Halpins of Wicklow, etc. - Part 4

[Shanachai]

Part One.

By posting press reports about a range of subjects related to Wicklow in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s, and by quoting from lesser-known works written by Wicklow residents from that time, I was hoping to generate some discussion about the political and social issues that mattered to Wicklow men in the third quarter of the 19th century.  I needed the kind of feedback that might help me to finish a book I'm putting together about my Halpin forebears.  Unfortunately, that feedback wasn't forthcoming, and - for all intents and purposes - this thread now looks dead.  That is a pity, because while it was active I learned a great deal about a subject I knew absolutely nothing about when I first posted back in 2010.  I had a head full of confused and often confusing family anecdotes that required verification, and the surprising thing is just how many seemingly unlikely claims ended up being corroborated by subsequent research - research carried out by me or by other contributors to the Halpin forum. 

Essentially, four claims were made from the outset - that the Halpins of Wicklow were related to the Halpins of Portarlington; that the lighthouse builder George Halpin was related to the Halpins of Wicklow; that my Halpin forebears, who ran the town's Post Office, as well as a number of small businesses over the years, and served as Secretaries to the Board of Commissioners and the Harbour Board for around four decades, were also related to the Halpins just mentioned; and that my forebears fell out with the rest of the Halpin clan as a result of profound differences in political outlook. 

Thanks to a combination of feedback and research, I am now in a position to speak with some confidence about the political differences that divided the Halpins.  I am also in a position to state, without facing reasonable objections, that the Halpins of Portarlington and Wicklow were related, and that George Halpin was the brother of James Halpin, owner of the Bridge Inn Tavern, and an uncle of Captain Robert Charles Halpin of ''Great Eastern'' fame.  What I still can't prove beyond reasonable doubt is the blood tie linking my Wicklow forebears to the people they've always claimed to be related to - the broader Halpin clan.  The fact that their other claims about the various Halpin links turned out to be true, is a strong indicator of the veracity of the last claim - the very claim I can't quite prove yet.  I can explain what was going on when, in a very inconvenient rebuttal published in the Wicklow Newsletter on July 28th 1858, ''F. Halpin'', the proprietress of the Bridge Inn, explicitly denied a blood tie between her family and that of my distant forebear, Robert Wellington Halpin (1815 - 1883).  But while my explanation is interesting, it won't convince everyone.*  Despite this drawback, I've finally arrived at a position where I can give a detailed description of the activities of the Halpins from the early 1800s all the way up to the 1970s, a period in which the political activities of my relatives - and their opponents - remained consistent and provocative. Unfortunately, given that the thread here is now devoid of feedback, I've decided to present my findings elsewhere.  When I do that, I will post a link connecting it to this forum.

Before I sign off for the last time, I will leave you with an indication of what my research revealed.  Robert Wellington Halpin, Francis Wakefield, James Lambert and James Dillon (who was related to John Blake Dillon, publisher of the Nation), were the main players in a radical group of political reformers active in Wicklow in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s.  I've already given a good indication of Wakefield's views in previous posts, so I won't refer to him again.  I've said nothing, however, about Lambert. 

[Shanachai]

Part Two.

In 1869 and 1872, James Lambert published two remarkable pamphlets that indicate just how ambitious and prescient the Wicklow radicals were.  In these pamphlets, Lambert composed a more formal expression of the Halpin-Wakefield vision, and published it in the nation's press in the hope of stirring popular discussion.  The ‘’Land Question’’ Solved: Being Part of a Plan For Making Ireland a Rich and Prosperous Country (1869) - proposes, among other things, a Home Rule parliament.  In fact in his second pamphlet, Hints And Suggestions For The Government On The Land Act, Public Houses, Home Rule, And Education (1872), Lambert has this to say:

I believe I am correct in saying that the ‘’Home Rule’’ movement was caused by my pamphlet, published in September 1869, ... part of my ‘’programme’’ being ‘’the annual meeting of the Irish members in Dublin for the consideration of local business.’’  I have the authority of the press for stating that this pamphlet caused ‘’considerable sensation’’ at the time, and very shortly after its publication we read in the papers that a certain group of gentlemen were privately engaged in framing a plan for Home Rule.

Personal scandal was to force Wakefield out of the push for reform, but after the success of the Irish Church Act (Jan 1st 1871), which resulted in the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and, more importantly for my ancestor, in its disendowment, the Wicklow radicals decided to try something remarkable.  Colonel Gun Cunninghame, resident of Newtownmountkennedy and a 'Lord of the Soil', approached the Board of Commissioners about having his leases renewed, which were due to expire.  The majority of the Board, however, decided to behave in a conscientiously illegal way by effectively swindling Cunninghame out of his properties and placing them under the control of the Board.  Having done that, they then set about slashing rents.  They could have been in no doubt about what would happen next, which begs the question - why did they do it in the first place?  A subsequent inquiry into these shenanigans reversed this conversion of private property into publicly owned assets, and was heavily critical of my forebear's lack of co-operation with the judges sent to look into the matter.  The motives of the Board members only become clear when their actions are placed in historical context - between the failed Fenian revolt of 1867 and the outbreak of the Land War in 1879.  It was, in my opinion, nothing short of a provincial mutiny by a small but immensely courageous group of Irish nationalists determined to secure - at least for themselves and their constituents - the three F's: Fair rent, Free sale, and Fixity of tenure.  The conspirators were hoping to trigger popular approval for their actions, with the aim of possibly expediting the passage of Home Rule.  There is a strong whiff here of the Municipal Socialism that R W Halpin's youngest son, Edwin Francis Halpin (1855 - 1924), would maintain a lifelong interest in, and more than a little hint of the confrontational tendencies that would prompt William Robert Halpin (1885 - 1951), who was R W Halpin's grandson, to join the Irish Citizen Army in 1913 and fight in City Hall during the Easter Rebellion in 1916.

I will address all of these matters - and more - in greater detail on another website, to be opened to the public soon after the centennial celebrations of the Rising next April.  In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for their help over the years.  It really has been an education.  All the best - R.H.

*See ''Tavern's'' post, 24th October 2010. 

Attached, a photograph of Captain William Robert Halpin, taken with A Company of the ICA outside Croydon House, around the summer of 1914.  This image is sometimes misidentified as being that of Captain William Partridge.

[Shanachai]

Postscript:

I was asked to provide proof of an earlier assertion before I sign off for good.  Here it is:-

From the Nation, Saturday, 22 August, 1868:

Word From America.

Death of General Halpine.

The New York Herald says:-

The family of which General Halpine was a scion is ancient and most respectable - one which a couple of centuries ago was among the most influential of those which resided within the populous and wealthy county of Louth, Ireland.  His father* was a farmer of means, who cultivated an estate near the town of Dundalk, on the Drogheda road.  The Halpines were always noted as intelligent; and although they rapidly increased in numbers and by divisions and losses the patrimony became greatly reduced, they managed to float comfortably on the stream of society and educate their sons and daughters in the best, if not always in the most expensive, manner. 

The death of his father's mother and the subsequent second matrimonial alliance of his grandfather compelled the ''children of the house'' to seek homes elsewhere.  Two of the General's aunts - women of fine attainments - established a seminary for young ladies in the Irish capital, which became famous and was correspondingly patronized by the aristocracy.  Through the exertions of those ladies his father, Nicholas, was educated at Trinity College.  The career of this man was, intellectually, such as his son could well be proud of.  On his leaving college Nicholas Halpine entered into Holy Orders, being ordained a Minister in the Protestant Episcopal Church. As a clergyman this gentleman was established near Oldcastle, in the county of Meath, where, in connection with his parochial duties, he received as tutor and prepared for admission to Trinity College the sons of the extreme aristocratic families in the vicinity, among whom was the present Earl of Farnham.  It was while his parents resided at Oldcastle that in the year 1829 the General was born.  As he grew in years he grew in knowledge.  In fact, so thoroughly was he indoctrinated by his father, who early impressed him, after the manner of Solomon, with the importance of an acquaintance with Horace and Virgil and Homer, that he learned to speak Latin and Greek with almost the facility with which he could ''lisp his numbers'' in English.

When the Reverend Mr Halpine, who was as active a politician where the interests of his Church were involved as he was a priest, removed to Dublin in, we believe, 1840, and became the leading editor of the Dublin Evening Mail, it is not to be questioned that the Rev. Mr Halpine, while at the head of the editorial corps of the Mail, exercised a widespread influence over his countrymen of all religious denominations; and it is questionable, if he had survived, if he would not in the end have defeated O'Connell's pet measure, or, at least, have deferred its consummation for years.  Perhaps we should here remark that while yet labouring in opposition to the wishes of the Catholic people for equality of political as well as religious interest, the rev. editor died in harness.  He was found seated at the table in his sanctum, his pen in his hand (which rested on a sheet of paper on which were traced the introductory words of an article on his favourite subject), dead.

Charles Halpine was, as soon as the rules of the college permitted, matriculated at Trinity, and at once became a general favourite with the faculty and the students.  As a translator of Latin and Greek he was known for the freedom and elegance of his diction, and also for his assiduousness as a reader.  Although an ''apt scholar,'' he was not behind other lads of his years as a mischief maker and practical joker.  He graduated with all the honours.

Some time before his marriage in 1848, and for about four years subsequently, Mr Halpine contributed very acceptably to the Irish press, and was even extending his reputation as a poet and sketch writer to the sister island, having formed connections with some of the leading literary minds of London, when he suddenly discovered his relations with those who sought the brilliant products of his pen and resolved on emigrating to America.  With that impetuosity which distinguished him, and which came of his mercurial temperament, he at once prepared to cross the Atlantic with his family and the penates** of his hearth, and here set up his Benjamin.

*They must mean ''grandfather'' here, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

**penates - household gods who watched over the home or community to which they belonged.

[tompion]

Thanks Ray for the amazing amount of information that you have provided on the Halpin families.  Very much appreciated.

I was confused by the obituary of General Halpine as it states (as we know) that his father was the Rev Nicholas John Halpin and (accepting the error in the obit) it states that his grandfather was a farmer.  This seems odd as I thought the Rev NJH's father was paymaster William Henry Halpin?  Any thoughts? Yours Brian

[Shanachai]

Hi Brian.  I understand your confusion, but I don't think the professions of ''farmer'' and Dublin Castle ''paymaster'' were mutually exclusive.  The Halpins had land in quite a few counties, and if Louth was their point of origin, as some of the obits appear to imply, then it's probably no surprise that at least one of the Halpin men, the eldest in this case, had a farm there, worked by a tenant while he conducted his affairs in Dublin.  I'm only speculating here, so don't take my comment too seriously.

Here are a few details that date some of the principle events in William Henry Halpin's life, including his second marriage:

Ireland Diocesan and Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes 1623 – 1866:

Diocese of Ossory: Halpin, William Henry and Deborah Richardson, 1809.



The Trebel Almanac, 1822:

Military Account Offfice, 30 Upper Merrion Street,
Commissioners: Major General Thomas Brownrigg [one of three commissioners – there were Brownriggs in Wicklow town].
Clerks: William Henry Halpin [one of 36].

The Waterford Mail, 1839:

20th March 1839 William Henry Halpin, Esq., died at his house, North Great Georges Street, Dublin, aged 79 years, late of the Military Accounts Office.


For many years the Halpin sisters, who took care of the Reverend N J Halpin after his father remarried, ran a very well respected boarding school - or ''Seminary for Young Ladies'' - in Dublin.  In the Pettigrew and Oulton Directory for 1835, the Seminary is situated at 10 Cumberland Street, which at that time was a very respectable address, as virtually everyone else in the street was either a solicitor, barrister or attorney.  In the Pettigrew and Oulton for 1842, the Misses Halpin are listed as running a boarding school at No. 7 Great Georges Street (North).  By then the Rev. N J Halpin was staying at No. 11 Seville Place, owned by George Halpin snr, who was still living at the Lighthouse on the North Wall, and George Halpin Jnr was staying at 33 Dorset Street (Lwr).

The location of Wm. Henry Halpin's last home address, and the location of the sisters' Seminary - as listed in the Pettigrew and Oulton for 1842 - may have been the same.

[tompion]

Thanks Ray,  I was assuming he could have been a farmer/landowner and also be a paymaster - after all many of our tory MPs in the UK seem also to be landowners!  Good to get a bit more info about him - thanks for that - I marvel at your ability to find all this stuff.  Best wishes, Brian

[Shanachai]

Part One.

One of my last contributions to this forum, Reply 189, 3 Feb. 2016, contained the following statement:

Before I sign off for the last time, I will leave you with an indication of what my research revealed.  Robert Wellington Halpin, Francis Wakefield, James Lambert and James Dillon (who was related to John Blake Dillon, publisher of The Nation), were the main players in a radical group of political reformers active in Wicklow in the 1860s, 70s, and 80s.

Obviously, that turned out not to be my last reply.  Before I begin posting new material in a blog I propose to begin later this month, I thought I'd notify readers of the Halpin thread of the results of the research I've conducted since February 2016.  As regular readers already know, most of the contributions to the Halpin thread followed a claim I made quite a few years ago now: I claimed that four Halpin families, none of whom had been linked before, were in fact blood relatives.  That claim was based on what I managed to salvage of the Halpin family lore, and while much of it was subsequently proven to be embroidered and mistaken, its core claims stood up to some pretty hostile scrutiny - there is ample evidence now to link three of the four Halpin families mentioned in the original post back in 2010: the Wicklow Halpins, specifically those linked to the Bridge Inn tavern in Wicklow town, the Portarlington Halpins, the most prominent member of whom was probably the humourist, newspaper man, and US Army General, Charles G Halpine, and the Halpins based mainly in the Northwall area of Dublin between the early to mid 1800s, the most notable of whom was George Halpin, Lighthouse Builder and Civil Engineer.  The fourth family, from whom the claim linking the other three Halpin families originated, was also based in Wicklow town.  I tend to refer to them as the Main Street Halpins, to distinguish them from their cousins at the Bridge Inn.  Until recently, and despite the reliability of their claims linking the other three Halpin families, the information linking the Main Street Halpins to the rest of the Halpin clan was circumstantial.  There was also the case of a letter written to the Wicklow Newsletter in 1858, which flatly denied any suggestion of a blood tie between the Halpins of the Bridge Inn tavern, and the Halpins of Main Street.  While the task of exposing the dishonesty of that letter has been relatively easy, the task of proving the actual existence of a blood tie linking all four Halpin families has been more difficult. 

Robert Wellington Halpin (b. 1815) was a shopkeeper, bookseller, stationer, and insurance agent, who ran the Post Office in Wicklow's Main Street until his death in 1883, after which management of the business transferred to his children.  Robert's daughter Emma, who was born in 1850, died in my grandfather's home on Clonliffe Avenue, Dublin, in 1939.  Most of what we know (or thought we knew) about our Halpin forebears came from her.  Robert was also Wicklow's Town Clerk (first elected 1849) and Secretary of its Racing Club and Harbour Board.  Politically he was a radical, in favour of Irish independence and universal suffrage.  We have Robert's youngest son, Edwin (1855 - 1924), to thank for what we know of his father's complex political affiliations.  Robert's main political allies throughout his most active years were his patron, Francis Wakefield, and a couple of Wicklow locals by the names of James Lambert and James Dillon.  In around 1868/69 Lambert would draft Ireland's first Home Rule manifesto.  Apart from being a wealthy local businessman and member of the Board of Commissioners, Dillon was related to a large and proud clan of Irish champions which included one of the founders of The Nation, the main political organ of the Young Ireland movement.  R W Halpin was The Nation's Wicklow agent.  These links and shared political interests, which were articulated most forcefully by Francis Wakefield in public speeches delivered before large audiences in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and in his personal memoirs, A Saxon's Remedy..., rankled the local monopolists, who were opposed to any reform, political or otherwise, that threatened to diminish their power and privilege and encourage the Catholic masses.  In trying to uncover the material that would prove the blood tie between the Main Street and Bridge Inn Halpins, I naturally uncovered quite a bit of information about their respective social and political networks, and it was that information that would prove decisive in what I discovered next.

[Shanachai]

Part Two.

From what I could establish about R W Halpin and his descendants, their radical political affiliations always remained consistent.  Uppermost in their minds was Irish independence.  In tandem with that was an inter-generational interest in progressive politics, and a tendency to regard force as a legitimate expression of their political ambitions (a tendency they shared with their anti-Catholic Halpin relatives).  I should pause here to make an important distinction between the types of force the Halpin's favoured.  Robert Wellington Halpin and his son Edwin favoured moral force over its physical variety, although Edwin would consider the sympathetic strike by organized trade unions, which might sometimes include physical force, as a valid expression of moral force and essential in the battle for popular reforms.  Edwin's eldest son, William (1885 - 1951), had more in common with his anti-Catholic relatives in Portarlington and Dublin, in that he considered physical force to be an essential component in any effective political enterprise.  William would put that belief into deadly practice when he took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, and again a few years later in the War of Independence and the Civil War.  But in his preference for physical force William was an exceptional member of this line of the Halpin clan, which generally considered violence to be entirely counter-productive within the context of Irish politics, where sectarian passions were easily aroused by vested interest groups who were prepared to resort to war rather than cede power and influence to the other side.  For Edwin and Robert, full Irish independence had to be won peacefully if Ireland was to remain United - a view shared by Lambert and Dillon (albeit to a lesser extent by Wakefield, who was not in favour of separatism).

In trying to get to the bottom of R W Halpin's identity, I had to ask myself why he was so sympathetic to the idea of an independent Ireland when so many of his fellow Protestants were opposed to it.  And why, upon his death in 1883, did Wicklow's most prominent Catholic nationalist eulogize so flatteringly and affectionately about Robert's stewardship during his long term as Town Clerk?  A study of the minutes of over thirty years of monthly meetings of the Board of Commissioners would provide part of the answer, but it was the discovery of a document in the Registry of Deeds in Harcourt Street, Dublin, that would provide the most definitive answer yet.  In that document, I discovered that John Halpin, the man I've always identified as Robert's likeliest forbear, had two brothers - Patrick and Oliver.  John's father, Patrick Halpin Snr, had been Dublin's only Irish engraver in the 1760s and 70s, which makes him the most likely person to have taught the art to Paget Halpin, another Dublin engraver who practiced a generation later in the 1790s.  John Halpin had also been trained as an engraver by his father, Patrick senior, and may have received at least some of the skills he acquired as a miniature painter from Solomon Delane, who would eventually become Paget Halpin's father-in-law.  Despite being a reasonably skillful practitioner of the engraver's trade, John's heart lay in the theatre, and it was to the stage he would take in the late 1780s, appearing in London and Dublin on a fairly regular basis throughout the early 1790s.  If reviews in the True Briton of one or two of his performances were not very kind, that had more to do with John's 'Jacobin' sympathies than his actual acting ability.  John would remain dedicated to the arts until his death in around 1820. 

Patrick Halpin Snr received a great deal of his commissions from the greatest printer in 18th century Dublin - George Faulkner (sometimes spelt Fawkner or Faulkiner).  Faulkner first appeared in my research in a deed dated 1724, when he served as a juror with a number of other Dublin businessmen that included Richard Halpin (Paget Halpin's forbear), William Smith and Robert Dillon.  Faulkner went on to make his fortune publishing the works of Jonathan Swift, whose closest friend at that time was the Reverend Thomas Sheridan.  Sheridan's son would found the theater in which John Halpin made his acting debut, and his relatives would share accommodation and real estate interests with Richard Halpin and his extended family, who owned property in Dublin adjoining that of the Dillons.  So the links between the Halpins, Dillons, Faulkners, Sheridans and Smiths were pretty solid in professional, social and artistic terms by the early to mid 1700s. 

[Shanachai]

Part Three.

Patrick Halpin Snr's wife was Eleanor Lambert (her first name is sometimes recorded as Elizabeth).  Eleanor's family owned substantial tracts of land in County Wicklow.  Eleanor's sister, Jane, married a man by the name of Hepenstall.  Jane's third son, Edward, would grow up to become one of the cruelest killers in the Crown forces during the period of the 1798 Rebellion, when he was known by a terrified Catholic community as ''the Walking Gallows.'' Patrick Halpin Jun provided Edward's mother Jane with accommodation in Dublin in the 1790s.  Not only would Patrick Halpin Jun - or Patrick Metcalf Halpin, to give him his full name - inherit his father's lands in Meath, but he would become one of Dublin's most respected and longest serving Attorneys, spending twenty-one years as the Lord Chancellor's personal secretary (Secretary to John Hewitt, or Lord Lifford, from 1768 - 1789), a period of public service that is still noted for its tolerance of and sympathy for the political aspirations of Grattan's parliament and the early United Irishmen.  Lifford often dined at George Faulkner's home on Parliament Street, as did Patrick Halpin Snr and Jnr no doubt.  They were all noted for their decency and lack of sectarian bias, favouring significant concessions to Grattan and Irish Catholics.  Why this unusual degree of sympathy for Catholics?  It may have had a great deal to do with the influence of Patrick Halpin Jnr on Lord Lifford's outlook, since Halpin's mother, Eleanor, was a Catholic.  In what were extremely unusual circumstances for the times, Patrick Halpin Snr had married a Catholic, although he had raised his son, Patrick Jun, as a Protestant (there is an outside chance Patrick was born into a previous marriage, to a Protestant woman, who died young, meaning that John and Oliver were his half brothers). 

Like his father, Patrick Metcalf Halpin married at least twice - initially to ''the widow Wilson'' in 1766, and later to Dame Maria Steele.  Dame Maria had a daughter from a previous marriage, also named Maria, who fell in love with a young Lawyer by the name of John Sheares.  Sheares was a dynamic young radical in the United Irishmen, who would take over the running of the Leinster chapter of that organization after the arrest and death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.  John was very well known to Patrick Halpin Jun, for obvious reasons, and would be hanged along with his brother in the midst of the brutal crackdown carried out by Lord Clare, Lord Lifford's replacement.  Shortly after the rebellion was quashed and the Union had been all but decided, Dame Maria sued Patrick for divorce, most probably over his sympathies for the rebel movement's aims (if not for its methods) and his opposition to the Union.  I don't know if Patrick married again, but I do know that he continued to practice law, and held down a job in the Stamp Department in the Old Custom House on Essex Quay, the basement of which had been used as a torture chamber by Beresford in 1798.  In those days the Custom House was located right next door to Faulkner's home and business on the corner of Parliament Street.