What happened to Generation Three?
sYLVESTER dONOGHUE, BORN 1821, Sergeant in the royal irish constabulary
By
Rod O’Donoghue
The latest O'Donoghue Family Tree (one click on tree to see full size)
i
must
first refer you to our family tree. I
intend to research the folk in this generation in birth date order. It will take me some time! I have been very lucky to find such an
interesting subject in Sylvester as my first case. Also Sylvester is not a common name which
makes the research easier. In Kerry the
name seems to be centred on the Killarney area which may support the theory
that our ancestors migrated north from that area.
You will recall that a
tomb in Rattoo’s historic churchyard was erected by Sylvester Donoghue. Here’s the inscription ‘Erected by Sylvester
O’Donoghue for him and his posterity Anno 1820’.
At much the same time
that the tomb was put up, Sylvester’s son, Bartholomew, and his wife Bridget
Ferris were expecting their first child.
This Sylvester, named after his grandfather in good Irish practice, was
baptised on April 1, 1821. They lived in
Ballyduff.
His sponsors were John
& Catherine Connor. They were almost
certainly our ggggrandmother, Ellen Connor’s, father and aunt.
In 1824, two Bartholomews
(Bat) were living in Ballyduff. One on Chapel
Land, an acre just behind the village church and the other on the east of the
village in East Benmore. Sylvester, the
grandson, later describes himself as a farmer so his family had a patch of land
somewhere.
We meet up next with
Sylvester when he enrolled into the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in
1838. His service record says he was
twenty, so he fibbed, as he was clearly only seventeen. Quite a common practice I imagine. The minimum regulation age was nineteen.
He enrolled on June 16,
1838 and is shown as being 5 feet 11 inches tall (all recruits had to be at
least 5 feet 9 inches). By the standards
of the time he was a biggish man.
He was pensioned in 1875
and so I will describe the RIC and its operations up until around that time.
The
Royal Irish Constabulary
The Constabulary (Ireland) Act, 1836, introduced by
Thomas Drummond, Under Secretary for Ireland, centralised the police forces
(with about 5,000 men) under the direct control of an Inspector-General in
Dublin Castle with a standard code of regulations and became known as the 'The
Constabulary of Ireland'. The discipline was strict and the pay low.
A year later the first ‘Irish Constabulary Code’ was published with a
comprehensive code of discipline and regulations and decreed that the standard
colour of the uniform would be rifle green. The new force did not have
jurisdiction in Dublin, Belfast and Derry, who had their own police forces. Following serious sectarian violence the
Belfast Borough Police (Belfast Bulkies) was abolished in 1865 and replaced by
the Irish Constabulary. The Londonderry Borough Police (‘Horney Dicks’ perhaps
due to the bone reinforcements in their top hats) were disbanded in 1869 and
replaced by the Royal Irish Constabulary following an inquiry into the deaths
of two Apprentice Boys who were killed in riots during the visit of Prince
Arthur.
In 1839 a Reserve Force of 200 men was created for assignment by the Inspector General to assist the Irish Constabulary in any part of Ireland. The Depot at the Phoenix Park, in Dublin, was built to house the Reserve Force and as a training centre for the Irish Constabulary replacing the four provincial training centres. The Depot also later housed a riding school and the Irish Constabulary Band (1861).
The Force grew to over 8,600 men in 1841 and gradually began to have its effect on law and order
The new constabulary first demonstrated its efficiency against civil agitation and Irish separatism during Daniel O'Connell's 1843 ‘monster meetings’ to urge repeal of the Act of Parliamentary Union, and the Young Ireland campaign led by William Smith O'Brien in 1848, although it failed to contain violence at the so-called ‘Battle of Dolly's Brae’ in 1849 (which provoked a Party Processions Act to regulate sectarian demonstrations). This was followed by a period of relative calm.
The
RIC presided over a marked decline in general crime around the country. The
unstable rural unrest of the early nineteenth century characterised by secret
organisations and unlawful armed assembly was effectively controlled. Policing generally became a routine of
controlling misdemeanours such as moonshine distilling, public drunkenness,
minor theft, and wilful property crimes. A Land War broke out
in the 1879–82 Depression period causing some general unrest.
The RIC was pulled in two directions. To some extent it had a
quasi-military ethos, with barracks, carbines, and a vivid class distinction
between officers and men; and it used a dark green uniform with black buttons
and insignia, resembling that of the rifle regiments of the British Army. However, it also followed civic police forces
in the rest of the UK in preferring to military terms of rank more emollient
ones such as ‘constable’ and ‘inspector’; and there was a gesture towards
policing by consent in its attempts to match its men's postings to the
religious affiliation of the communities they were to police.
The lower ranks were
The lower ranks were
- Head Constable Major (insignia of a Warrant Officer)
- Head Constable (insignia of a Warrant Officer)
- Constable (from 1883, Sergeant)
- Acting Constable (from 1883, Acting Sergeant) (insignia of a
Corporal)
- Sub-Constable (from 1883, Constable)
Despite their armed status,
constables seldom carried guns, only waist belt, handcuffs and baton. Often,
along with the priest, they would have an informal leadership role in the
community, and being literate would be appealed to by people needing help with
forms and letters. While ‘barracks’ in cities resembled those of the British
Army, the term was also used for small country police stations consisting of a
couple of ordinary houses with a day-room and a few bedrooms; premises would be
rented by the authorities from landowners and might move between different
sites in a village. Their pay was low, it being assumed by the authorities that
they would get milk, eggs, butter and potatoes as gifts from local people. By 1901 there were around 1,600 barracks and
some 11,000 constables.
The majority of constables in
rural areas were drawn from the same social class, religion and general
background as their neighbours. Measures were taken, not always successfully,
to maintain an arm’s length relationship between police and public. Constables in charge of police stations made
an elaborate series of regular reports to their superiors, and would from time
to time be moved around the district to prevent acquaintanceships from
developing too closely. The
majority (over 70 per cent) of constables and sergeants were Catholics from the
rural areas of Ireland, and during rebellion and uprising many were torn
between their duty and their sympathy with the nationalist cause.
A constable could not be posted to his
home county, his wife's home county or any county in which either had
relatives. He was posted to a different
area on a regular basis, was required to live in the barracks (and could not leave
them at night) unless he was married, and might not marry until he had had at
least seven years' service. A potential
bride was vetted by the authorities and even after marriage the policeman and
his family had to live by a set of strict rules, including a ban on taking in
lodgers, selling produce or the wife indulging in certain trades or employing
apprentices. Police officers had no
official rest days or annual leave and were not permitted to vote in elections.
They were drilled every morning and formally inspected at least once a month. The job was not well-paid, but was secure and
in the past there had never been a shortage of recruits. Most RIC men had a great esprit de corps,
pride in and loyalty to their force, and there was little corruption.
The
RIC was disbanded after the War of Independence in 1922.
Sylvester’s service record
His
service number was 3338, so, on June 16, 1838, he was one of the earliest
recruits to the force.
He was
recommended by the Reverend R.Plummer who in 1837 was the parish priest for
Causeway, the parish within which was Ballyduff. The Plummers were quite an eminent Kerry
family.
The
counties and ranks in which he might have been employed were:-
Waterford - Promoted to Constable October 1, 1847
Reserve (Force, see earlier) – rank is hard to
discern but it looks like Reduced to Sub Constable December 13, 1861Waterford – Promoted to Constable, March 1, 1863
Waterford – Reduced to Assistant Constable (Month unclear) 1, 1866
Roscommon – Reduced to Sub Constable April 24, 1868
He received more rewards and distinctions than his one recorded punishment.
He married Ellen Power on July 16, 1848 at Trinity
Without, Ballybricken, Waterford City.
They are both shown as living in Barrack Street, which ensures that we
have the right man. Perhaps she worked
for the RIC as well. The marriage record
is rather bleak with no parents recorded for either of them. The witnesses were William Ross and Elizabeth
McDonnel. I have been unable to find any
children from this union.
Sylvester retired on May 1, 1875 after 36 years 9
months service. He received a pension of
£54 p.a. This would be the equivalent of
about £4,500 today.
The family and post retirement
Sylvester was the eldest in a family of
eight.children. He might have expected
to take over the family land but sometime before 1848 that had passed from his
father Bartholomew’s tenancy to James (our ggguncle) and Thomas Donoghue (our
gggrandfather). I imagine Bartholomew
died and the children were too young to take over.
Joining the RIC would probably not have been a
popular thing to do, particularly in a rural family, for all the reasons
described earlier. However work would
not have been easy to obtain and like many others who joined the British Army,
the RIC would have been seen as a real opportunity, especially as it was newly
formed when he joined.
In 1865 Sylvester was the sponsor at the baptism
of his sister Mary’s son Bartholomew in Moybella, which is a couple of miles
north of Ballyduff in today’s parish of Ballydonoghue. The father was James Sullivan. I think Mary must have gone by the name
Bridget as well because there was a couple married in Ballyduff in 1855 (with
Margaret Ferris as a witness, perhaps Sylvester’s aunt) and James and Bridget
are shown in 1869 in Moybella baptising another son, John.
Sylvester lived for another 24 years. His death is recorded on February 7, 1899 in
Moybella. His occupation is shown as
ex-Sergeant RIC and the informant was James Sullivan. So Sylvester must have lived with his sister
for many years.
James was living in
House 29, Moybella in the 1901 census but had died by the 1911 one. The house had only two rooms and two windows. This was a Class Three
dwelling: Mud cabins/cottages with two to four rooms or windows. Around 30% of the houses in Kerry were of
this class. At No.21, which also only had two rooms, there were
eleven people in occupation!
As Sylvester does not appear to have had any
children his line has died out.
Sources
& acknowledgements
http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/http://www.policehistory.com/early.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Constabulary
http://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/~lysic/1920s/ireland_policing.htm
http://rootsireland.ie
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/
http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/reels/tab//004625711/004625711_00634.pdf
Lewis, Samuel - A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
No comments:
Post a Comment