Life
1745-1819 [var. Gifford]; b. Wexford; accredited with coining the Irish political sense of the term ‘Ascendancy’ as signifying the Anglo-Irish grandees and their Protestant clients; edited Dublin Journal, the Govt. paper, and abused William Drennan following his treason trial of 1792, though Drennan distained to prosecute; he was the ‘dog in office’ castigated by The Press and named with Captain Gifford in Armagh as ‘planners of the Orange system’ (23 Jan. 1798); author of Orange (1798), ‘a political rhapsody’; looked at askance by Barrington and Fitzpatrick; ed. The Dublin Journal, and the Anti-Jacobin Review aand Magazine; appt. High Sheriff of Dublin; granted Freedom of the Guild of Dublin Merchants, 1798, contemporaneously with Henry Grattan’s removal from same; papers in TCD Library [No ODNB entry.] PI FDA
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Commentary
‘An Ingenious but Slightly Reprehensible Device [sic]’, in Patrick Kennedy, Modern Irish Anecdotes (n.d.), pp.54-55: ‘The Dublin Journal during 50 years of founder’s management, 1725-55, conducted in an independent and impartial style but towards the end of the century it became the property of Mr Gifford’. Note however, at p.98, that the proprietor of Dublin Journal, already mentioned by his sobriquet “The Dog in Office”, is Matthias Giffard, ‘perhaps a more absolute and arrogent enlightener of the public mind that Francis Higgins himself’; further on his utter extinction under Grattan’s withering eloquence; hoax played on him at death of Duigenan; Potts, proprietor of Saunders’ News Letter; narrative ends with ‘A Dog licking Potts’.
Kevin Whelan, ‘Origins of the Orange Order’, in Bullán: And Irish Studies Journal, 2, 2 (Spring/Summer 1996), p.21:’It is against this explicitly political background [i.e., the possiblility of Catholics and Presbyterians developing a closer anti-government alliance] that the emergence of the the Orange Order should be set, not exclusively against socio-economic and sectarian backdrops. The suggestive role of John Giffard, the Dublin ultra, in the origins of the Order make sense in this context, as does the early role of conservate gentry in Armagh’.
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References
Encylopaedia of Ireland (1968), under ‘Books and Periodicals’, Faulkner’s Dublin Journal [sic] ... passed to his son, but was acquired in 1793 by John Giffard, who ran it in the Government interest. Giffard is held responsible for the betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald (p.365).
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Notes
Peter Costello, Clongowes Wood (1991), Wrote in Hibernian Magazine at founding of Clongowes, ‘Ireland now stands in imminent danger. If Popery succeeds, our fairest plains will once more witness days to rank with those of Bloody Mary and the walls of Derry shall again become the lamentable bulwarks against Popish treachery and massacre.’ (Costello, p.20)
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