O’Halloran footbridge recalls a Limerick surgeon and scholar

The Sylvester O’Halloran Footbridge spans the Abbey River close to its confluence with the River Shannon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

On my way from Saint Mary’s Cathedral back to the bus to Askeaton earlier this week, I crossed through the Potato Market, which faces the West Door of the cathedral, and over the Sylvester O’Halloran Footbridge, which crosses the Abbey River at the point where it flows into the River Shannon.

The Sylvester O’Halloran bridge is part of the Arthur’s Quay Park walkway and connects the Potato Market to the Hunt Museum. It is worth crossing simply for beautiful views it offers of the River Shannon, and many people use it daily on their way between Saint Mary’s Cathedral, King John’s Castle and the Hunt Museum.

A large amount of money was spent in the late 20th century and early 21st century on redeveloping areas of Limerick and renovating many of the old buildings. When Arthurs Quay was renovated in the late 1980s, a new walkway was placed along the waterfront and O’Halloran Bridge was built in 1987 as a link for the Hunt Museum and the Potato Market.

The bridge is 105 ft in length and originally the colours white, grey and black were suggested, but the architect Hugh Murray decided on blue to make the structure more noticeable. The colour of the bridge was changed to white in April 2008.

When Limerick Civic Trust and City Hall disagreed about the name of the bridge, two former Mayors, Jim Kemmy and Frank Prendergast, secured the name honouring Dr Sylvester O’Halloran (1728-1807), a Limerick surgeon with an influential interest in Gaelic poetry and history and who lived and practised in Limerick for most of his life.

Sylvester O’Halloran was born in 31 December 1728, the third son of Michael O’Halloran, a prosperous farmer at Caherdavin, Co Limerick, and his wife Mary McDonnell. His father is said to have fought in the Siege of Limerick in 1691. He was named after Sylvester Lloyd, the Roman Catholic bishop of Killaloe (1728-1739).

Sylvester and his brothers went on to a school in Limerick run by Robert Cashin, the Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Limerick. Cashin’s son, also Robert Cashin, was Prebendary of Saint Munchin's in Limerick Cathedral, Vicar General of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe, and Archdeacon of Ardfert (1767-1782).

Sylvester’s brother, Joseph Ignatius O’Halloran (1720-1800), became a Jesuit priest and was professor of rhetoric, philosophy and theology at the Jesuit College in Bordeaux before returning to live in Cork. Another brother, George O’Halloran, became a jeweller and a property-owner.

Sylvester went to London to study medicine at the age of 17. He continued with further studies in Leyden and in Paris, under the anatomist and academician Antoine Ferrein. In France, he was impressed with the Académie Royale de Chirurgie, founded in Paris in 1731.

He returned to Ireland and in early 1749 he set up practice as a surgeon in Limerick. In 1752, Sylvester married Mary Casey and they were the parents of four sons and a daughter. They lived at Change Lane and then on Merchants’ Quay, Limerick, close to the site of the present footbridge

He was a founder of the Co Limerick Infirmary in 1761. The infirmary began with four beds in 1761 and moved to larger premises at Saint Francis Abbey in 1765. The foundation stone of the original infirmary is now in the Sylvester O’Halloran Post-Graduate Centre at University Hospital, Limerick.

O’Halloran wrote several learned treatises on medical matters, including His medical publications included A New Treatise on Glaucoma, or Cataract in Ireland (1750) and A New Method of Amputation (1765).

His Proposals for the Advancement of Surgery in Ireland (1765) was instrumental in founding the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He was made an honorary member of the new Dublin Society of Surgeons in 1780, and when the RCSI received its charter in 1784 he was elected an honorary member, the equivalent to a Fellowship today.

O’Halloran was elected President of the Free Debating Society in Limerick in 1772 and was elected to a committee in 1783 that examined the Shannon navigation.

O’Halloran collected Gaelic poetry and historical manuscripts, and his many publications included An Introduction to the Study of the Antiquities of Ireland (1772), Ierne Defended (1774) and A General History of Ireland (London 1774, two volumes).

His interest in Gaelic history and poetry was driven by the historian James Macpherson (1736-1796) and his use of Gaelic tales of the Fianna. In the debate about Macpherson’s work, the Ossian Controversy, O’Halloran publicly denounced Macpherson’s work as a forgery in 1763, and he soon became renowned as a Gaelic antiquarian.

But O’Halloran had his critics too, and in the 1770s one critic suggested he should ‘drop any more scribbling, and mind the Systole and Diastole of the human body, which I suppose you are more acquainted with than history.’

His correspondents included Edmund Burke and Charles O’Conor of Belanagare. His learning was recognised when he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1787.

When Charlotte Brooke published the first English-language compendium of Irish poetry, the Reliques of Irish Poetry, in 1789, she credited O'Halloran for lending his manuscript collection and for writing the essential history underlying her anthology. The historian JC Beckett (1912-1996) includes O’Halloran among those aiming to vindicate achievements in pre-Norman Ireland.

Mary O’Halloran died in 1782. Sylvester O’Halloran died on 11 August 1807 and was buried in Saint Munchin’s graveyard in Killeely, now a suburb of Limerick.

His youngest son, Major-General Sir Joseph O’Halloran (1763-1843) of the East India Company, was the father of Thomas Shuldham O’Halloran (1797-1870), who gave his name to the suburb of O’Halloran Hill in Adelaide.

In time, all O’Halloran’s descendants emgrated to Australia. When the bridge was built, the Australian ambassador to Ireland, Frank Milne, visited the bridge in memory of his great-great grandfather.

The entrance to Sylvester O’Halloran Footbridge from the Potato Market in Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Two small reminders of the Cromwellian siege of Limerick in 1651

The pinnacles from Henry Ireton’s house now act as traffic bollards in the churchyard at Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

I have a schoolfriend who lives near Cambridge, where we meet occasionally for lunch or dinner. But he refuses to visit me in Sidney Sussex College because Oliver Cromwell’s portrait hangs in the Hall and Cromwell’s head is said to be buried in the ante-chapel.

I wonder, now that I am Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, whether my friend will decline to meet me in the cathedral because the pinnacles of Henry Ireton’s house in Limerick now stand in the cathedral churchyard.

The Ireton Pinnacles are a reminder of the brief presence in Limerick in 1651 of Henry Ireton (1611-1651), Oliver Cromwell’s son-in-law, who was the Major-General commanding Cromwell’s forces in Limerick during the siege of the city that year.

Ireton’s troops camped outside Saint Mary’s Cathedral and severely vandalised and damaged the cathedral. During the siege, Ireton lived in Ireton’s House, one of the Dutch gabled houses on Nicholas Street and originally known as Galwey’s Castle.

Henry Ireton was the eldest son of German Ireton of Attenborough, Nottinghamshire, and was baptised there in Saint Mary's Church on 3 November 1611. He became a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1626, graduated BA in 1629 and entered the Middle Temple that year.

At the outbreak of the English Civil War, Ireton joined the parliamentary army and fought at the battles of Edgehill (1642) and at Gainsborough (1643). Cromwell made him deputy-governor of the Isle of Ely and he served under the Earl of Manchester in the Yorkshire campaign and at the second Battle of Newbury, afterwards supporting Cromwell in his accusations of incompetency against Manchester.

On the night before the Battle of Naseby (1645), Ireton surprised the Royalist army and captured many prisoners. The next day, on Cromwell’s suggestion, he was made commissary-general and appointed to command the left wing, with Cromwell commanding the right. Ireton’s wing was completely broken by a charge led by Prince Rupert and Ireton was wounded and taken prisoner. But Cromwell charged and successfully routed the Royalists, freeing prisoners including Ireton.

Ireton was at the siege of Bristol (1645) and took part in the subsequent campaign that succeeded in overthrowing the royal cause. On 30 October 1645 Ireton entered parliament as MP for Appleby. During the siege of Oxford in 1646, he married Comwell’s eldest daughter Bridget.

Ireton was initially a moderate, arguing against the Republicans and the Levellers for a constitutional monarchy. But eventually, Ireton zealously supported putting Charles I on trial. He sat on the king’s trial and was one of the commissioners who signed his death warrant.

Ireton’s regiment was chosen to accompany Cromwell in his Irish campaign. Ireton arrived in Dublin two days after Cromwell on 17 August 1649, with 77 ships full of troops and supplies. Ireton was appointed major-general and after the conquest of the south of Ireland he became Lord President of Munster.

When Cromwell was recalled to England in May 1650, Ireton assumed command of the New Model Army in Ireland as Lord Deputy. He became known for both his military skills and the savagery of his methods.

A pinnacle from Henry Ireton’s house in the churchyard at Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

After a three-month siege of Waterford, Ireton advanced on Limerick. But by October he had to call off the siege because of cold, bad weather. Early in 1651, Ireton ordered that areas harbouring Irish resistance to be systematically stripped of food. By the end of the year, this scorched earth policy had created a famine.

Ireton returned to Limerick in June 1651 and besieged the city for five months until it surrendered in October 1651. At the same time, Ireton also inspected the Parliamentary siege of Galway. But the physical strain of his command took its toll on Ireton and he fell ill.

After the capture of Limerick, Ireton had several leading figures in Limerick hanged, including an Alderman, Bishop Turlough O’Brien (Terence Albert O’Brien) and an English Royalist officer, Colonel Fennell.

Ireton also wanted to hang the Irish commander, Hugh Dubh O’Neill, but Edmund Ludlow cancelled the order after Ireton’s death. In his historical novel, Destiny Our Choice (Hodder & Stoughton, 1987), John Attenborough (1908-1994) claims Ireton was influential in saving the life of Hugh O’Neill.

Ireton fell ill of the plague in Limerick and died on 26 November. In Limerick, his death was seen as divine retribution for the execution of Bishop O’Brien, who before his death called on Ireton to answer at God’s judgment seat for his murders.

The Hibernica Dominicana claims that on his death bed Ireton was muttering to himself ‘I never gave the aid of my counsel towards the murder of that bishop; never, never; it was the council of war did it… I wish I had never seen this popish bishop.’

Ireton’s body was embalmed and brought from Limerick to Bristol, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The monarchy was restored in 1660, and on 30 January 1661, the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I, Charles II had Ireton’s corpse exhumed at Westminster Abbey and mutilated in a posthumous execution, along with those of Cromwell and John Bradshaw, in retribution for signing his father’s death warrant. After Ireton's corpse was hanged at Tyburn, his head was exhibited at Westminster for at least 24 years.

Ireton and his wife Bridget Cromwell were the parents of a son, Henry Ireton, and four daughters. One daughter, Bridget Bendish (1650-1726), and her brother Henry were later implicated in the Rye House Plot to kill Charles II in 1683.

When Ireton’s House and other old houses on Nicholas Street fell into disrepair in the 19th century, they were pulled down. Two of the pinnacles from Ireton’s house at the corner of Nicholas Street and Bridge Street, beside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, were placed in the cathedral churchyard, where they still stand as bollards.

In a curious twist, the Limerick-born actor Richard Harris starred as Oliver Cromwell in the 1970 movie Cromwell, with Alec Guinness as Charles I. Michael Jayston plays Ireton as a subtle manipulator who hates Charles I and pushes Cromwell into actions that at first Cromwell considers neither desirable nor possible.

The entrance to Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick … Ireton’s house stood nearby until the 19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)