Halpin family of Wicklow - Part 1

[BillW]

Thanks to Brian's reminder about Irish Pedigrees, into which I have just been delving after a long time, we find at the following link to page 544 that a John Halpen was juror who condemned Robert Emmet in 1803.  Would that have been public information at the time and therefore potentially dangerous?


http://www.archive.org/stream/irishpedigreeso02ohagoog#page/n572/mode/2up

Bill

[Shanachai]

     It's more than that, Bill - it may be the first concrete evidence we've found to confirm the lore: that the Halpins split and went their separate ways over political differences.  I've mentioned this before - William and James Halpin were distillers in pre-revolutionary Dublin.  They were reported by a Castle spy as being among those with the most revolutionary zeal (I'll post the documentation another time).  When Emmett was under lock and key in Kilmainham gaol William and James attempted to bust him out.  The attempt failed.  I know who your John is, but I did not know about his role in the condemnation of Emmett.  This is a significant find.

     By the way, I'd heard about Irish Pedigrees, but I thought it was a source book for horse breeders.

[BillW]

Ray, if it is this James who went to Wicklow, how come his family became so Establishment?

And I asked Diane directly, if this James's brother William put 3 sons through TCD in about 1815, how did he become an Officer/Captain in Wicklow, starting out a brewer/distiller in Dublin?

Just curious.

Bill.

[tompion]

Ray,

Thanks for all the Sibthorpe etc data.  There must been a Sibthorpe who married someone to get Sibthorpe as a first name as in Sibthorpe Bayly and Sibthorpe Bradey, but as Sibthorpe Bayley was 50 years or so before Sibthorpe Bradley it was probably a Sibthorpe-Bayly marriage. Anyway, this is wandering off the Halpin topic.

Amused about the horse pedigree comment!

Bill - what software do you use to produce simple trees as pdf's that you mount on this board??

BW Brian

[Shanachai]

     They're good questions, Bill.  But I wouldn't describe James - who became an innkeeper in Wicklow many years after the death of Emmett - as an "Establishment figure"...he pulled beers for a living, as did a few other insurrectionists, some of whom ended up living out their lives in Australia.  A man's role in an offense against the state did not necessarily ruin him for life.  The Whigs often pardoned revolutionaries and, if permitted to stay in Ireland, or to return after a period of exile, many ex-revolutionaries went into business for themselves.  That didn't mean they were always free of harassment - I recall reading the memoirs of an Irish rebel who ended up in Australia.  He spoke about being driven abroad by harassing government agents who used to enter his inn in Dublin for the sole purpose of starting fights or political arguments.  That kind of harassment was not unusual but it wasn't inevitable, either.  James's son's became well-liked and well-respected members of the Wicklow community, but only Robert C. Halpin could credibly be described as an establishment figure.
     Secondly - the fact that William (a distiller) put his lads through Trinity means nothing at all.  Trinity was a breeding ground for young members of the Society of United Irishmen.  The Rev. NJ Halpin was awarded a university prize when he wrote an atrocious poem in praise of King George, but as one reviewer at the time put it, the tripe deserved praise if only to discourage young would-be revolutionaries studying in Trinity from becoming the real thing.  But the fact that William became a ranking military man certainly does require an explanation, one I can't give at the moment.  Another Halpin abroad in Wicklow during the troubles in the post 1798 period - Thomas Halpin - was almost pathological in his devotion to the Irish cause, but that didn't stop him changing his tune when Sirr caught and threatened to kill him.  Despite his past, Halpin went on to become a very effective informer and operator in the British military.  There seems to be a perception among some that life in and around the beginning of the 19th century was plainly black or white - either you were for Irish liberty and opposed to English rule, or you weren't.  The truth is, most lived somewhere in between, in great moral and political ambiguity.  Men fought on one side, and turned up years later as men of rank on the other.  When the British navy went to war in 1812, it depended heavily on Irish Catholics to man its fleet, and many of those men had known links to a rebellious past. 
     So, as of yet I have no idea how William became a man of rank in the British army.  Further research may shed some light on that issue.  It could also prove me wrong, and the lore - or my understanding of it - completely inaccurate.  It's not the bloody gospel I'm writing here.  That fact is surely obvious to everyone who visits this site.  If I've been mistaken about that - if I've misled anyone into thinking that what I say, or the replies I post, can't be contradicted, then I'm sincerely sorry.  That was never my intention.       

[BillW]

Ray, I do not, and would not, query your methods.  Please may they continue?  We are all immeasurably richer for them.  We can barely wait for your next posting.

My much inferior role has been to ask questions, seek explanations.

This has brought forth today your most valuable portrayal of the melting pot in which these passionate people existed.

At the equally marvellous Rootsweb Carlow list (http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/IRL/IRL-CARLOW.html), recently there has been a series of accounts about the misery inflicted on a catholic tenant, Anne Watters, and her family by a pathologically bigoted anglo-irish landlord, Mr Denis Pack-Beresford.  I have ancestry from a Church of Ireland family of Watters who leased about 105 acres in Carlow from Viscount Beresford from the 1840s or before.  I am not sure how these Berefords may have been related but I was apprehensive that my Watters family had been given the farm lease in place of a catholic family who had been evicted by "hanging-gale" Beresford.

Today, Mick Purcell, doyen of researchers and contributors to the Carlow list, felt compelled to write a long piece making clear that many, the majority of, landlords were fair, not rapacious and even charitable and that many of the magistracy went out of their way to be just and fair.  It was a continually fraught atmosphere for all.  As I say, a melting pot.

But, to return to my previous posting and questioning.  When I see some of this information that gives rise to questions, I feel I have to put those questions out there, which may lead sometimes to clarification or other times unfortunately to confusion.  And sometimes we interpret things differently.  For example, Ray assumed that William Halpin, when he put his sons through TCD around 1815, was an army officer, a captain.  My assumption was that he may have been a ship’s officer or captain.

Either is possible, especially depending on connections and money.  Military commissions in those days were by purchase, usually starting at ensign or lieutenant.  I suppose William between 1803 and 1815 could have achieved that.  On the nautical side, I can’t see him having become a navy captain in such a time but perhaps if he had purchased his own ship/s he could have described himself as an officer or captain, or he could have been such on a ship owned by a friend or relative.  Maybe he was a captain of militia.

It is all interesting.

Bill

[BillW]

Brian, I use a no-frills family history program, Brothers Keeper, but the pdf files do not come from within it as they may from others.  I have had installed a free pdf writer program called CutePDF, which installs as far as I can see as a printer program.  When Brothers Keeper brings up, say, a tree chart, and I select "Print", CutePDF is one of the printer options.  Clicking on that option, I am asked where I want to save the pdf file and there it is.  Simplicity itself.

Bill

[BillW]

A contribution including the names raised recently can be found here:

Directory: DUBLIN- Wilson's Dublin Directory - 1801 Merchants, Traders, &c.
Copyright 2007, Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/dublin/

WILSONS DUBLIN DIRECTORY FOR THE YEAR 1801
MERCHANTS, TRADERS, &c.



Bill.

[BillW]

The following has been brought here before but I now want to emphasise the solicitors acting for the defendant, Hone & Kinahan.  Hones were long-standing solicitors for the Dublin Halpins, here representing the late FREDERICK HALPIN, HOTELIER OF WICKLOW TOWN in 1859.

Newspaper:WICKLOW - Irish Times May 3, 1859 HALPIN v HALPIN
Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/copyright.htm
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/wicklow/
Contributed by Mary Heaphy
________________________________________________


Was the Frederick mentioned successor to the Bridge Tavern on James Halpin's death in1847?  Were there two Halpin hoteliers in Wicklow Town, in competition?  How was Frederick related?  Might he have been a son to a first marriage by James Halpin or was he a son of William Halpin?  If we could see the trial papers we may see who the nieces were and who were the plaintiffs (his own children or siblings?).

Bill.