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Robespierre's Irish roots

  • 21-02-2011 5:38am
    #1
    Dionysus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭


    Does anybody know any more about this? While it's well-established that Ché Guevara is descended, on his father's side, from the Lynch family, I only found out recently that no less a personage than Maximillien Robespierre is very widely reputed to also be of Irish descent.

    But does anybody have any more information on Robespierre's Irish connection?

    Interesting bit of French Revolution related information: Jacques de Whyte ( James F.X. Whyte) was the name of the "demented Irishman" who was one of the six (or seven) inmates in the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789.


Comments

  • #2
    PatsytheNazi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    Dionysus wrote: »
    Does anybody know any more about this? While it's well-established that Ché Guevara is descended, on his father's side, from the Lynch family, I only found out recently that no less a personage than Maximillien Robespierre is very widely reputed to also be of Irish descent.

    But does anybody have any more information on Robespierre's Irish connection?

    Interesting bit of French Revolution related information: Jacques de Whyte ( James F.X. Whyte) was the name of the "demented Irishman" who was one of the six (or seven) inmates in the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789.
    Pretty tenous background info there mate, and from wiki at that - " He is sometimes rumoured to have been of Irish descent, and it has been suggested that his surname could be a corruption of 'Robert Speirs'


  • #3
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,659 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    I've read a recent biography, "Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution" by Ruth Scurr.
    Interesting man, but there was no mention of any Irish connection in that book.


  • #4
    Dionysus
    Registered Users Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭Dionysus


    PatsytheNazi wrote: »
    Pretty tenous background info there mate, and from wiki at that'

    The purpose of linking wikipedia was so that you could follow five of the authors who attributed an Irish origin to him, namely George Henry Lewes (1870 -1878), Ernest Hamel (1826 -1898), Jules Michelet (1798 -1874), Alphonse de Lamartine (1790 -1869) and Hilaire Belloc (1870 -1953) in a single link.

    It appears that Jules Michelet could be the original source: 'They are supposed to have come over from Ireland. Their ancestors perhaps formed in the sixteenth century a portion of those numerous Irish colonies, which came over to people the monasteries and seminaries on the coast, when they received from the Jesuits a sound education...'.George Henry Lewes, The Life of Maximillien Robespierre (1875), p. 6. Joseph Theodoor Leerssen (1989, p.61) has also invoked Jules Michelet's claim.

    George Henry Lewes (op. cit.) himself says 'On the one hand, it is said that he was of Irish origin ; that his grandfather was devoted to the cause of the Pretender, whom he accompanied into France, and there finally settled at Arras, as an advocate; this is the generally-received account."

    The reason I'm asking this is that a current Junior Cert history book in Irish schools repeats Robespierre's alleged Irish origin as a fact rather than as a suggestion. So does anybody have any more substantial information to support his Irish origins?


  • #5
    brianthebard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,165 ✭✭✭✭brianthebard


    Interesting topic, the problem with historical references from Michelet for example is that they didn't always have strict methodologies stopping them from using heresay as evidence. Its not surprising that the Junior Cert book would take a rumour as fact, there are many inaccuracies and half truths in the curriculum.


  • #6
    pinkypinky
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,614 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    Hmm, sounds like an interesting genealogy challenge but it would be very hard (near impossible) to prove! If his own ancestry is well documented, and a brief glance at wikipedia suggests it is, then it would be case of checking each individual's details. Given his dates, the best possibility is that there could be a wild goose ancestor.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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  • #7
    claire h
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,056 ✭✭✭claire h


    "There is a persistent legend that the Robespierres were of Irish origin, but both J.M. Thompson and the painstaking French novelist Marianne Becker have traced the family back to Northern France in the 15th century."

    From Hilary Mantel's piece here - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/hilary-mantel/what-a-man-this-is-with-his-crowd-of-women-around-him

    19th century history is definitely a different discipline... much more about storytelling and drama than it is about assessing the evidence.


  • #8
    Denerick
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    claire h wrote: »
    "There is a persistent legend that the Robespierres were of Irish origin, but both J.M. Thompson and the painstaking French novelist Marianne Becker have traced the family back to Northern France in the 15th century."

    From Hilary Mantel's piece here - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n07/hilary-mantel/what-a-man-this-is-with-his-crowd-of-women-around-him

    19th century history is definitely a different discipline... much more about storytelling and drama than it is about assessing the evidence.


    Back then the great narrative was in vogue, with people like Macauly, Carlyle and Froude making big bucks telling wildly rambling and biased histories spanning many volumes. In many ways it was better and more entertaining, but the historian was in his youth in the 19th century. Now he's old and obsessed with archives :D


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