Henry Charles Sirr (town major)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Charles Sirr
Portait of Henry Charles Sirr, Town Major of Dublin.jpg
Town Major Henry Charles Sirr
Born25 November 1764
Dublin Castle, Ireland
Died7 January 1841(1841-01-07) (aged 76)
Dublin, Ireland
Resting placeSt Werburgh's Church, Dublin
OccupationPolice Officer, Soldier, wine merchant and collector.
Known forArresting Officer of many United Irishmen Rebels including Robert Emmett

Henry Charles Sirr (1764–1841) was an Irish soldier, police officer, wine merchant and collector, prominent in his role in suppressing the Society of United Irishmen and their republican insurrection in 1798, including the arrest and fatal shooting of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

Early life[]

Sirr was born in Dublin Castle, the son of Major Joseph Sirr, the Town Major (chief of police) of Dublin from 1762 to 1767.[1][2] Sirr served in the British Army in 1778–1791, returning to Dublin with the rank of lieutenant, and thereafter in the wine trade.

In 1792 he married Eliza D'Arcy (1767–1829), the daughter of James D'Arcy.[3] He was the father of Rev. , MRIA and of Henry Charles Sirr.

Town Major of Dublin[]

Sirr shooting, and arresting, FitzGerald.

In 1796, upon the formation of yeomanry in Dublin, he volunteered his services, and was appointed acting town-major or head of the police, and thenceforward was known as the chief agent of the Castle authorities. In 1798 he was promoted to the position of town-major, and received, in accordance with precedent, a residence in Dublin Castle.

Sirr was active in the efforts of the Castle to suppress the republican and insurrectionary United Irishmen. In the months prior to their rising in May and June 1798, he prominent in arrests of Peter Finnerty, the editor of their Dublin paper, the Press, on 31 Oct. 1797, and of their leaders Thomas Russell and Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

It was the capture of popular Fitzgerald on 19 May 1798 that brought him before the public. The day before, Sirr and a company of Dumbarton Fencibles surprised Fitzgerald as he was being led between safe house by Mary Moore. Moore escaped with Fitzgerald (William Putnam McCabe and other of his bodyguard were arrested).[4][5] Acting on a further tip off, Sirr raided a house the next evening. Alerted by the commotion, an ill and feverish FitzGerald jumped out of bed and, ignoring the pleas of the arresting officers Captain William Bellingham Swan (later assistant town Major of Dublin) and Captain Daniel Frederick Ryan to surrender, stabbed Swan and mortally wounded Ryan with a dagger in a desperate attempt to escape. When he saw Major Sirr, Fitzgerald reportedly made at him, but the major fired and lodged several lugs in his shoulder.[6]

As a result of the arrest pressure mounts within the United Irish organisation to rise before its leadership structure in Dublin and arms stores elsewhere are decimated.[6] During this period Sirr's life was often in peril. The early historian of the rebellion, Robert Madden record three occasions in 1798 on which he barely escaped United Irish assassins. The wound Sirr inflicted upon Fitzgerald is commonly supposed to been fatal, although an inquest found on the evidence of the attending surgeon that his death on 4 June resulted from "water on the chest".[7]

In 1802, in a case, Hevey v. Sirr, presided over by Lord Kilwarden, Sirr was subjected to lengthy trial in which the renowned barrister John Philpot Curran held him complicit in the habitual abuses of power used to suppress rebellion were exposed in court. Sirr was sued by John Hevey, a prosperous businessman whose trial for treason had collapsed, seeking for £5,000. damages for false imprisonment and extortion. The jury found a verdict against Sirr for £150. and sixpence costs (Howell, State Trials, xxviii. No. 647). The government paid Sirr's legal expenses.[8][9]

On 25 August 1803 he was instrumental in the arrest of Robert Emmet, in the course of whose abortive rising the previous month in Dublin, Kilwarden had been murdered.[10]

In 1808 Sirr was appointed a police magistrate for the city of Dublin. He continued to discharge his duties as town-major until 1826, when he retired upon full pay, and in consideration of his public services was allowed to retain his official residence in Dublin Castle.

Later life[]

In 1808 the Dublin police was re-organised and his post was abolished, but he was allowed to retain the title.[11] Niles' Register of 24 March 1821 remarks that "Several persons have been arrested at a public house in Dublin, by major Sirr, charged with being engaged in a treasonable meeting, and committed to prison... We thought that this old sinner, given to eternal infamy by the eloquence of Curran, had gone home".[12]

Sirr devoted his leisure to collecting curiosities and antiquities. His collection of some five hundred paintings, was acquired after his death by the Royal Irish Academy. In 1818 he helped to found the Irish Society for Promoting Scriptural Education in the Irish Language.[13]

Sirr died on 7 Jan. 1841. He was buried in the graveyard of St. Werburgh's, Dublin, in close proximity to Lord Edward Fitzgerald who is interred in the vaults of the same church.[14]

Sirr intended to destroy all his correspondence; but a number of documents, many of them of considerable historical interest, were found after his death, and presented by his son to Trinity College Library, Dublin[11]

Fictional representation[]

In many later Irish nationalist plays Sirr was portrayed as a generic melodramatic villain.[15] James Joyce used him as the "type of the Irish turncoat" in Dubliners.[16] In Ivy Day in the Committee Room a character remarks: "There's a lineal descendant of Major Sirr for you if you like! O, the heart's blood of a patriot! That's a fellow now that'd sell his country for fourpence—ay—and go down on his bended knees and thank the Almighty Christ he had a country to sell."[17]

In Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, a character refers to the Rebellion having spawned "a vile race of informers and things like Major Sirr".

References[]

  1. ^ Lundy, Darryl. "'Major Joseph Sirr', The Peerage.com, p 34011". The Peerage.[unreliable source]
  2. ^ Lundy, Darryl. "'Major Henry Charles Sirr', The Peerage.com, p 34041". The Peerage.[unreliable source]
  3. ^ Lundy, Darryl. "'Eliza D'Arcy', The Peerage.com, p 37891". The Peerage.[unreliable source]
  4. ^ "Women's Museum of Ireland | Articles | Mary Moore". womensmuseumofireland.ie. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  5. ^ Lyons, Dr Jane (2 March 2013). "An Account of the Arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald". From-Ireland.net. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b "Capture a blow to United Irishmen". The Irish Times. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  7. ^ Charles, Logan (26 October 1989). "Charles James Hume Logan (1931–2018): Who Fears to Speak of Ninety-eight?" (PDF). Presidential Opening Address Ulster Medical Society: 4.
  8. ^ Trial of Mr John Hevey, Plaintiff and Charles Henry Sirr, Defendant, John Stockdale, Dublin, 1802.. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  9. ^ Hezekiah Niles; William Ogden Niles (1821). "Niles' Weekly Register". p. 61. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  10. ^ "Rewind: The murder of Lord Kilwarden". www.echo.ie. Retrieved 8 June 2021.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b "Garden Types".
  12. ^ Niles, Hezekiah; Niles, William Ogden (1821). Niles' Weekly Register. 20. p. 61.
  13. ^ "Sirr, Henry Charles", Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, 52, retrieved 9 June 2021 Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  14. ^ Gilbert, John (1854). A History of the City of Dublin. Oxford: Oxford University.
  15. ^ Herr p.29
  16. ^ Joyce, race, and empire. Vincent John Cheng. 1995. Cambridge University Press.
  17. ^ "Dubliners, by James Joyce". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 14 September 2019.

Bibliography[]

  • Herr, Cheryl. For the Land They Loved: Irish Political Melodramas, 1890–1925. Syracuse University Press, 1991.
Retrieved from ""