The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

Duke of Rutland

Grattan and Dublin Castle

To the intense annoyance of the Grattan party the Marquis of Buckingham, who as Earl Temple had been viceroy in 1782, came over in December as the result of the king's influence. The question of the regency during George III.'s illness was acute in Dublin as in London, and the Irish Houses of Parliament, true to its reputation, rushed in with a resolution requesting the Prince of Wales to assume the regency. This motion the viceroy angrily declined to communicate to the Government or the prince, and Parliament thereupon censured him in explicit language. The sudden recovery of the king was a triumph for Buckingham's policy, and he dismissed his principal opponents in Dublin from office, utilizing the public funds to gain fresh adherents for his Government. This action caused Grattan to enter an eloquent protest against the 'expensive genius' of the Marquis of Buckingham. In vain did the viceroy attempt to undermine the position Grattan held. The most popular Irishman of his time could set the viceroy and his satellites at defiance, and all the money that could be filched from the Irish treasury was insufficient to bring about the downfall of the great orator. Grattan was not received at Dublin Castle during Buckingham's viceroyalty, but from his place in Parliament he could thunder at the Lord-Lieutenant and even frighten the ministry in London.

In Walpole's 'Journals of George III.'s Reign' there is an unflattering description of Buckingham, which depicts him as a liar and a thief, and more successful as the latter than the former. Proud and stubborn as he was, Buckingham was compelled to give way, and in September, 1789, to the great joy of the country, he announced his resignation. He left immediately, and dropped out of political life. During a debate on the Irish situation in 1799 he followed the Earl of Carlisle—another ex-viceroy—with a speech advocating the union with Ireland. This was a year after he had served in the rebellion of '98, commanding a regiment of Buckinghamshire militia in the country of which he never spoke without exhausting his powers of invective.

The task of naming the new viceroy fell to William Pitt, and, after considering the matter in conjunction with his own policy, he remembered his old fellow-student at Cambridge, John Fane, now tenth Earl of Westmoreland. The post was offered to and accepted by the earl, and in January, 1790, he was nominated Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Eight years previously he had startled and scandalized society by making a runaway marriage with the daughter of Child, the banker, and reputed to be the wealthiest heiress in the country. Westmoreland was a soldier and not a statesman, but he gladly accepted Pitt's offer, and, disdainful of the growing power of the new Irish party, sought to govern the country from the point of view of the rough and courageous soldier.

Earl of Westmoreland

The Irish Volunteer movement—a Protestant organization—had gained independence for the Irish Parliament, and, incidentally, compelled England to grant certain measures of relief to the Catholics because, with the Protestant community opposed to English misrule, it was necessary for the predominant partner to curry favour with the Catholics. Grattan, John Keogh, and other leaders, demanded complete Catholic emancipation, and the more sober-minded amongst the Protestants had come to realize that Ireland could not progress until the Catholics were freed from the obnoxious penal laws even then in existence.

The first law of nature had compelled the rival religionists to join forces, so that when Lord Westmoreland arrived in Ireland he was faced with the problem of dealing with a strong and united Irish party. Some years previously the Catholic Committee had been formed, and now, with Lord Kenmare and John Keogh controlling it, the organization was the most powerful in the country, with the notable exception of the Irish Volunteers. Keogh was a remarkable man in every way. A wealthy Dublin tradesman, he retired from business in order to fight the battle of Catholic Emancipation, and, although handicapped by internecine strife, succeeded in gaining the control of the Catholic Committee and directing its policy. The viceroy contributed to Keogh's triumph by contemptuously returning an address of welcome from the Catholic Committee because it contained a hope that further relief would be granted to Catholics.