Stratford Eyre
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Stratford Eyre (
fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...
1731–1755) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and governor of Galway.


Background and origin

Eyre was a descendant of John Eyre, who had settled in
County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...
in the 1650s and established a dynasty under the
Protestant Ascendancy The Protestant Ascendancy (also known as the Ascendancy) was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglicanism, Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, ...
. Stratford was the son of Samuel Eyre (Governor of Galway in 1715) and Anne née Stratford. He was appointed High Sheriff of County Galway for 1731. He served as a Colonel at
Battle of Culloden The Battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. A Jacobite army under Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, thereby endi ...
in 1746.


Governor of Galway

He was appointed Governor of the town in 1747. Froude described the then state of the town:
''He found himself set to defend a town of which the walls had not been repaired for a quarter of a century; the castle in ruins; the very name of military authority forgotten. By law no Catholics ought to have been in Galway at all. There were thirty Catholics there to one Protestant, and the Protestant was becoming Protestant but in name. There were 180 ecclesiastics, Jesuits friars, and seculars. Robert Martin, owner of half Connemara, resided within the liberties, and was making a fortune by smuggling there. He was described by Eyre as 'able to bring to the town of Galway in twenty four hours 800 villains as desperate and as absolutely at his devotion as Cameron of Lochiel'. The Mayor and Corporation, the fee-simple of whose property did not amount to 1000 received the tolls and customs duties. By their charter they were bound in return to maintain the fortifications. Being what they were, they preferred to divide the town revenue amongst themselves. The mayor, an O'Hara, was the son of Lord Tyrawley's footman; the sheriff was a beggar; of the aldermen one was a poor shoemaker, the other a broken dragoon.''
Eyre re-established discipline in the garrison, closed the gaps in the town walls and ordered the gate closed at sunset. Unused to such high-handedness, the Corporation sent a furious letter of complaint to Government, signed by the members a majority of the citizens. In response to this, Governor Eyre sent for the members and said to them:
''Gentlemen since you are here in your corporate capacity, I must recommend you to disperse these restless Popish ecclesiastics. Let me not meet them in every corner of the streets when I walk as I have done. No sham searches, Mr. Sheriff, as to my knowledge you lately made. Your birds were flown, but they left you cakes and wine to entertain yourselves withal. I shall send you, Mr. Mayor a list of some insolent unregistered priests, who absolutely refused me to quarter my soldiers, and to my surprise you have billeted none on them. These and James Fitzgerald, who is also an unregistered priest, and had the insolence to solicit votes for his brother upon a prospect of a vacancy in Parliament, I expect you'll please to tender the oaths to, and proceed against on the Galway and Limerick Act. Let us unite together in keeping those turbulent disqualified townsmen in a due subjection. Lastly, gentlemen, I put you in mind of the condition on which tolls and customs are granted to you. Repair the breaches in these walls and repair your streets.''


Opposition

Eyre's policy was supported by the government, but opposed by the Corporation of Galway, the Prime Sergeant, the Protestant
Bishop of Elphin The Bishop of Elphin (; ) is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title which takes its name after the village of Elphin, County Roscommon, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Church it remains a separate title, but ...
, and
Francis II de Bermingham Francis de Bermingham, 14th Baron Athenry (1692 – 1749), was an Anglo-Irish peer. He was the only son of Edward Bermingham, 13th Baron Athenry, and his second wife Bridget Browne, daughter of Colonel John Browne and Maud Bourke. Francis de ...
, Lord Athenry. He was threatened with assassination as would appear from the following anonymous letter which he enclosed with his correspondence to Secretary Wayte, 11 December 1747:-
''Sir, as I had not the pleasure of seeing you since you came to your government of Galway, I hope soon to see you in the Elysian fields, as I am just going off the stage. And I am sure, if you don't leave that town, you'll lose your life before the 10th of next month. 'Tis all your own fault, for you could not bear the employment which you got, not for your bravery, but for the slaughter you committed on poor people after Culloden fight. You'll be served as Lord Lovat's agent was. God be merciful to your soul.''
Much of the dissent centred on Robert Martin of Dangan, the leader of the Connacht Jacobites and a leading
Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
. Thady Brennan, Martin's servant, walked past the sentinel at the bridge carrying a gun and pistol, apparently for repair. The boy being a Catholic was disarmed, but Eyre returned the weapons to Martin with a message that if he was sending arms into the town he had better in future send them by persons qualified to carry such things. On Martin refusing to receive back his property, Eyre confiscated the weapons. The assizes coming on Martin served a summons on Eyre to appear before the judges and answer to a charge of larceny. Enclosing the following document to Secretary Wayte, Eyre wrote, ''"If the law was to be thus openly insulted, government would become impossible and neither the Property Act nor any other act, could be enforced in any part of Ireland."'' Eyre travelled to London on business, where he was followed and struck by Robert Martin. The two engaged in a lengthy sword-duel, with Martin emerging the winner. The two would remain antagonists, as Martin continued to recruit for Jacobite regiments in France, and is believed to have harboured
Bonnie Prince Charlie Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (31 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, making him the grandson of James VII and II, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, ...
on an incognito visit to Ireland in 1753. Froude described Eyre as ''"a man full of violent personal and religious animosities, intolerant of opposition, and much more fit of the command of a regiment than for the difficult task of governing a Catholic town."'' His descendants continued to live in the county into the late 19th century.


Note

Robert Martin of Dangan was the father of Colonel Richard Martin (1754–1834), Irish M.P. and animal rights activist, grandfather of
Thomas Barnwall Martin Thomas Barnwall Martin (1784 – April 1847) was an Irish landowner and politician. Martin was the eldest surviving son of Richard Martin, humanitarian and member of parliament for County Galway, by his first wife Elizabeth Vesey. Following a ...
M.P. (1784–1847), and great-grandfather of the novelist,
Mary Letitia Martin Mary Letitia Martin (1815–1850) was an Irish writer who was known as the "Princess of Connemara". Educated at home in the upper-class style, she was fluent in numerous languages. She published two books in her lifetime, and a third was published ...
, (1815–1850).


References

* ''The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century'',
James Anthony Froude James Anthony Froude ( ; 23 April 1818 – 20 October 1894) was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of ''Fraser's Magazine''. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergym ...
, 1874. * ''Signpost to Eyrecourt: Portrait of the Eyre Family'', Ida Gantz, 1975. * ''The Martin – Eyre Feud'', Adrian James Martyn, Galway Advertiser, 27 July–3 August 2000 * ''Remembering Eyrecourt: Vignettes and Tales of Earlier Days'', ed. John Joseph O'Meara, Michael Clarke, and Edin Brennan, 2003.


External references

* http://places.galwaylibrary.ie/history/chapter56.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Eyre, Stratford Military personnel from County Galway High sheriffs of County Galway 18th-century Irish military personnel