Rum Sodomy & the Lash - Irish Maritime Times & Lore

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[/FONT][FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]. Before Anne was out of her teens she married James Bonney, a renegade seaman and sometimes pirate. At this time pirates frequented Charleston. James planned to steal William Cormac's land through the marriage but Anne's father disowned her before this could be done. Legend has it that in retaliation, Anne burned the plantation to the ground.[/FONT] [FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Thy fled to Nassau, the pirate haven. It was called New Providence back then. James proved a coward and a traitor, became a paid snitch for the governor. Anne preferred the company of the island's notorious pirates and women and soon distanced herself from James. [/FONT]
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After meeting the pirate "Calico Jack" Rackham (nicknamed for his loud striped pants) she became romantically involved with him. He had just commandeered a ship full of liquor from his former boss, pirate captain Charles Vane. When James Bonney objected to the affair, he abducted Anne, brought her naked before the governor and charged her with the felony of deserting him. Calico Jack suggested instead putting Anne up for sale to the highest bidder because Anne was considered to be stolen property (a 'kinder' legal practice for divorce at the time). James got a court order forbidding Jack and Anne to see each other. Despite Jack's rather less-than-romantic proposal, Anne ran away with Calico Jack and joined his ship's crew, apparently disguised as a man.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]There are many tales of her violent temper, Anne proved a daring and deadly fighter, using swords and pistols. Her violence began with her alleged stabbing murder of an English serving-maid while Anne was a teen on her father's plantation. While on shore in Nassau she became such an expert fencer. Once she publicly stripped her fencing instructor with her sword, and severely beat a man with a chair for making a pass at her. Who knows how much of this is fictional. Much of the tales of pirates and outlaws are exaggerated.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Her exploits at sea gained Anne the most notoriety. While raiding with Calico Jack, she developed a mutual attraction with Jack's lieutenant. 'He' turned out to be none other than Mary Read. It is rumored that they had a lesbian romance after revealing their gender to each other. They fought with even more courage than many the men, this they proved in their final battle. Both were known as bloodthirsty, daring female pirates.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A former pirate turned pirate-hunter, Captain Barnet, attacked Calico Jack's ship in 1720. Barnet caught Rackham and his crew. Attacking with cannon fire so thick the men hid below decks. Anne is said to have shouted, "If there's a man among ye, ye'll come out and fight like the men ye are to be." When this got no response, they were outraged by the men's cowardice. Anne and Mary shot the male pirates, killing one and wounding several including Jack Rackham. Only Anne Bonney and Mary Read stood their ground, fighting furiously. But despite Anne and Mary's ferocity, the pirates were captured.[/FONT]

At this time women had no rights whatsoever, however it was illegal to execute a pregnant woman so Anne and Mary, "plead their bellies," claiming to be pregnant. All were hanged, except for Anne and Mary. After the trial, Anne Bonney disappeared from the historical record. It is rumored she was hanged a year later, however other rumors were she was granted a reprieve, some even say she returned to her father, some say her husband. Even one ridiculous myth says she became a nun.

http://www.charlestonpirates.com/anne_bonney.html

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), Anne Bonny’s father managed to pay the ransom for his daughter and bring her back to the Charles Town. Soon after, she gave a birth to Rackham’s child. In 1721 she remarried to Joseph Burleigh. They had eight children. She died in April 25, 1782 in South Carolina.

http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-pirates/anne-bonny.php

Fratton Fred wrote: »

John Roche from Limerick and Waddell Cunningham from Belfast spring to mind.

The Sack of Baltimore In the summer of 1631 Baltimore fell victim to the most spectacular raid by pirates in Irish history. At that time the population consisted chiefly of settlers from England who had arrived some years earlier to work in the lucrative pilchard fishery under lease from the O'Driscoll chieftain, Sir Fineen O'Driscoll. Piracy was rife along the shores of West Cork, much of it of a home-grown variety. However, the danger in this case was from farther afield.
On board the two ships that left Algiers was a combined force of Dutch, Algerians and Turks under the command of one of the most resourceful leaders of Barbary pirates, a renegade Dutchman called Murat Reis the Younger. By the time they reached the coast of West Cork, more than 1,000 miles away, they had already seized a number of smaller vessels, imprisoning their crews. The captain of one was a Dungarvan man by the name of John Hackett. Reis' original target was probably Kinsale, but the town was declared 'too hot' to attack and in return for his freedom Hackett offered to pilot him to the defenceless village of Baltimore. Undetected, the pirates anchored outside the harbour 'about a musket shot from the shore' late in the evening of 19th June. From here they launched an attack on the sleeping village before dawn the next day.
The inhabitants were taken completely by surprise. More than 200 armed corsairs landed in the Cove torching the thatched roofs of the houses and carrying off with them 'young and old out of their beds'. Moving on to the main village, the pirates took more captives before musket fire and the beating of a drum warned the remaining villagers to take evasive action. By the time the raid was over more than 100 men, women and children had been taken. They were herded back to the ships, which bore them away from the coves of West Cork to the slave markets of North Africa.
The raid on Baltimore was the worst-ever attack by Barbary corsairs on the mainland of Ireland or Britain. Most of the names in the official report sound English, but it is likely that there were also a few native Irish among the prisoners. What is certain is that very few of the 107 were ever heard of again – three women at most, who were ransomed up to 14 years after their abduction. The fate of the rest is unknown, unlike that of Hackett who was hanged on a clifftop outside the village.
The Sack of Baltimore is fertile ground for conspiracy theories. They generally point the finger at the rapacious Sir Walter Coppinger who had been seeking to prise the village away from the O'Driscolls, remove the settlers and secure it for himself. Whether by accident or design, the pirates carried out part of this plan for him. In the aftermath of the raid the surviving villagers moved inland to Skibbereen and elsewhere in search of greater security and Coppinger's designs on the village were realised. The Sack marked the end of the 400-year reign of the O'Driscolls as overlords of Baltimore.

Further reading: The Stolen Village - Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin, O'Brien Press Ltd

16.1.5 Smuggling, quarantine and wrecking
Mercantilist regulations inevitably encouraged smuggling, but its illegality precludes any accurate assessment of its extent. Undoubtedly, as the statutes show, it was a problem, but it is debatable whether it was as serious as was alleged, or whether it was any worse in Ireland than in the other British possessions. Although the best profits for smugglers lay in the more moneyed economy of the east of Ireland and in particular in the area around Dublin, many parts of the indented Irish coast lent themselves to smuggling. The three principal commodities in this illicit market were spirits, tobacco and tea, but from time to time there was some variation in demand for specific goods and the quantities of them. Apprehending smugglers was often a difficult and dangerous activity. They were ruthless individuals, frequently with a degree of social acceptability in the neighbourhood where they operated.
Until 1765, when it was acquired by the British government for £70,000, the great smuggling entrepôt in the Irish sea was the Isle of Man. An independent possession of the Duke of Athol, the Isle of Man levied its own extremely low customs duties to encourage this entrepôt trade. In an effort to prevent it, parliament in 1725 (12 Geo. I, c. 2) threatened forfeiture of goods and a fine of treble their value against spirits and tobacco that 'are secretly imported into this kingdom in small ships and vessels or boats under the burthen of twenty tons from the Isle of Man'. In 1788 Lord Lieutenant Buckingham commented to the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, on a bill aimed at discouraging tobacco smuggling in which 'the liberty of importing tobacco into the port of Londonderry is taken away from the first day of March 1789 on account of the enormous smuggling committed by the inhabitants of that district'.
In 1743, the Bordeaux merchant John Black wrote to his brother Robert Black, a merchant in Portugal, about his 'son Robert your godson; he is now these several years in partnership with a very worthy man Mr David Rosse at Douglas, Isle of Man, where I assure you they are making a little fortune with the brandy, rum, wine and tea trade'. This was a very convenient trade, as the family firm in Bordeaux could consign goods legitimately to the Isle of Man. From there it was a short run to either England or Ireland. The real nature of Rosse, Black and Christian's business is indicated by the fact that in 1765, after the British government closed the Isle of Man loophole, Robert hastened to wind up his business. By 1766 his father and brothers were preparing for his return to Belfast. Family connections were important in all aspects of business, and Black's earlier correspondence with his brother gives many sidelights on methods used to circumvent customs regulations. For instance, in November 1740 he wrote that 'the sherry adventure is well arrived in Leith and with some difficulty received to an entry and a profitable trade.' Choosing the right port to present 'sham certificates' required skill, and in February 1741 John Black suggested that next season London should be avoided for the entry of Spanish goods sent via Portugal to take advantage of the Anglo-Portuguese trade treaty.
After 1765, when the Isle of Man lost its advantages, direct trade with the continent was resumed. The Isle of Man's position in the contraband trade was partly inherited by the Channel island of Guernsey. Roscoff in Brittany was another popular source of supplies, but this involved a longer run into Ireland where the small port of Rush in Co. Dublin, with its proximity to the capital, was a prominent haunt of smugglers. The smugglers' back-cargo was interesting, as it included such unexpected articles as counterfeit money and, as the law of copyright did not exist in Ireland, pirated editions of books.
The variation in the type of smuggler was immense, from the cut-throat brigand to the many generally legitimate traders who engaged in a little smuggling on the side. This mixture of legitimate and illegitimate trading complicated the work of the Revenue officials, many of whom were poorly qualified and worse paid for their often dangerous duties. The strict enforcement of mercantilist policies presented them with an almost impossible task. For example an entry in the eighteenth-century account book of the O'Connells of the Iveragh Peninsula, Co. Kerry reads: 'To ---, the boatman who came here seeking a prey 5s 5d'. The O'Connells were partners in a small business trading in Nantes. They were noted smugglers for, as one of them later recorded, 'their faith, their education and their wine were equally contraband.' Smuggling was widespread in this area. Many members of the Co. Kerry grand jury were from time to time involved in similar activities. In 1737 it was reported that at Galway, where the city gates were still locked at night, 'the smugglers made use of picklocks to open the Gates of the Garrison whenever they pleased in the night time, by bribing the Centrys [sic]; and by that means conveyed in or out, what uncustomed goods they thought proper.' These had in*cluded 50 tons of wool which was taken from Roundstone to France in a large Dutch-built ship.
Early in the eighteenth century there was a smuggling trade in raw wool. Irish wool was in demand for blending with grades grown in France and elsewhere. However, by the middle of the century rising demand from England had led to a relaxation in restrictions and a secure and elastic market with the English wool merchants. On one occasion early in the century, the Co. Cork Revenue officials had intercepted a cargo near Clonakilty and Speaker Boyle, the local landlord, was offered this untimely seizure as an excuse for rent arrears among his tenants in the town of Clonakilty! Smugglers often had exchange facilities. For example, in 1784 Arthur Annesley instructed his agent John Moore to arrange to transfer his rents through a bill of exchange that he had given to Jameson, one of his tenants, who, it tran*spired, was a smuggler, as Annesley was informed that 'there were 321 casks of brandy taken out of a dunghill in his yard by the Revenue officers lately.' Among European nations smuggling was almost universal in the eighteenth century. Each nation sought to establish an exclusive trade zone and thereby tempted other nations to break into it.
However, a serious consideration (17 Geo. II, c. 12) was the breaking of quarantine regulations that inevitably accompanied smuggling. In 1728 ships coming from Greece and the Greek Islands were placed under a 40-day quarantine as suspected carriers of plague, and there were numerous similar incidents throughout the century. One of the last statutes of the Irish parliament, 40 Geo. III, c. 79, stated that:

It is notorious that notwithstanding the many good laws made to prevent the clandestine importation of customable and prohibited goods and merchandises, a pernicious trade of that kind is still carried on in open boats or vessels of small burden, which privately put into creeks and secret places on the coast ... which practice may prove highly detrimental to the safety of this kingdom during a time of in*fection.

Another illegality was the practice of wrecking for profit. The variety of coastal cliffs is shown in Co. Antrim, where within a few miles there are the basalt headlands at Fair Head, the hexagonal columns of the Giant's Causeway, and the limestone cliffs at Portrush. It was off this coast that the Gerona, commanded by Alonzo da Levya and carrying the sons of the leading Spanish nobility, foundered in the storms that completed the destruction of the Armada in 1588.
Much of the Irish coast is very treacherous and in the eighteenth century the Irish parliament passed repeated statutes against looting and wrecking. For instance, in 1783 (23 & 24 Geo. III, c. 48), 'an act for the amendment of the law in relation to the danger of perishing at sea' declared that 'many wicked enormities have been committed to the ... grievous damage of merchants and mariners of our own and other countries', and reiterating that it was a capital offence to 'put out any false lights with intention to bring any ship or vessel into danger'.
In the 1730s wrecking was taking place in counties as far apart and as various as Down and Kerry,where, on 7 November 1730, the Danish East India Company's ship Golden Lyon was stranded near the residence of Thomas Crosbie (0538), MP for Dingle. The ship was insured in Denmark, and while the formalities were being resolved, Crosbie, assisted by the armed forces stationed at Dingle and Tralee, took charge of it and its cargo. On 4 June 1731 Crosbie died, and 'about twelve or one in the night a number of men broke into the house ... where the money chests were kept, wounded three of the Danes and carry'd the Chests off.' The Danish East India Company advertised a reward of one-tenth of the treasure, estimated at £9,287 6s, for its recovery and the conviction of those involved. About ten of the robbers were eventually caught and brought before the assize court, but not before they had sold a quantity of the silver, part in coin and part in wedges, for £30 to a Limerick goldsmith. In 1739 Robert Ward wrote to Judge Ward that the inclement weather had prevented him from investigating a Co. Down shipwreck, adding 'but I have made a small progress in relation to the Kilchief wreck'; he goes on to list the goods from it found in the cabins of various tenants.
The prevention of marine crime was very much in the interests of the Irish merchants so that Ireland should be a safe place for ships to call. This was particularly true for the Cork provision merchants. But, in 1722 when the St Peter of Polequin sailed from Cork to Nantes, 'there sailed in her one Philip Roche, Pierce Cullen, Andrew Cullen and Richard Neall as passengers who made themselves master of the crew not without suspicion of murthering them.' The success of the authorities against this deep-rooted tradition of marine lawlessness was limited. At the end of the century De Latocnaye describes it as still prevalent in the notoriously lawless district of Eyre Connacht, Co. Galway, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century Lord Downshire's agent was trying to restrain the inhabitants of Dundrum Bay from plundering ships wrecked off the Co. Down coast.
In wartime the threat of invasion was compounded by the danger from former smugglers turned privateers prowling in the Irish Sea. Invasion was always feared, especially during the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. This did not occur on either occasion. Nevertheless, Ireland was invaded twice in the course of the century. In 1760 Thurot captured Carrickfergus, which he found 'totally unguarded and unprovided ... the walls were ruinous and in many places incomplete'. After demanding a ransom from Belfast he put to sea with the Mayor of Carrickfergus and three of the principal inhabitants. Shortly after he was captured by the British navy. The other occasion was Humbert's invasion of Mayo in 1798. From their peacetime careers as smugglers, many privateers knew the coast extremely well. Some, in the early wars of the century, were Irishmen exiled after 1692. During the American war John Paul Jones, who had been born in Kirkcudbright and apprenticed to a merchant in Whitehaven, returned to wreck havoc and fear on coasts he knew from childhood.



http://www.ancestryireland.com/hip_statutes.php?filename=16.1.5

However, by the summer of 1780, the activities of Irish privateers with American commissions had become a source of political irritation for the French government and a major worry to Benjamin Franklin and the American Congress. Pressure was brought to bear on reluctant Franklin to revoke American commissions to non-American nationals in his service. This was not known to Ryan who had been given command of the three-decked, thirty-two-gun frigate Calonne that was sold to Torris by the French navy and had a complement of 250 men. Before his capture in the Firth of Forth Ryan had seized thirteen prizes and had considered himself safe from British prosecution as he had acquired French citizenship, and held both an American commission and an American letter of marque. Little did he know that the commission had been withdrawn by Franklin.
Ryan had successfully captured 114 prizes from mid-1779—sailing in five different privateers: Black Prince (Friendship), Black Princess, Fearnot, La Marechal and Calonne—to his capture by the Berwick in 1781. He had ransomed a total of seventy-six masters of British vessels and exchanged 161 merchant seamen during his short and lucrative career. In just over two years, Luke Ryan and his friends Wilde (McCatter), and Dowling from Rush commanded under American and French commissions, sailed under flags of three different nations and on opposite sides in the same war. According to statistics quoted in a British House of Lords debate in February 1778, American privateers had captured or destroyed 733 British and Irish prizes with cargoes valued in excess of £2 million. In 1783 the House was told that privateers during the American war had cost the British merchant navy more than an estimated £8 million in damages.

‘Mayhem, murder & mutiny’: the trial of Luke Ryan

Ryan and Coppinger were charged with the multiple crimes of mayhem, murder, mutiny, treason and piracy against George III and were lodged in New Gaol, Southwark. On the 31 October 1781 they appeared before the infamous Admiralty justice Sir James Marriott at the High Court of the Admiralty in the Old Bailey and were formally charged by a Grand Jury for piracy and treason. Ryan’s defence never disputed that he had committed acts of privateering flying French and American colours preying on British shipping in time of war.
Ryan’s attorney, John Peckham, objected strongly to the new double charge stating that they had agreed during the plea-bargaining that the charge of piracy would be dropped and treason maintained. Ryan was joined in Newgate Prison by Edward Wilde (Black Princess) who had been captured off the Scillies. The Royal Navy had been successful in capturing all of Luke Ryan’s squadron including James Sweetman and Mathew Knight from Rush who were tried and convicted during the summer of 1782.
The trial of Luke Ryan took place at the Justice Hall of the Old Bailey on the 30 March 1782. Judge Marriot and the Attorney General Sir William Scott prosecuted. The main argument concerned Ryan’s country of birth. If he was French-born he was not subject to English law and would go free while if he was an Irish-born subject of George III then he was guilty of piracy and he would hang at Wapping. Defence witnesses from France swore that Ryan was the son of Lieutenant Joseph Ryan in Dillon’s French Brigade at Dunkirk and a register was produced showing that Ryan was born in the village of Gravelin in northern France. It was further explained that on his father’s death in France Ryan had been brought to Ireland as an infant and reared by his uncle, a tenant farmer on the Echlin estate at Kenure during the 1750s near the hamlet of Rush in the county of Dublin.
Most of the French evidence was dismissed by Marriot. The state maintained that Luke Ryan was born in Rush on the 14 February 1750 and was able to produce documentary evidence as well as Ryan’s relations from Rush who supported the state’s case. The trial lasted three weeks and the jury found Ryan guilty of piracy and treason as charged. Thomas Coppinger turned state witness and was acquitted. Edward Wilde (McCatter), Nicholas Field of Skerries, Edward Duffy of Baldungan were all convicted of piracy and treason. On the 14 May 1782, the defendants Ryan, Wilde, Field, Duffy and Thomas Farrell (the first officer aboard the Princess) were sentenced to be ‘caged’ on the 23 June 1782 at Wapping. The execution of pirates in eighteenth-century London involved first partial strangulation and then transfer in chains to heavy man-size cages suspended above the Thames. At high tide the cages were lowered into the river and the condemned men died by drowning. This was known as ‘wapping’ in cockney slang.
Captain Luke Ryan (Hibernian Magazine, May 1782)
Ryan and the others were confined to Newgate to await appeal. Ryan’s wife and five children left Rush and settled in one of the Hampshire ports, probably close to Portsmouth. In May 1782, a member of the Ryan squadron and fellow Rush man Patrick Dowling in the French Fearnot privateer and a large party of men landed at Skerries and burnt houses including that of Frederick Connygham the revenue agent. This was in retaliation for the conviction of Ryan on the evidence given by Connygham and his part in the arrest of the old Friendship at Rogerstown.

Pardon

Pressure mounted on the Rockingham ministry to pardon Ryan as a gesture of goodwill in the peace negotiations with the American and French governments and appeals flowed into the English Admiralty. Lord Shelbourne, the Home Secretary, following recommendations from cabinet suggested that Ryan should be pardoned but one of the pirates should be executed ‘for the example to others’. The Lords of the Admiralty granted a respite but sentenced Daniel Casey, Sweetman’s first mate, to death by caging.
Hostilities with the United States Congress and the Kingdom of France ceased on 27 February 1783 and Ryan and the other four prisoners were granted a ‘royal and free pardon’. Ironically, Ryan did not go free as he had accumulated huge debts for his defence during the trial and continued to languish at Newgate. The French government liquidated some of Torris’s assets and the proceeds were sent to London to clear Ryan’s legal debts. He was released on the 9 February 1784.

Aftermath

Ryan settled in Hampshire and took legal action against Torris, the French government and his bank at Roscoff for moneys (over £70,000) which he maintained was owed to him. He was declared bankrupt in 1788. He was arrested on the 25 February 1789 by the High Sheriff of Hampshire for his failure to pay £200 owed to doctors who had inoculated him and his family in the ‘Jenner’ method against smallpox. He died in the King’s Prison on the 18 June 1789 of septicaemia.

This link has a lot more background

http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume7/issue2/features/?id=196

In fact, it seems likely that few, if any, survivors of the Armada took up residence in Ireland. For one thing, there weren't many survivors. Perhaps as many as 17 Spanish ships ran aground or sank off the Irish coast in the fall of 1588, as the crippled Armada made its roundabout way home after its defeat in the English Channel. The records of the period are incomplete, but it's possible as many as 6,000 Spanish soldiers and sailors were dumped into the sea. Of these, 2,000 or more simply drowned. One contemporary account claimed that 1,100 bodies washed up on a five-mile stretch of beach.
Between 3,000 and 3,500 of the remainder were killed or captured by the English or their Irish minions. The English had fewer than 2,000 troops to maintain their hold on Ireland, so they resorted to the expedient of not taking any prisoners. In one instance, several hundred Spaniards were induced to surrender with the promise of honorable treatment, only to be methodically butchered the next morning.
The richest or most prominent survivors were held for ransom, or for public spectacle (the English always were a class act). Only a few hundred of the castaways managed to make it to Scotland and to the Continent with the help of sympathetic Irishmen, themselves no great lovers of the English, who at the time were attempting to consolidate their grip on their miserable neighbor.
Frankly, there was little to induce the shipwrecked soldiers and sailors to stay. The Spanish considered the Irish savages — maybe they'd been to a few Notre Dame games — and thought the island was a cold and forbidding place. One Captain Francisco de Cuellar, who managed to make it to Spanish-held Antwerp, relates in a letter how an Irish chieftain, impressed by de Cuellar's bravery, offered him his daughter's hand in marriage. The Spaniard's response was to sneak away in the middle of the night, which doesn't say much for the fair colleens you mention.
A few Spaniards stuck around for a while, of course; several were on hand to help a combined force of Scots and Irish defeat an English army at Ballyshannon in northwest Ireland in 1597.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/102/do-some-irish-names-come-from-spanish-armada-survivors

[SIZE=+1]The fate of the expedition is well known. A series of disasters befell it on the coasts of France and Belgium, and finally, towards the middle of August, a terrific storm swept the Spaniards northward through the British channel, scattering ships and men helpless and lifeless on the coasts of Scotland, and even as far north as Norway. On the Irish shore nineteen great vessels were sunk or stranded. In Lough Foyle, one galleon, manned by 1,100 men, came ashore, and some of the survivors, it is alleged, were given up by O'Donnell to the Lord Deputy, in the vain hope of obtaining in return the liberation of his son. Sir John O'Doherty in Innishowen, Sir Brian O'Ruarc at Dromahaire, and Hugh O'Neil at Dungannon, hospitably entertained and protected several hundreds who had escaped with their lives. On the iron-bound coast of Connaught, over 2,000 men perished. In Galway harbour, 70 prisoners were taken by the Queen's garrison, and executed on St. Augustine's hill. In the Shannon, the crew of a disabled vessel set her on fire, and escaped to another in the offing. On the coasts of Cork and Kerry nearly one thousand men were lost or cast away. In all, according to a state paper of the time, above 6,000 of the Spaniards were either drowned, killed, or captured, on the north, west, and southern coasts. A more calamitous reverse could not have befallen Spain or Ireland in the era of the Reformation.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+1] It is worthy of remark that at the very moment the fear of the armada was most intensely felt in England--the beginning of July--Sir John Perrott was recalled from the government. His high and imperious temper, not less than his reliance on the native chiefs, rather than on the courtiers of Dublin Castle, had made him many enemies. He was succeeded by a Lord Deputy of a different character--Sir William Fitzwilliam--who had filled the same office, for a short period, seventeen years before. The administration of this nobleman was protracted till the year 1594, and is chiefly memorable in connection with the formation of the Ulster Confederacy, under the leadership of O'Neil and O'Donnell.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1] Fitzwilliam, whose master passion was avarice, had no sooner been sworn into the government than he issued a commission to search for treasure, which the shipwrecked Spaniards were supposed to have saved. "In hopes to finger some of it," he at once marched into the territory of O'Ruarc and O'Doherty; O'Ruarc fled to Scotland, was given up by order of James VI., and subsequently executed at London; O'Doherty and Sir John O'Gallagher, "two of the most loyal subjects in Ulster," were seized and confined in the Castle. An outrage of a still more monstrous kind was perpetrated soon after on the newly elected chieftain of Oriel, Hugh McMahon. Though he had engaged Fitzwilliam by a bribe of 600 cows to recognize his succession, he was seized by order of the Deputy, tried by a jury of common soldiers, on a trumped up charge of "treason," and executed at his own door. http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/history/ireland/book-8chapter7.html
[/SIZE]

St. Brendan -- or Somebody


Courtesy Roger Wise
These petroglyphs in West Viriginia were thought to be carved in Ogam, an Irish script used from the 6th to 8th centuries.
One of the biggest problems with the idea that St. Brendan and his crew were the first Europeans to arrive in North America is the dearth of physical evidence to support this claim. Unlike the Vikings, there is no settlement that proves the Irish were here prior to other Europeans. At one time, however, tantalizing physical evidence did emerge.
Barry Fell, a Harvard marine biologist, discovered some petroglyphs -- writings carved into rock -- in West Virginia in 1983. Fell concluded that the writing was Ogam script, an Irish alphabet used between the sixth and eighth centuries. Even more startlingly, Fell found that the message in the rock described the Christian nativity. But shortly after Fell released his findings, many in the academic community attacked his interpretation of the petroglyphs. Many scholars question his methods and refuse to accept his findings as fact. Although the petroglyphs could be Ogam script, their true origins and meaning remain unproven [source: Oppenheimer and Wirtz].
All that's left, then, is the written accounts of Brendan's voyages. The Navigatio reads like a fantastic account, laden with Biblical references -- one passage recounts how Brendan held Communion on the back of a whale. In the mind of most historians, this story puts the document in the realm of folklore. Even for those researchers who put stock into the Navigatio's underlying historical accuracy, many of the directions don't point to North America as the destination where Brendan ultimately landed. But there are documents that suggest an Irish presence in North America prior to the Vikings', including the accounts of the Vikings themselves.
The Irish were known to the Norse (Vikings) as a seafaring group that had traveled far further than the Vikings had. In their sagas -- accounts of their people's exploits -- the Vikings speak of finding Irish missions when they arrived in Iceland in the 10th century. Another saga tells of meeting Native Americans who were already familiar with white men. These indigenous peoples had already encountered explorers who dressed in white and came from a land "across from their own" [source: Lathe]. A third saga relates that the Norse encountered a tribe of indigenous Americans who spoke a language that sounded like Irish, with which the Norse were familiar.
St. Brendan was reputed as a skilled voyager, establishing missions wherever he landed. Historians generally accept that he was able to sail to Europe and islands near Ireland. But, say the skeptics, this is a far cry from crossing the North Atlantic in a curragh. This small, open vessel, made of a wooden frame covered by ox hide and waterproofed with tar, was the only seafaring technology available to the Irish during Brendan's lifetime. It was long doubted that such a boat could make the trip from Ireland to America.
But this was proven incorrect in 1976 by author and adventurer Tim Severin, who built a curragh and set out from Ireland -- just as Brendan would have. He retraced the route that Brendan is thought to have taken, from Ireland to Iceland, Greenland and eventually Newfoundland. After a year-long voyage, Severin made it, proving that the trip was at least possible in such a craft.
Severin himself admits that his experiment is a long way from definitive proof that Brendan actually made the trip. As he wrote in "The Brendan Voyage" -- his account of the experiment -- "the only conclusive proof that it had been done would be if an authentic relic from an early Irish is found one day on North American soil" [source: Wiley].


http://history.howstuffworks.com/north-american-history/irish-monk-america1.htm

Irish petroglyph detail. Compare to the West Virginia petroglyph detail at the top left of this page. For the first time it is possible to say with some degree of certainty that there is real evidence of pre-Columbian visitors to the North American continent. In fact, you could say it is carved in stone. Twenty years of research leads to the conclusion that the same disciplines and tools were employed to create Ogam glyphs and Christian symbols (Chi-Rho) on rock faces in both southern West Virginia and southern Ireland.

In 1981, archaeologist Robert L. Pyle of Morgantown, West Virginia began exploring the mountains of southern part of the state studying petroglyphs (markings on stone) that at first glance resembled archaic runes and were different from traditional ancient American rock carvings. His archaeological research focused on petroglyph sites in Wyoming County, West Virginia, and Manchester, Kentucky. Research indicated the markings were an ancient alphabet known as Ogam (or Ogham), found in the British Isles, especially Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. (The petroglyphs in West Virginia and Kentucky exhibit what is known in Europe as "stem type Ogam.") The markings were considered in connection with the tradition of St. Brendan's voyages to this continent in the 6th century.
Another view of the recently discovered Irish petroglyph. Note the vertical Ogam markings. Dr. William Grant, Edinburgh University, Scotland, and Dr. John Grant, Oakland, Maryland, both Celtic linguists/scholars, participated in Pyle's Ogam research in southern West Virginia and endorsed the West Virginia petroglyphs as authentic archaic Ogam. The Grants were former students at the Catholic University in Washington, DC, under the direction of Dr. Robert Meyer, Celtic professor and linguist for 33 years.
In 1998 and 2000, Pyle traveled to Ireland to investigate Ogam markings. In 2000 Dr. William Grant invited Pyle to participate in a research team that examined the first known Irish Ogam petroglyph panel, located in the remote and rugged mountains of southern Ireland. Ogam has commonly been found on corner edges of tombstones, not on rock formations. The unique Irish petroglyph panel turned out to be larger and more complex, yet the markings were virtually identical to the West Virginia and Kentucky petroglyphs.
Stephen O'Shea, Earl E. Hill, Dr. William Grant, Robert L. Pyle, Breda O'Shea, and Mike Baker. Photo taken in southern Ireland. The expedition was mounted by Dr. William Grant and led by Stephen O'Shea. Michael Baker, a film producer, and crew documented the entire expedition. Five hours of strenuous climbing led to the petroglyph location in a "wedge tomb" where Pyle immediately recognized the similarities between Irish and American petroglyphs. The panel is 8 feet high and 20 feet long, and the markings are textbook examples of the alphabet known as Ogam. Significant features include: (1) the Irish Ogam is identical in form to that found in West Virginia and Manchester, Kentucky; (2) it is identical in form to that found in the Book of Balleymote, which is located in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin; (3) the same types of symbol are identified on artifacts and cliff carvings.

Robert L. Pyle, Archaeologist
Resume and Qualifications


http://www.prehistoricplanet.com/wv/features/petroglyphs/

Dyflin wrote: »

To add a bit more depth to the thread. I would like to post the link to a site that has records of some Irish seafarers who worked in the British MN (1918-1921). http://www.irishmariners.ie/

Bill2673 wrote: »

I know feck all about the subject, but i do recall being surprised and impressed to read about the history of Ramelton on the occasion of the All Blacks visit to that town - about the ships crossing regularly from that town to the US and Jamaica in the 1700s and 1800s.