• Dermid, or Erin in the Days of Boroimhe: A Poem, by John Dalton (Dublin: J. Cumming 1814; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Browne, 1814), viii, 504pp. [12 cantos].
• The History of Dublin (Dublin: Hodges & Smith 1828), 943pp.
• Essay on the Ancient History, Religion, Learning, Arts and Government of Ireland (Dublin: R. Graisbery 1830) [previous a paper for the RIA].
• Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin:: Hodges & Smith 1838), 492pp.
• The History of Drogheda with Its Environs, and an Introductory Memoir of the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, 2 vols. (Dublin [the author] 1844).
• The History of Ireland from the Earliest period to the Year 1245, when the Annals of Boyle terminate; Full statistical and historical notices of the Barony of Boyle [Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy; Vol. 16, 2 vols.] (Dublin: the Author 1845).
• Illustrations Historical and Genealogical of King James II’s Army List, 1689, 2 vols. (Dublin: [by the author] 1855); and Do. [2nd end.] (London: J. R. Russell MDCCCLXI [1861]), xvipp. [contributors & subscribers, iii-viii, Preface, x-xvi], 975pp.[Index of names of families, 969-75.]

See also his ‘Essay on the Ancient History, Religion, Learning, Arts, and Government of Ireland’, in Transactions of the RIA, Vol. 16 (1830), pp.1-380 [read to RIA 24 Nov. 1828; winner of Cunningham Gold Medal of the RIA].

PREFACE: I have been often, and by many, invited to leave in print, from my extensive manuscript collections, some records of the families indigenous to, or long naturalized in Ireland; their origin, actings, and “habitats.” Yet it was not until a crisis of natural hurricanes had felled“the flowers of the forest,” and dismantled their once flourishing companions, of bloom and foliage, that the appeal was mournfully effective. It was not a task of labour to me; it was willingly and zealously undertaken. I examined my relics of other days; and one little tract, of which I had a copy, the Muster Roll of the Army of King James the Second in Ireland, giving the names of the several Colonels and subaltern officers of the respective Regiments of Horse, Dragoons, and Infantry in his service, seemed f akin to the subject I sought to effectuate. The families in commission thereupon, upwards of five hundred, were the aristocracy of their country at that [x] day; and though all who were then able to bear arms in the Stuart cause, were decimated on the deadly fields of this campaign, very many names still survived and struggled in respectability and tenure almost to the present time.

When I embraced the project, I devoted to its accomplishment such literary aid as I could draw from those manuscripts, which it has cost me nearly fifty years of labour, research, and outlay to accumulate. They extend through upwards of two hundred volumes, and especially supply a singular mass of information for illustrating the lineage, honours and achievements of families connected with Ireland by title, tenure, rank, birth, or alliance. Having heretofore furnished some genealogical Memoirs on liberal support, I felt confident that, when I embraced a grouping so extensive as that of King James’s Army List, more than the mere expenses of my outlay in printing and paper would be cheerfully volunteered for my indemnity. I gave every reasonable publicity to the project, and was gratified by the warm cooperation of the Irish press and some of the English. I also issued very generally circulars, in which were detailed the Regiments to be treated of; Eight of Horse, Seven of Dragoons, and Fifty-six of Infantry; on all which the Colonels, Majors, Captains and subalterns [xi] are named and classed. Of the family of each I proposed to give Historical and Genealogical Illustrations; with especial regard, in the case of Irish Septs, to their respective ancient localities; and in that of surnames introduced from England or Scotland, to the counties from which they migrated, and the periods of their coming over. After some notices of early chronology, I designed to shew how far each of these was affected by Cromwell’s Denunciation Ordinance of 1652, and by attainders and confiscations, more particularly those of 1642 and 1691; how they were represented in Sir John Perrot’s memorable Conciliation Parliament of 1585, in the Assembly of Confederate Catholics at Kilkenny in 1646, and in King James’s own Parliament of May, 1689; what members of those names were distinguished by Royal Thanks in the Act of Settlement; how far they were nominated in King James’s New Charters; what claims were preferred, and with what success, against their confiscations at Chichester House in 1700; and lastly, to a reasonable extent, their subsequent honours and achievements in the exiled Brigades. This latter designed portion has however been, as I indeed anticipated in my Circular, considerably lessened by the recent and continuing publication of Mr. O’Callaghan, whose researches, diligence, and enthusiasm peculiarly [xii] qualified him for the task. Of this my scope of illustrations, a Peer, of high literary attainments and of the most active and practical nationality, was pleased to write to me,“If the work is carried on according to your plan, it will prove a most valuable compilation, and be absolutely indispensable for the library of every Irishman.”

I calculated that the Illustrations should extend from six hundred to eight hundred pages; but, assured as I might well feel by such a testimonial, that the sale would be very extensive (at least one thousand copies), I limited the price for subscribers to ten shillings; while I sought to indemnify myself against possible loss in the outlay, and in probable though undesigned defalcation in the collecting of small sums from widely scattered and shifting subscribers (a large number in America), by requiring that an indemnity of £200, irrespective of copies should be secured to me by those who felt nationally or individually interested in the work. My collections for this indemnity commenced in last March, and a List for general subscribers was opened at the same time. In June the Indemnity had reached only £100, and not three hundred copies were engaged, when it was my first thought to return the money so advanced and abandon the project; but, thinking such conduct [xiii] might be considered a breach of faith with those who had fulfilled their parts, I put the manuscript in the printer’s hands, limiting the impression to five hundred copies, while the price remained unaltered. As the work progressed through the press, I felt that I had much under-rated its extent; my own materials for the several memoirs would have far exceeded one thousand pages, yet was it not until much of the book was printed off, that at p.353 I felt necessitated to commence the irksome labour of abridging and pruning the ensuing copy. It remains, however, an overgrown volume. The payments to the Indemnity are yet but £157 11s.; the number of scattered copies engaged, little more than four hundred. Such are my especial grounds of disappointment. Those to the cause I have felt more deeply. I was too well aware of that destruction of the genealogical archives of my country, which campaigns of slaughter, confiscation, and persecution had effected. Two great civil wars, the result of misguided loyalty and ill-requited enthusiasm, having involved and crushed, with relentless ruin, the native aristocracies of each period, all Ireland became in a manner forfeited from its old proprietors, subjected as they were to a succession of parliamentary attainders. The victims of this fatal policy, expatriated [xiv] from the scenes of their hereditary history, were at least eager, when they could, to carry with them its records and memorials. They snatched up from the libraries and monasteries and cabinets, the annals, the muniments, the title-deeds of the land. They carried them off as all of venerable that could then W saved from the desolation that rioted over their homes. They treasured them as the Penates of their early attachment; and, when they looked uix)n the mouldering fragments of these native documents, in the respective lands of their exile, the remembrance of their country was softened into melancholy endurance. In all my circulars and otherwise, I sedulously laboured to discover such of these memorials as might yet scantily exist, and solicited the inspection of any ancient family manuscripts, pedigrees, diaries, or correspondence, notes of well accredited tradition or local memorials, that might be relevant to the times, and could be afforded or obtained. They should explain, strengthen, verify, and enrich my own notices; identify the cavaliers and their descendants whom I sought to record, and establish links of their respective kindred. I thought the opportunity I thus afforded of noting, as on record, what may otherwise be forever lost, would be zealously embraced; yet was my appeal responded to only by the O’Donovan of Montpelier, [xv] Messrs. Hurley, Haly, O’Carroll-Dempster, Loughnan, Browne of Moyne, and O’Keeffe. I was left to the exclusive resources of my own manuscripts, and the able and fortunately numerous genealogical publications of Sir Bernard Burke. If, therefore, my illustrations could not be rendered complete, or if, yet more, they are erroneous, blame should attach more to those who withheld information within their knowledge, than to me who vainly sought it. I did not profess to connect pedigrees, but only to preserve scattered - undoubted links, and afford legal evidence of their former existence. So anxious, however, am I that these “discerpta membra” should be reconnected and faithfully restored, that, while life is spared to me, I shall gladly receive such ancient family papers and vouchers as I heretofore sought, test them by my own collections, and, embodying all with what I have been obliged to withdraw from the present work, I shall be able from the whole to digest all that is relevant, and cast away surplusage. Or, if so great a general labour is beyond attainment or due encouragement, I shall give the results of partial prompt communications, as addenda to the present volume, or more gladly assign the whole to a publisher. I shall only take leave to add, that all the statements in this volume are based upon pure authorities, [xvi] and, as far as possible, are given in their language, the native annals being chiefly adopted from the Four Masters; and I confidently rely that the several “Illustrations” herein develop scenes, events, and doings of chivalrous loyalty, disinterested friendship, and devoted love, such as the history of less stirring times cannot afford. The names of the respective actors are arranged in a copious Index.

JOHN D’ALTON.

ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
KING JAMES’S IRISH ARMY LIST (1689).

The Civil War, that commenced in Ireland in 1689, and whose discomfited partisans, their broken fortunes and attainted families, the ensuing pages are designed to record, originated in bitter feelings, generated a century and an half previously, when the relentless arm of one, whom history has truly delineated a Royal Despot, sought to enforce the religion of the Reformation on that reluctant country. Happily, it is not necessary nor fitting here to enter into unwelcome controversy; enough to rely upon the facts of history, and confidently to assert that in Ireland, legislative persecution was pre-eminently directed to such an object. The declaration of the king’s supremacy, the abolition of appeals to Rome, the conferring the election to ecclesiastical preferments on the Crown, (not only of bishoprics, but those of exclusively Roman Catholic endowed abbeys, priories, and colleges); the suppression of the principal religious establishments on delusive surrenders, the confiscation and lay appropriation of their revenues and possessions, created [2]feelings of hostility to the English government, that the progress of time but encreased. On Queen Mary’s accession, her parliament suspended the action of these penal inflictions, - Queen Elizabeth restored them with the superadded terrors of the Act of Uniformity. This autocratic effort of bigotry was, it may be said, allowed to sleep during her reign, but, in the times of her successors, it was startled into vigorous operation. The policy of James the First devised in 1613 a new and more temporal grievance for the Irish people; - the Commission of Grace, as it was styled, which abolished the old tenures of immemorial native use, tanistry and gavelkind. The uncertain exactions, theretofore imposed upon the tenantry, were, it is true, thereby altered into certain annual rents and free holdings, a change that would at first sight appear beneficial to the people; but, when it is understood that these Irish tenures gave occupants only a life estate in their lands, and that, while these were suffered to exist, no benefit whatsoever could accrue to the crown on attainders; whereas the new patents, which this commission, as on defective titles, invited the proprietors to take out, gave the fee to the king, the old being for ever surrendered, they were obvious and powerful securities, that, on any act as of constructive treason, might absorb the whole interest from the native tanists. At the same time fell upon the Irish Catholic population, what the Protestant Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, in an official return of 1612, designated,“the payment of double tithes and offerings, [3] the one paid by them to us, and the other unt[o] their own Clergy.''

In 1626, in the pecuniary exigencies of the exchequer, King Charles was induced to proffer new“Graces,” as a consideration for liberal advances of money from the Irish Roman Catholics. By this device it was provided, that the taking of the oath of suprema[y; should be dispensed with, and ecclesiastical exaction be modified; privileges which the Deputy Lord Falkland caused to be proclaimed over the country. His successor, the unfortunate Lord Strafford, howevei having recommended their retrenchment, the King’s intentions were in point of fact but little attended to and, while the Catholic members, who sat in the Parliament of 1640, relying on their fulfilment, joined in voting the large supplies required, the King’s letter and the order for levying these subsidies contained no recognition of the promised Graces. That Parliament adjourned on the 7th of August, 1641; and it is not to be wondered, that the native Irish and the whole Catholic population were thereupon too nationally excited to an assertion in arms of privileges, their King had promised - had actually fiated, but which his Irish Viceroy refused to ratify. They saw that King over-ruled, they felt that their altars were denounced, their homes invaded, and their titles confounded by alleged defects and deceitful commissions. The ensuing 21st of October witnessed the outbreak of an insurrection, that bequeathed an inheritance of jealousy and disunion to Ireland from that day. “We [4] declare unto your Lordship,” said the confederate Catholics, in an address framed on the Hill of Tara, to the Marquess of Clanricarde, “that the only scope and purpose of our taking up arms is for the honour of God, to obtain a free exercise of the ancient Catholic Roman religion, so long and so constantly adhered unto by us and our progenitors in this Kingdom, whereof we are threatened to be utterly deprived, and from which nothing but death or utter extirpation shall remove us.” The attainders and confiscations, consequent upon this war, followed up as they were with peculiar hostility by the Cromwellian adventurers, that were let in upon the island, heaped fresh heart-burnings and unceasing discontent on the Catholic party. On the final success of these invaders, a body of from 30 to 40,000 Irish, plundered of their estates, and unwilling to submit to the revolutionary government, left their country under different leaders, and entered the service of France, Spain, Austria, and Venice; but ever still with the object of aiding the exiled Stuarts, and promoting their restoration to sovereignty. Their services as such were acknowledged on paper in a section of the Act of Settlement (14 & 15 Car. 2, c. 2, s. 25). Some, as“having, for reasons known unto us, in an especial manner, merited our grace and favour;” others, as“having continued with us, or served faithfully under our ensigns beyond the seas.” But their loyalty to that ungrateful and incompetent dynasty experienced a thrilling disappointment, when the restoration of [5] Charles restored nothing to them; nay, worse, when that King confirmed the grants certified for the adventurers and soldiers of the usurper, while even his brother, the Catholic Duke of York, the James the Second of this work, obtained recognition patents for 276,000 acres, forfeited in various parts of Ireland by the cavaliers, who, like those of the following“Army List,” fought and fell“pro aria et focis.” Loyalty to such a King, the descendant of such a race, cannot therefore be deemed the exclusive or even the paramount incentive of the resistance to King William.

In 1661, the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland preferred to the King their“Humble Remonstrance, Acknowledgment, Protestation, and Petition,” wherein they represented that,“being entrusted, by the indispensable permission of the King of Kings, with the cure of souls and the care of our flocks, in order to the administration of the sacraments; and teaching the people that perfect obedience, which for conscience sake they are bound to pay to your Majesty, we are yet 'laden' with calumnies, and persecuted with severity,'' and they strongly deprecated“those calumnies, under which our tenets in religion, and our dependence upon the Pope’s authority are aspersed; and we humbly beg your Majesty’s pardon to vindicate both by the ensuing protestation, which we make in the sight of heaven and in the presence of your Majesty, sincerely and truly, without equivocation or mental reservation.” The Remonstrance then proceeded to enlarge upon the unmerited injuries inflicted upon themselves and their [6] flocks and prayed the royal protection. This memorial was accompanied by the“ Faithful and Humble Remonstrance of the Roman Catholic Nobility and Gentry of Ireland,” in which they set forth “the prodigious afflictions under which the monarchy of Great Britain had, before his Majesty’s happy Restoration, groaned these twenty years; and out of our sad thoughts, which daily bring more and more sighs from our breasts, and tears from our eyes, for the still as yet continued miseries and sufferings of the Catholic natives of this our unfortunate country, even amidst, and ever since the so much famed joys and triumphs of your Sacred Majesty’s most auspicious inauguration;” and the Petitioners, referring to and identifying themselves with the aforesaid Remonstrance of the Clergy, then proceeded to vindicate themselves, solemnly pledged their loyalty, and disclaimed any power of the Pope to loosen their allegiance, or sanction their rebellion. It forms no inapt introduction to the “Army List,” here to give the names of those laymen, who signed that protestation; they will be found in many instances identical, or at least of kindred with those in the present record: -

entertained by them. He lodged at the Bishop’s Palace, from whence he walked next morning (Sunday) through the City to the Castle (the Mayor bare-headed, carrying the sword before him), heard mass in the shire hall,. and received the sacrament according to the Romish ritual, in the chapel in the square tower of the Castle. On Monday he went to Holywell; on Tuesday returned to Chester; and the day following closeted several gentlemen, both of the City and County, in order to prevail upon them to approve of the repeal of the penal laws and Test Act; but he met with very little encouragement in that way. On Thursday, September the first, the King left Chester, not much satisfied with the disposition of the people.” [Ormerod’s Cheshire, vol. 1, p. 211.] The English historian has made no mention of the interview His Majesty had here with his Irish officials; but Tyrconnel, whom that King had by his earliest exercise of the prerogative created an Irish peer, was there, and in his suite were the Chief Baron, Sir Stephen Rice; the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Sir Thomas Nugent; and other influential individuals of the day, who will appear in subsequent pages. These represented the state of Irish feeling to be, as they thought it, in spirit and strength enthusiastically loyal.

In the preceding year, Tyrconnel had been appointed Viceroy of Ireland, from which time he had devoted his attention to enrolling an army to uphold [10] his Royal master’s cause. The result of his exertions is preserved in a manuscript of the British Museum, (Lansdowne Collections, No. 1152, p. 229) as follows. The promotions of many, before the day of action, may be traced on the ensuing Army List; -

A LIST OF COMMISSIONS, received and delivered by Mr. Sheridan since the Earl of Tyrconners coming Lord Deputy of Ireland. February 12th, 1686/7, for the Lord Sunderland till June 21st, 1687.

In the April of 1687, Tyrconnel had been commissioned, to select influential persons throughout the several counties in Ireland, to aid the Commissioners of the Revenue in collecting subsidies for the support of the state. The return of these, so appointed, as well as the above inchoate list, were doubtless laid before King James at Chester by Tyrconnel, when that monarch, still King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, devolved upon him the responsibility of supporting his royal authority in the latter kingdom, and of directing the zeal and energies of its people to his service; and, notwithstanding all they had so recently lost in upholding the Stuarts, they rendered to Tyrconnel, says Colonel O’Kelly, in the“Excidium Macarić” not only the number of soldiers which he had demanded, equipped at their private cost, but every farther aid that either their fortunes or their influence could furnish.” The consummation of their labours was the Army List now presented to the public.

The copy here published is preserved in the Manuscripts of Trinity College, Dublin, where it is classed F.1,14. It extends over thirty-four pages octavo. On the two first are the names of all the Colonels; [14] on the four following are the Rolls of the Eight Regiments of Horse; on the next four are the Rolls of the six of Dragoons. The remaining twenty-four record the Infantry. The officers of each company are arranged in columns headed respectively Captains, Lieutenants, Comets or Ensigns, and Quarter-Masters. Under that of Captains, the Colonels, Lieutenant-Colonels, and Majors, are usually classed. Under the others, the entries appear seriatim, and in line, as this list was then filled up. It bears no date, but while, on inspecting many of the original commissions, some few, as that of Captain George Chamberlain, are of December, 1688; and a great number on the 8th of March, being near the close of that year, but four days before the King’s landing at Kinsale; others are of later appointment, as that of James Carroll, to a Captaincy in Lord Dongan’s Dragoons, is of the 30th of July following. It would therefore seem to have been closed, in its present state, about the August of 1689, and before the whole force was completed. The only point that could militate with such an assignment of date, is the fact of Richard Talbot being described upon it as an Earl, whereas his patent to the Dukedom was granted on the 10th of July in that year; but its having been a current and continuing muster may account for this. On this list the Horse had the highest pay, and were therefore classed first of the Cavalry. The Dragoons, having to do duty on foot as well as on horseback, were lighter troops than the Horse in these [15] times.* The three first of the Horse Regiments, viz.; Tyrconnel’s, Galmoy’s, and Sarsfield’s, had each nine troops with fifty-three men in each troop;† the five last had each six troops, with the same complement oi men in each. Three of the Dragoons, viz.; Lord Dongan’s, the first, Sir Neill O’Neill’s, the second, and Colonel Simon Luttrell’s, the fourth, had each eight troops with sixty men in each; the remainder had six troops in each regiment, and sixty men in each troop. The regiments of Infantry had thirteen companies in each, and sixty-three men in each company. The levies were conducted with such enthusiasm, that the force in this list was raised, armed, and clothed in less than six weeks,‡ and may be truly said to comprise scions of the whole aristocracy of Ireland at that period, as well of the native Irish septs as of the Anglo-Irish.

As the Colonels of the establishment are subsequently given, each at the head of his regiment, it would be idle to display their names here, with the exception of the two first, to whom no regiments are assigned in this list, viz.; Lord Viscount Dover, and the Duke of Berwick; and that of Colonel Thomas Maxwell, no detail of whose re^ment is given, but who is fully noticed at the close of the Dragoons' Regiments.

* Macarić Excidium, p. 441, note.
† Singer’s Correspondence of Clarendon, t. 1, p. 97.
‡ Story’s Impartial History, pp. 5 & 6.

[LISTING OF INDIVIDUAL OFFICERS AND THEIR HISTORIES HERE BEGINS. ]