Life
1767-1803 [Thomas Palliser Russell]; United Irishman, b. 21 Nov.,
Drumahane, nr. Mallow, [var. Bessborough, Kilshanick], Co. Cork; son of John Russell, Army officer, and Margaret [née] O’Kennedy; raised an Anglican; his father was appt. “captain of invalids”, Kilmainham Hosp., Dublin, joined
52nd Regt. of foot at Belfast, 783; sent to Malabar coast of India to relieve Mangalore in the British East India Co. interest; became half-pay officer on return to Ireland, 1786; briefly appt. JP in Co. Tyrone;
met Wolfe Tone in visitor’s gallery of House of Commons, Dublin, July 1790; returned to Army as officer in the 64th Regt., and posted to Belfast, 1790; sold his Army commission; attended Whig Club “Bastille Day” celebrations, 1791; became Linen Hall Librarian;
organised recruitment for the United Irishmen following their inaugural meeting of
18 Oct. 1791; wrote against slavery in Northern Star and Belfast Newsletter (“on every lump of sugar I see a drop of human blood”); denounced Grattan in Northern Star after 1793 [war with France]; collaborated with William Sampson on Lion
of Old England (1794), a verse satire; learned Irish from Patrick Lynch
at the Belfast Academy; responded to Govt. repression of the United Irishmen by swearing the oath of the United Irishmen with Tone, Neilson, McCracken on Cave Hill, May 1795 (‘never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country and asserted our independence’); his “Chinese Journal” was serialised in
The Northern Star, 1795; Paddy’s Resource (NS, 1795) contains his poem “Man is Free by Nature”; co-edited Bolg an tSolair; issued A Letter to the People of Ireland, by ‘a United Irishman’
(1796); arrested with Neilson and others, Sept. 1796 and held at Newgate;
latter transferred to Fort George ( Invernness-shire) and held without trial, 1799-1802; continued to
communicate songs to Edward Bunting; released June 1802, and met Emmet in Paris soon after;
organised Ulster part of Emmet’s Rising;
sequestered with Emmet at Butterfield Lane (now Butterfield Avenue), Rathfarnham, May 1803; placed under arrest by Major Sirr at premisses of Daniel Muley, gunsmith, in Parliament St., Dublin, 9 Sept. 1803; refused undertaking of good behaviour; tried and sentenced to death at Downpatrick, Co. Down, 21 Oct. 1803; spoke of Emmet and professed loyalty to cause of the United Irishmen and Ireland in the dock (‘Had I a thousand lives, I would venture them all ... for the sake of this people’); he was refused an application for three days remission in order to finish his study of Revelations [var. a Greek
translation], in keeping with his millenarian religious and political beliefs; uttered the words,
‘Is this the place?’ when he reached the gallows; turned himself off when faced with the incompetence of hangsman. ODNB DIB DIH OCIL
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Works
A Letter to the People of Ireland on the Present Situation of the Country
(Star Office 1796) [rep. in Turner, op. cit. 2003; see Criticism,
infra]; C. J. Woods, ed., & intro., Journals
and Memoirs of Thomas Russell (IAP 1991), 240pp. [with] index.
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Criticism
[Q.a.], ‘Sketch of the life of Thomas Russell’, in Ulster
Magazine, I (1830), unfinished; Thomas Crofton Croker & Samuel McSkimin,
‘Secret History of the Irish Insurrection of 1803’, Fraser’s
Magazine, xiv (July-Dec. 1836), pp.546-67 [characterised by Woods
as ‘deprecatory, anonymous and spurious’]; R. R. Madden’s
memoir in The United Irishmen (3rd ser. London 1846), Vol. 2, pp.137-283;
Robert Dunlop, “Thomas Russell”, in Dictionary of National Biography
(1st imp. vol. xlix, 1897; corr. imp. vol. xvii 1909); Séamus N
Mac Giolla Easpaig [Rev Br. James Norbert Glespen], Tomás Ruiséil
(Cló Morainn 1958), 293pp.; John Gray, ‘Millenial Vision:
Thomas Russell Reassessed’, in Linen Hall Review, vi. no.
1 (spring 1989); Brendan Clifford, Thomas Russell and Belfast (Belfast
1988); ‘The place of Thomas Russell in the United Irish Movement’,
in Hugh Gough and David Dickson, eds., Ireland and the French Revolution
(Dublin 1990), pp.83-100; also studies of the United Irish movement by
Charles Dickson, Mary McNeill, R. B. McDowell, and Marianne Elliott [all
cited in CE Woods, op. cit., supra.]. See also John gray, ‘Millenial
vision – Thomas Russell res-assessed, in Linenhall Review,
Vol. 6, 1 (1988), p.5.; Dennis Carroll, The Man from God Knows Where,
Thomas Russell 1767-1803 (Blackrock: Gartan 1995), 256pp.; James Quinn, ‘Thomas Russell, United Irishman’, in History Ireland, 10 (Spring 2002), pp.24-28; James Quinn,
A Soul on Fire: A Life of Thomas Russell 1767-1803 (Dublin: IAP
2002), 336pp.; Brian S. Turner, A Man Stepped out for Death: Thomas
Russell and County Down (Colourpoint 2003), 96pp., ills. [contribs.
Kenneth L. Dawson, Deirdre Armstrong, Philip Orr & Richard Ferguson].
See also Peter Linebaugh, ‘“Is This the Place?”: On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell’, in Counterpunch, ed. Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair (21 Oct. 2003) [online & infra].
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Commentary
C. J. Woods, ‘Place of Thomas Russell,’ in Ireland
and the French Revolution, ed. Gough and Dickson (IAP 1990), one of
the chief propagandists ... contributed frequently to the Northern
Star ... collaborated with William Sampson on The Lion of Old England
(1793), serialised in Northern Star and enlarged 6 months later.
A Letter to the People of Ireland (Star Office, 1796), has a tone
of saeva indignatio, audacious statement of political opinions;
Russell was confined in Newgate, Dublin, a few days after appearance of
pamphlet; his speech from the dock at Downpatrick was published by the
Sullivan brothers [qry. title].
Rosamund Jacob, The Rise of the United Irishmen 1791-94 (1927), dock speech, advising ‘those gentlemen who have all the wealth and all the power of the country in their hands’ to attend to the grievances of their tenants; ‘From the time I could observe and reflect I perceived that there were two kinds of laws - the laws of the State and the laws of God - frequently clashing with each other; by the latter kind I have always endeavoured to regulate my conduct.’ The author adds, ‘it was true of him in a greater degree than almost any other Irishman of his time.’ (p.256 [END])
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C. J. Woods, ed., Journals and Memoirs of Thomas Russell, 1791-95, with a foreword by Marianne Elliott (Dublin: IAP 1991) 199pp., index; FOREWORD, ‘He was one of those favoured individuals,’ recalled Mary Ann McCracken, ‘whom one cannot pass in the street without being guilty of the rudeness of staring in the face while passing, and turning round to look at the receding figure.’ (Quoted from Mary McNeill, the Life of Mary Ann McCracken 1770-1866 (Dublin 1960) [7]; Elliott says no biography has been written but perhaps overlooks the adulatory picture of him in A Prisoner of His Word, by Louis Bennett; His hand-writing is wellnigh illegible. Marianne Elliott has called in dyslexic [see p.22, n.17, infra.]; ... the sense of helplessness progressively relieved by the recognition that sectors of the lower orders had already been revolutionised [9]; entered popular balladry in Florence Wilson’s ‘The man from God-knows-where’ (Florence M. Wilson, The coming of the earls and other poems, Dublin 1918, pp.9-12). EDITOR’S PREFACE: Journals little used on account of disordered and illegible state; only modern biography Séamus N Mac Giolla Easpaig [Rev Br. James Norbert Glespen], viz, Tomás Ruiséil (Cló Morainn 1958); Bibl., Charlemont MSS, The manuscripts and correspondence of James, first earl of Charlemont, 2 vols, Historical Manuscripts Commission, London, 1891-4; McDowell, RB, ‘The Personnel of the Dublin society of United Irishmen’; in Irish Historical Studies, ii, no.5 (Mar. 1940), pp.12-53; R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen, their lives and times, 1st series in 2 vols (London 1842); 2nd series in 2 vols. (London 1843); 3rd series in 3 vols. (Dublin 1846); revised ed. in 4 vols. (Dublin 1857-60). Introduction: b. 21 Nov. in townland of Drommahane in parish of Kilshannig, Co. Cork; son of John Russell, a lieutenant in the 83rd Foot, and a Catholic mother, née O’Kennedy, from Tipperary; one of five children; soon moved to Durrow, Co.Kilkenny, and to Dublin where his father held an office as caption of invalids in the Royal Kilmainham Hosp.; joined the 100th Foot in Indian, and attached to 52nd Foot, serving on the Malabar coast; met Tone in the public gallery of the Irish house of commons, 2 July 1790; commissioned to 64th foot, garrisoned in Belfast, in August 1790; sold his ensigncy in July 1791 as a result of debts incurred when Thomas Attwood Digges, his enthusiastic informant on American democracy, defaulted on the bail that Russell provided for him; frequently travelled to Dublin during 1790-91l; probably assited Tone with his pamphlet, An argument on behalf of the Catholics (Aug. 1791); seneschal of the manor court of Dungannon, through patronage of the Knoxes of Dungannon; stayed with McDonnell in Belfast during 1793, following his father’s death; appointed librarian of Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge (Linen Hall Library), Jan. 1794; in June 1795, planned armed uprising with French assistance; Tone departing to France in June 1796, he issued on 12 Sept. 1796 his pamphlet, A letter to the people of Ireland on the present situation in the country; surrendered to a warrant for arrest 16 Sept., and refused to give sureties of good behaviour; detained in Newgate Prison, Dublin, until March 1799, when he was transferred to Fort George in north Scotland; released in 1802 on condition of exile; reunited with Hamilton and met Emmet on the continent; rebel commander in Ulster, 1803; arrested at the house of Daniel Muley, gunsmith, in Parliament St., Dublin, 9th Sept. 1803; tried, convicted, and and hanged for high treason, 21 Oct. 1803. Bibl., ‘Sketch of the life of Thomas Russell’, in Ulster Magazine, i (1830), unfinished; Thomas Crofton Croker and Samuel McSkimin’s deprecatory, anonymous and spurious ‘Secret history of the Irish insurrection of 1803’ in Fraser’s Magazine, xiv (July-Dec. 1836), pp.546-67; R. R. Madden’s memoir in The United Irishmen (3rd ser. London 1846), ii,137-283; Robert Dunlop’s account in Dictionary of National Biography (1st imp. vol. xlix, 1897; corr. imp. vol. xvii 1909); John Gray, “Millenial vision, Thomas Russell reassessed”, in Linen Hall Review, vi. no. 1 (spring 1989); Brendan Clifford, Thomas Russell and Belfast (Belfast 1988); ‘The place of Thomas Russell in the United Irish movement, in Hugh Gough and David Dickson, eds., Ireland and the French Revolution (Dublin 1990), pp.83-100; and see also studies of the United Irish movement by Charles Dickson, Mary McNeill, R. B. McDowell, and Marianne Elliott; The Sirr Collection of papers at TCD were presented by his elder son, Rev. Joseph D’Arcy Sirr, at some time between Jan. 1841 (when he died) and Feb. 1843. His pocket books were first used by McDowell in an Hermethena article of May 1939, and more extensively in his Irish Public Opinion, 1750-1800 (1944); while his transcription was used by McDermott in Wolfe Tone; .. his avocation was peripatetic prophet of revolution ... (p.30; see text, infra).
Sean Kearney, review of James Quinn, Thomas Russell: Soul on Fire, in Fortnight (April 2003): ‘I believed until now that Russell like Tone had a broader, wiser vision of an Ireland tha cold overcome ignorance, poverty, sectarianism, and a thousand other evils. Alas, the man who emerges from these pages is a confused[,] religious fundamentalism, who was probably a manic-depressive or possibly a meglomaniac. All this it seems, arose from a belief in the doctrine of the millenium, which accrdoing to Scripture, predicts a thousand years of justice and harmony to precede the end of the world.’ (p.28.)
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Quotations
A Letter to the People of Ireland (1796): ‘Further
the laws relating to popery were enacted from experiencing the political
evils incident to that belief [Catholicism]. Those evils were perhaps
temporary and from the extinction of the Stuart family are not now to
be apprehended. Yet a state should rather be cautious than confident and
without being well assured of the contrary will not give power to the
Roman Cathlics to begin fresh disturbances. If they wish to participate
[in] the benefits of the constitution they should give some security that
they will not endeavour to subvert it. ... I would not be understood to
have myself the smallest doubt of the loyalty of the Catholicks. I have
none. Their loyalty has been established too well to need any panegyrick
[...]’. (Printed in Journals, ed., C. J Woods, 1991, p.55.)
‘I know no good results from these laws, either political or religious,
but many evils. [56] On the people: ‘Few republican. Fond of the king.
Hate the gover[n]ment. angry at the king’s ente]ring into the war
agains[t] France. Strong for reform. The middle orders of this way of
thinking.’ (p.69.) On United Irishmen Society in Belfast: ‘The
day before it was in contemplation to sell the Northern Star to
gover[n]ment. I leave town the day they are to debate whether they will
declare for reform. Is that carries all will go well. If not, America,
ho!’ (p.72). Entry 16: Russell enquires about the Sermon on the Mount,
whether its doctrine is compatible with social organisation; moves to
considering if religious faith is less well founded that the ‘original
data’ of sciences.] Should women be made learn[e]d? Is their a difference
of mind? Why not as of body? has it egery occur[r]ed to anatomists to
observe is their any difference in the brains of men and women children
[sic]? (p.86). Writing on the eve of execution, ‘Be assured, liberty
will in the midst of these storms be established, and God will wipe the
tears from all eyes.’ (p.195). Further, ‘[...] that the traveller
will receive in the most wretched cabin in the wildest parts of Ireland
all the hospitality that the circumstances of the owner can afford; he
will get his share of the milk, if there is any, and of the potatoes;
and if he has lost his way he will be guided to the road - and all this
without the expectations or the wish for a reward.’ (p. 12; cited
Gough & Dickson, op. cit ., 1990, supra.) Note that Russell
follows Tone in writing XX for ‘Catholics’ (p.70 & passim).
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Journals and Memoirs of Thomas Russell, 1791-95, ed C. J. Woods, with a foreword by Marianne Elliott (Dublin: IAP 1991), index; THE NOTEBOOK, 1. is a kind of ‘Querist’, re. ‘the superannuated [i.e., elderly], ‘.. whether small praemiums to those wo educate such a number of would not more efficiently prevent the murder of infants than any such instittion as the foundli[ng]; whether the badging [of] the paupers in each county, city and parish would not effectually prevenet their becoming a nuisance in any place. [36] 2. Religion, ‘It was not supported by Tyranny but Tyranny endeavour’d to support itself by perverting it from its purposes and debasing its purity. [37] 3. Pearse, the disappointed inventor. [March1791] Burke contends for the state’s not having any right whatsoever over the property of individuals. The French seem to hold otherwise. ... Private property is above power [in England]. In France absolute power is supposed in the nation. That must be exercised by some small body. An individual may be obnoxious to them and what is his security? 4. On tanning bark. Reports speaking to Grattan about the issue, and Grattan’s saying, ‘he was fully possessed with the great advantages of it [scheme to inport bark as ballast] and told me he had spoken of it to Sir John Parnel [sic], who sayd our offering a bounty might or would offend the people of England and therefore it would not be done. There is a good government and a precious rascal for Chancellor of the Exchequer. March 1791 [46]; MORE, Sit til 2, then go to all the [w]hores in town ... We sit till near 3. then ramble through the town as the night before. [April 1791] [50] In the evening Hall and I walk in quest of game. Meet a girl of Coates the hairdresser. She introduces me into the house of her master. Stay till near eleven. Near being detected. In my return to the barack fall over a heap of dirt. Find a party after supper. Sit with them till late. [51] NOTE, Russell’s arguments in defence of Catholics include a)that the descendents of those dispossessed are extinct or too abject to claim, and b) that many Catholics have Protestants in their power already by money lending and would not overturn the mortgages (‘insuperable bar to any revolution in property’] [54]; the laws relating to popery were enacted form experiencing the political evils incident to that beliefe [Catholicism]. Those evils were perhaps temporary and from the extinction of the Stuart family are not now to be apprehended. Yet a state should rather be cautious than confident and without being well assured of the contrary will not give power to the Roman Cathlics to begin fresh disturbances. If they wish to participate [in] the benefits of the constitution they should give some security that they will not endeavour to subvert it. ... I would not be understood to have myself the smallest doubt of the loyalty of the Catholicks. I have none. Their loyalty has been established too well to need any panegyrick ... [55] ... I know no good results from these laws, either political or religious, but many evils. [56]; Notes on Leland’s history, ‘Note the people of Wicklow troublesome from their vicinity to the capital and strength of their country (Leland, Vol. 2, p.16); Russell notes details about the balance of Catholics and Protestants in the Irish parliament during the viceroyalty of Strafford, remarking, ‘Strafford ballances the partys and by introducing officers, etc., could make [57] either party preponderate. It does not appear that the Catholicks made any attempt to change the establish’d religion.’ [58] 11. Discusses dreams of his mother as an omen of misfortune, suggested by his brother’s experience when ‘desperately wounded’ in Canada, but disproved by his own dream regarding his father, in June 1792, ‘If he had died I should probably be recollecting dreams during my life.’ [63]; Expatiates on noblemen’s estates visited in Fermanagh. [57]; [on THE PEOPLE: ] ‘Few republican. Fond of the king. Hate the gover[n]ment. angry at the king’s ent[e]ring into the war agains[t] France. Strong for reform. The middle orders of this way of thinking.’ [69]; Hamilton Rowan’s pamphlet causes a stir. Ed. ftn., very probably the declaration “Citizen-soldiers, to arms!”, issued by the Dublin Society of UI, under the names of Drennan and Rowan, chairman and secretary respectively. Argued for a revival of volunteering as preferable to a militia, and advocated holdin a convention of the Protestant people on 15 Feb, to complement the Catholic convention just ended. (See Dublin Evening Post, 20 Dec. 1792).; Note that Russell follows Tone in writing XX for ‘Catholics’, [70 & passim]; United Irishmen Society in Belfast, ‘The day before it was in contemplation to sell the Northern Star to gover[n]ment. I leave tonwn the day they are to debate whether they will declare for reform. Is that carries all will go well. If not, America, ho!’ [72]; Note that Russell refers to guineas as grogs, after Swift, and Belfast as Belfescu [74]; 16. Russell enquires about the Sermon on the Mount, whether its doctrine is compatible with social organisation; moves to considering if religious faith is less well founded that the ‘original data’ of sciences; in the next paragraph he is pondering conclusions from reports American Indians sexual abstemiousness; Northern Star, Prosecution of the proprietors and printer of the paper for sedition began in Jan. 1793; notice of trial was served in July. The government postponed the trial, intending that the accused should compromise. When it took place in May 1794, the proprietors were acquitted, although the printer John Rabb was convicted and imprisoned. (See Brian Inglis, Freedom of the press in Ireland 1784-1841, London 1954, pp. 94-5. Drennan’s Letters, p.165, shows that ‘the Star people were all wishing to give up the paper, if they could dissolve their agreement, that the paper would certainly drop and that Neilson was now quite deprived of his political boldness.’ [n.6, 80]; “Poor Ireland” becomes a refrain [77, 81] poor country! [88]; Investigates potatoes, ‘do the young potatoes nourish the plant?’ Next he is ‘talking politics with one of the mill men’ [82]; I think gover[n]ments will be almost totally done away [with] and little more than society remain. I think in proportion as gover[n]ments grow more simple men will be better. His duty to his god and his interest will clashless. As he has less to do with human laws, he will have more inclination to respect divine ones. Is it not obvious? See! [82]; To ascertain this. [82] To consider this [83] To read the exposition of the reign of the four Stuart by a Mr Cook. [43]; Russell interested in perception; [ON WOMEN’S STATUS: Should women be made learn[e]d? Is their a difference of mind? Why not as of body? has it egery occur[r]ed to anatomists to observe is their any difference in the brains of men and women children [sic]? [86]; Russell gives an account of his family, O’Clears [or O’Cleeres] on one side, Bradshaws on the other. The Bradshaws, of Cheshire, were connected with the president of the regicide committee. The O’Clears were dispossessed in the sequel of 1641; Considers Antoninus and the Stoics [91] ... Russell not a deist [93]; 21. Long, circumstantial, and moving account of the death of his father. [96-107].
Gallows speech: ‘Had I a thousand lives, I would venture them all, and give them all for, not for the sake of Ireland, but for the sake of this people’ (quoted by Medbh McGuckian, in interview, European English Messenger, Autumn 2004, p.36.)
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References
Dictionary of National Biography: accompanied 52nd Regt.
to India as volunteer, 1782l commissioned; held commision in 64th Regt.
in Ireland; made acquiantance of Tone, 1789; sold commission, 1791; library
of Belfast library [sic], 1794; arrested with other United Irishmen, 1796;
confined to Newgate, Dublin, till 1798; banished to Fort George; liberated
1802; met Emmet in Paris and entered into plans; proceeded to Ireland
in hope of raising Ulster [sic]; arrested, found guilty of treason, hanged
at Downpatrick.
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Notes
Illegible hand: Russell’s pocket books, lodged in the TCD
library as part of the Sirr Collection and ‘little used on account
of disordered and illegible state’ [acc. Woods, op. cit. infra],
were first used by McDowell in an Hermethena article of May 1939,
and more extensively in his Irish Public Opinion, 1750-1800 (1944);
while his transcription was used by McDermott in Wolfe Tone.
Portraits: Thom. Russell, United Irishman, miniature [lent Dr. Ryan]; see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition (Ulster Mus. 1965).
Florence Wilson: Russell is the eponymous hero of the evergreen poem ‘The Man from God Knows Where’ by Florence Wilson (The coming of the Earls and Other Poems, Dublin 1918, pp.9-12). Aodh de Blacam, ‘Roddy the Rover’ [q.d. article tipped into Hayes, ed., Irish Ballads, Univ. of Ulster Library], gives the words of ‘The Man from God Knows Where’, by Mrs Florence Wilson, and circumstances of its composition. See also under for quotation in O’Casey, Story of the Citizen Army.
Maurice Craig: Russell is present in a ‘very indifferent poem’ - according to its author Maurice Craig - in which occurs the line ‘For the poor Irish exile she cheered as he passed’, referring to his departure after 1798 (see further under Maurice Craig, supra).
Louis Bennett: Russell is the central character of Louis Bennett’s romantic-revolutionary novel, A Prisoner of his Word (1908.)
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