April 1920, more than two years earlier, organised as a protest against the treatment of patriotic Irishmen in English prisons.

All four victims, like Francis Arthur, initally made their way to London. One stayed there, two moved back to Dublin, and only one eventually returned permanently to Limerick.

Who were those four men, what have they to do with tonight's events, and have they living relatives to speak up for them today as Michael has done for Francis Arthur?

The man who stayed in London was Thomas John Phelan. He was married, but had no family. His living next-of-kin today include his sister's greatgrandson whom you may be familiar with - Eamon Ryan, outgoing Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Minister for Transport.

The two men who returned to Dublin were Adelaide Augustus Arthur's brothers-in-law, my grandfather Jack Waldron and his identical twin brother, my namesake Paddy Waldron.

Like Francis Arthur, they had made no secret of their political loyalties, naming their respecitve sons born in 1917 and 1916 Patrick Henry Pearse Waldron and Thomas McDonagh Waldron, so considered themselves supporters of the relevant powers-that-be at the time.

The former Waldron child, my father, like Francis Arthur's son, another Patrick, became a barrister.  Patrick Arthur's legal training may explain the lack of commas which I noticed in his text.

The latter Waldron child may be better known to you as Tomás de Bhaldraithe, author of the standard English-Irish dictionary, which many of us used in school.

For ten years, Eamon Ryan and I shared a classroom in a Jesuit school, not Patrick Edmond Arthur's alma mater Stonyhurst, but the less posh Gonzaga College in Dublin. It was only in 2022 that I discovered that Eamon and I also share a connection to the events of 1922 in Limerick.

Three of the four 1922 victims were Catholic. The fourth victim, Richard Hetherington, postmaster of Limerick, was a member of the Church of Ireland.  Fearing a sectarian attack, he fled his house in Verona Esplanade by the back garden, leaving his wife to deal with the armed callers.

So it was that, at first light on the 23rd of June, a distraught Mrs Hetherington, formerly Margaret Anna Arthur, also from a Church of Ireland family, showed up at my grandparents' door across the road, seeking help to locate her missing husband. He was found in the grounds of the Model School, having broken his leg when climbing over his back garden wall into the school grounds.

Unlike Michael, I don't have enough material to produce a book on what happened in 1922, but if any of you wants to know more, you will find what I know at WikiTree.com.

Long before social media, victimisation of people of principle by anonymous enemies was unfortunately commonplace.

Let us hope that Francis Arthur's story, and the similar story from 1922, convince us that residents of Limerick should never again be banished as refugees and that the city should instead become a place of welcome for refugees from elsewhere.

I don't know whether Francis Arthur qualifies for a posthumous presidential pardon such as President Higgins recently issued for Sylvester Poff and James Barrett who were executed in 1883.   

For now, all that remains for me is to declare this book officially launched and encourage you all to buy a copy for yourself and another for a friend.