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“Nothing is so bad for the Irish as Ireland alone”:1 William Keogh and Catholic loyalty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2015

Richard A. Keogh
Richard A. Keogh*
Affiliation:
University of Roehampton
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Extract

William Nicholas Keogh (1817–1878) has long been remembered as the placehunting lawyer who betrayed his country and wrecked the political fortunes of Irish constitutional nationalism for a generation. As a member of the fifty-strong Irish Independent Party of the early 1850s, Keogh pledged himself to independent opposition, only to accept ministerial office in 1852 as solicitor-general for Ireland. For this act Keogh has long been represented as a man who succumbed to personal ambition at the expense of a popular cause, which he allegedly supported with the sole objective of extracting political capital. Such was the ignominy with which he came to be regarded in later years that his name became a byword for betrayal, as evidenced by the fact that members of John Redmond’s Edwardian Irish Parliamentary Party were characterised as the Keoghs and Sadleirs of their day. Keogh’s infamy was exacerbated further by the inflammatory judgment he issued when presiding over the Galway election petition of 1872, for which he would be labelled ‘villifier-in-ordinary of the Irish priests’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 150 , November 2012 , pp. 230 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2012

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Footnotes

1

[KeoghWilliam] Ireland imperialized, a letter to his Excellency the Earl of Clarendon (Dublin, 1849), p. 6.

References

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63 The Nation, 1 and 15 Jan. 1853.

64 Ibid., 15 Jan. 1853.

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70 Galway Vindicator and Connaught Advertiser, 8 Jan. 1853.

71 Ibid., 5 Jan. 1853.

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109 Morning Post, 11 Aug. 1862.

110 The Times, 2 June 1865.

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120 Ibid., p. 25.

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125 The Nation, 15 Jun. 1872.

126 Ibid., 1 June 1872.

127 Ibid., 8 June 1872.

128 The Times, 16 July 1872.

129 Westmeath Independent and Midlands Advertiser, 1 June 1872.

130 The Times, 31 May 1872.

131 Ibid.

132 Larkin, , The Roman Catholic Church and the home rule movement, p. 131.Google Scholar

133 Tuam Herald, 20 Mar. 1875.

134 Hansard 3, ccxii, 1765 (25 July 1872).

135 Comerford, , ‘Isaac Butt and the home rule party’, p. 9.Google Scholar

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137 Ibid., p. 128; a similar thesis was offered by The Nation, 1 June 1872.

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141 Galway Vindicator and Connaught Advertiser, 1 June 1872.

142 Londonderry (Judge Keogh’s charge to a grand jury). Copies of the charge addressed by Mr. Justice Keogh to the grand jury of Londonderry on 18 March 1878, as reported in the “Derry Sentinel” of the following day; and of certain letters from Mr. Justice Keogh to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and the Attorney General for Ireland relating thereto. H.C. 1878 (112), LXIII.

143 The Nation, 24 Aug. 1878.

144 McCabe, ‘Keogh, William Nicholas’, DIB.

145 Westmeath Independent and Midlands Advertiser, 12 Oct. 1878.

146 Galway Vindicator and Connaught Advertiser, 12 Oct. 1878.

147 The author wishes to thank Prof. Donald M. MacRaild, Dr James McConnel, and the anonymous reviewers for Irish Historical Studies, for commenting on earlier drafts of this article.