Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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7 5 24 20111214 24 the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was being debated in the House of Commons, a meeting to press for the extension of the proposed act to Ireland was convened on 29 January 1851 in the Ro- tunda, Dublin. A number of peers and promi- nent Protestants attended and, speaking in the House of Commons on 21 March 1851, Mr B. Osborne MP said: The report of the meeting set forth that prayers were read, and the doxology sung, and the Kentish fire was given as a matter of course, when more than the usual ultra bigotry was to he expected. It was a curious fact, that when- ever any meeting in Ireland was commenced with the reading of prayers and the singing of the doxology, the most unchristian and unchar- itable speeches were sure to follow. 15 ‘Kentish Fire’, defined as ‘rapturous applause, or three times three and one more’, ... ‘arose from the protracted cheers given in Kent to the No-Popery orators in 1828–1829.’ 16 (This would have been when the Catholic Relief Bill was being discussed in Parliament.) The speak- ers at the meeting rehearsed the usual Irish Protestant bugbears of the day, calling for the abolition of the National Board of Education, the Poor Law legislation, and discontinuation of the royal grant to St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. The Revd Mortimer O'Sullivan went much further, vehemently calling for Maynooth to be closed and the Penal Laws to be re-imposed. He argued ‘that it was undeni- able that so long as the penal laws existed in Ireland there had been quietness and tranquil- lity.’ 17 The apparent reference to Larry Gro- gan occurred earlier in the meeting, when the chairman was being selected: Well, then, prayers having been read, and the doxology sung, and three rounds of the Ken- tish fire, the Earl of Enniskillen proposed that Mr. Grogan, the hon. Member for Dublin, take the chair; and he did so amid three rounds more of the Kentish fire, and cries of “More power to you, Larry Grogan!” Mr. Grogan was of opinion that all these Roman Catholic doings had been brought about by the encouragement which had been given to Roman Catholics by the Government giving them places, &c. After calling upon the Protestants of Ireland to stand by him, and upon the meeting to give three more cheers, he sat down. 18 Edward Grogan (1802–91), of Moyvore, co. Westmeath, Conservative MP for Dublin city, was a great-grandson of Edward Grogan of Ballytrain, co. Wexford, an older brother of Larry’s. He became the senior male represen- tative of the Grogans when Hamilton Knox Grogan-Morgan died in 1854, leaving the Johnstown estate to his two daughters. 19 The use of ‘More power to you, Larry Grogan’ as a celebratory cheer to urge on a Grogan sug- gests that it was one of those phrases that be- come attached in folklore to a particular family. To suggest that the piper was the Larry in ques- tion seems reasonable, given his reputation for rakish jollity and good spirits – though his great-great-grandnephew would probably have disapproved of his lifestyle. 20 1 Seán Donnelly, ‘Ecstasy in eighteenth-century Kildare? The strange fate of John Lattin of Morristown Lattin (1731)’, Journal of the Kil- dare and district archaeological Society xviii, 4 (1998–99), 565–88. Online edition @ http://www.setdance.com/journal/lattin.html 2 Old Irish folk music and songs (Dublin, 1909), p. 282. 3 Dublin, National Library of Ireland: Genealogi- cal Office Ms 164, p. 218. Pedigree of the an- cient and respectable family of Grogan of Johnstown in the County of Wexford. 4 Dublin, National Library of Ireland: Ms 11, 103. Fifteen documents dealing with the history of the Grogan and Esmonde families of John- stown, co. Wexford. 5 Hilary Murphy, Families of co. Wexford (Wex- ford, 1986), pp. 154–7. 6 Lord Oranmore and Browne, ‘The Brownes of Castlemacgarrett’, Journal of the Galway Ar- chaeological and Historical Society v (1907– 8), pp. 230–1. NOTES

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2011-12-01T00:00:00

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