News Releases
Government Home Search Sitemap Contact Us  


NLIS 5
June 16, 2000
(Tourism, Culture and Recreation)


Irish delegation to attend plaque unveiling

On June 17, 43 members of the Carrigbyrne Pike Group of Wexford and officials from Ireland will be helping the Irish Newfoundland Association mark the 200th anniversary of an attempted mutiny in the garrison at St. John�s, and unveil a plaque marking the site of the event.

The plaque marks the occurrence in Newfoundland of a mutiny in the British Garrison in 1800, which was related to the United Irish Rebellion of 1798, considered to be a central event in Irish history. While the rebellion was widespread throughout Ireland, a great deal of the action was concentrated in County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland, where some 5,000 people lost their lives. Newfoundland was the only place in North America where an armed rebellion was attempted. Wexford had been a major source of Irish migrations to Newfoundland for decades. By 1798, two-thirds of the population of St. John's were Irish, as were most of the soldiers in the garrison.

The plaque will be unveiled at the site of the Old Powder Shed outside Fort Townshend, where the mutiny was planned, and where five of the local mutineers were eventually hanged. Eight others were jailed.

The ceremony will take place on Saturday, June 17, at 3:00 p.m. at the intersection of Barnes Road and Belvedere Street, across the street from Holy Heart of Mary High School in St. John�s. In addition to the Carrigbyrne Pike Group, the Signal Hill Tattoo of the Royal Newfoundland Companies will also be taking part. The ceremony will start with a parade from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary headquarters at Fort Townshend to the site of the plaquing, and will include the firing of the Tattoo's new cannon. The public is invited to attend.

In addition to the Wexford Pike Group, the Irish delegation will include Hugh Byrne, Minister of State for Marine and Natural Resources, Sean Doyle, Chair of the Wexford County Council, and Maeve Collins, First Secretary of the Irish Embassy in Ottawa. The province will be represented by the Walter Noel, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the City of St. John�s by Mayor Andy Wells.

The plaque was originally erected in the 1950s, but subsequently disappeared. After intensive research, in 1988 Dr. Paul O'Neill of the Irish Newfoundland Association rediscovered the plaque in the basement of 2 Belvedere Street, St. John�s, where the homeowner, Noel Rendell, had found it after purchasing the property. The City of St. John's has constructed a new cairn to display the plaque permanently.

The Irish delegation will be in the province until June 23, and will tour the city and the surrounding areas.

The ceremony to unveil the plaque will be broadcast line on the Internet on URL www.cfog.net

Media contacts:

Dr. Paul O�Neill, Irish Newfoundland Association, (709) 722-7372.

Catherina Kennedy Kelly, Intergovernmental Affairs, (709) 729-1341, 687-0302.

Elizabeth Matthews, Tourism, Culture and Recreation, (709) 729-0928.

Historical Backgrounder: The Mutiny in the Garrison at St. John�s, 1800

In Ireland in 1798 an oath-bound secret society known as the United Irishmen, a union of sworn Catholics, Protestants and Dissenters, came out in open rebellion against British rule. Among the leaders were Wolfe Tone, a Protestant, and Lord Edward FitzGerald, a Catholic, who were strongly influenced by the ideals of the American and French Revolutions. Poorly trained and ill-armed men marched out to meet the British army, only to see their hopes ultimately crushed by the might of a superior force. Echoes of the Rising of '98 have reverberated down through 200 years of Irish history. It is now recognized as the beginning of events that finally led to the independence of Ireland. In 1998, the Irish Newfoundland Association sponsored a public lecture and discussion of the rebellion at Hotel Newfoundland which featured three Irish historians, D�ire Keogh, Thomas Bartlett and Kevin Whelan, who were sent on a North American lecture tour by the Irish government to mark the 200th anniversary.

While the rebellion was widespread throughout Ireland, much of the action was concentrated in County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland, where some 5.000 people lost their lives. Wexford had been a major source of Irish migrations to Newfoundland for decades. By 1798, two-thirds of the population of St. John's were Irish, as were most of the soldiers in the garrison.

In April 1800, rumours circulated in St. John's that up to 400 men had taken the oath of the United Irishmen, including soldiers stationed at Signal Hill, Fort William, and Fort Townshend. It is believed that some 80 or more soldiers planned to meet at the powder shed which stood near what is now the juncture of Belvedere Street and Barnes Road, and mutiny. Their plan, allegedly, was to kill their officers and leading inhabitants in the town who had assembled for worship in the Church of England on Sunday, April 20. The leaders� purpose, or what they hoped to achieve by their insurrection, has never been made clear. Bishop O'Donel, who denied allegations that the Sunday plot included assassination at church, thought plunder and escape to America were the objectives. Others claimed it was an act of desperation to escape grim economic conditions and officer tyranny.

As things turned out, the garrison commander William Scared decided to place the entire regiment on parade that Sunday. Some soldiers involved in the plot, fearing discovery, panicked. On the following Thursday night, 19 soldiers took up arms and rendezvoused at the powder shed behind Fort Townshend, expecting to be joined by others. Soldiers from Fort William were unable to join them, however, because the commander there, Colonel Thomas Skinner, had scheduled a function that night. Word of the mutiny spread quickly, the alarm was raised, and the deserting soldiers were pursued. The mutineers meeting at the powder shed fled into the woods. Within weeks, all but two - Sergeant Kelly and James Murphy the alleged ringleaders - were captured. Four of the mutineers who informed on the others were not tried by court martial. Of the remaining 13, five were hanged near the powder shed, and eight were sent to Halifax to be dealt with by the Duke of Kent, Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in Nova Scotia. Within weeks of the mutiny, the remaining soldiers of the St. John's garrison were transferred to Halifax, where they witnessed the executions of three more mutineers: Garrett Fitzgerald, Edward Power and James Ivory. The remaining five United Irishmen were sentenced to transportation. The rising in Newfoundland was, as far as is known, the only one to occur which the British administration linked directly to the rebellion in Ireland.

2000 06 16                 3:45 p.m.


SearchHomeBack to GovernmentContact Us


All material copyright the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. No unauthorized copying or redeployment permitted. The Government assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of any material deployed on an unauthorized server.
Disclaimer/Copyright/Privacy Statement