LAMBERT FAMILY IN ASSOCIATION WITH NATIONAL GRAVES ASSOCIATION ERECTS MONUMENT TO SIGNIFICANT FENIAN, MARKING 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH AND 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF FOUNDING OF IRISH REPUBLICAN BROTHERHOOD
On Sunday, 6th April 2008, the over 150-strong
Lambert Clan gathered in Glasnevin
Cemetery
to honour their ancestor, noted Dubliner Michael Lambert, on the 100th
anniversary of his death. In association with the NGA a headstone was unveiled
by grandchildren of the Fenian. In her oration Eva O Cathaoir, NGA, outlined the
circumstances leading to the rise of the Fenian movement, which was founded in
1858 – 150 years ago.
The Famine changed Irish society, from 1841 to 1851 this island lost 2 million of its people. By 1900, the 1841 population of 8 million had been halved to 4 million. There was growing concern among intellectuals, such as Charles Kickham, that soon there would be few Irish people left in the deserted countryside. Many felt that parliamentary agitation had been unsuccessful in addressing grievances, for instance, the unjust landlord-tenant relationship or the privileged position of the minority Church of Ireland. They decided to apply the teachings of Wolfe Tone, to break the connection with Britain, as the root of many of the country’s ills.
The
flight and exile of over 1 million Irish people after the Famine provided a
source of continuous financial support for revolutionaries at home for the first
time, creating a major threat to the British Empire. James Stephens founded the
Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin on 17 March 1858, having been promised
aid by the exiled John O’Mahony and a small group activists in New York. Few
Dubliners joined at first, but the funeral of Terence Bellew McManus, a Young
Irelander, in Glasnevin Cemetery in November 1861, was a major success for the
new movement. McManus had died exiled in San Francisco and his obsequies formed
the longest funeral procession in Irish history.
(Donnacha O,Mathuna National Graves Association Chairperson for the proceedings.)
Young men, like Michael Lambert, who joined the IRB were
typically talented individuals, with above average energy and intelligence, who
would have not come under police observation, had political and social
conditions in Ireland been satisfactory. These IRB activists demanded political
change and a meaningful role for themselves. (Until 1868 very few me
n
had the right to vote; political involvement was reserved for the propertied
classes.) The IRB began to flourish in Ireland and Britain, while its American
auxiliary, the Fenian Brotherhood under John O’Mahony, collected funds and
pledges from men who vowed to return to Ireland to fight in an insurrection.
This period of ‘Fenian fever’ saw Dublin Castle under increasing pressure by the
loyalist section of the population.
(headstone
unveiled by Liam Lambert Grandson and Patty Moffitt Great Grand Daughter) Michael
Lambert was a mathematical instrument maker, optician and jeweller, who was born
in Dublin in the early 1840s. At that time, those who involved themselves in
political agitation were often dismissed from their posts and the police
informed employers loyal to the British state of their activities. Lambert,
however, retained prestigious employment despite his IRB membership, indicating
that he must have been a scientist with specialist skills, which made him
difficult to replace. He probably got to know James Stephens, Jeremiah O’Donovan
Rossa and John O’Leary, when he was working in Parliament Street, close to the
Fenian newspaper office, the Irish People. The Fenian paper urged
a separation of church and state, which is
nowadays
accepted, but was shockingly revolutionary in the 1860s. Uneasy after continuous
police reports of thousands of IRB members drilling and preparing for
insurrection, Dublin Castle arrested the Irish People staff and
subsequently captured James Stephens, its driving force. The autocratic Fenian
chief mesmerised his public and was a superb propagandist and organiser; many of
his followers believed that if we was liberated, a rising would surely follow.
Col. Kelly, an American Fenian envoy, and John Devoy decided to rescue Stephens
from the Richmond Bridewell. Michael Lambert copied the necessary keys to enable
two warders of Fenian sympathies to get Stephens out. He climbed over the walls
and was received by a bodyguard, including Lambert and John Devoy, and spirited
away to a safe house on 24 November 1864.
(Gearoidin Mac Caba lays a wreath on behalf of
National Graves Association Trustee and P.R.O.)
According to Joseph Denieffe, one of the earliest Fenians, writing in 1906:
‘The key was made by Michael Lambert, a working optician and an
active member of the organisation. Mr. Lambert still resides in Dublin and
recently (June 3, 1905) the recipient of a handsome testimonial presented by his
friends and admirers’.
Stephens’s escape was a contemporary sensation and until the IRB staged the Easter Rising, this remained one of its greatest triumph. Stephens reached America, but the rising failed to materialise. Dissensions among the American wing and Stephens’s own manner, which was less than conciliatory, led to a split. When Stephens was deposed in December 1866, a group of Irish-American officers, survivors of the Civil War, decided to honour Fenian promises and pressed ahead with plans for a rising. Col. Kelly masterminded the insurrection of March 1867, which fizzled out speedily, due to lack of arms, funds and organisation. Michael Lambert participated, according to one police report he was second in command to the victorious Capt. Patrick Lennon, who marched out from Rathmines in a snow storm and took the police stations of Stepaside and Glencullen, before dispersing his force, as the main Fenian body, which was poorly armed and had (Wexford N.G.A. Rep Eamon Griffin reads a Poem.)lost contact with its leaders, had broken after being fired on by police at Tallaght. Another account states that Lambert acted as scout for General Halpin and his party in the Dublin Mountains.
Michael
Lambert had to flee to avoid arrest on a number of occasions and sought refuge
in Paris and London. He continued his IRB involvement, for instance, in 1869
important IRB documents were found in his home, when he was employed as foreman
by Howard Grubb and Co. of Rathmines, which made the reflector for the Melbourne
telescope. (There is every likelihood, that had he avoided nationalist
involvement, Lambert would have done well for himself financially.)
(Aoife O,Cathaoir delivers oration.)
To return to Ireland after the rescue of Stephens, Michael
Lambert asked a Jesuit priest to act as his intermediary with Superintendent
Mallon, then the chief detective officer in Dublin Castle. Fr. Norton said that
he had a heavy cope, which needed a clasp and that Lambert had offered to make
it, if allowed to return. Mallon, himself a Roman Catholic, provided a silver
uniform clasp as a fastening, but allowed Lambert’s request. He made a set of
silver tea spoons engraved with IHS instead, which he presented to the Jesuits
in Gardiner Street. These were stolen and Superintendent Mallon successfully
traced them to a Dublin pawn shop. The detective’s biographer illustrates the
respect in which this Fenian’s principles were held by the police:
‘Lambert’s homecoming was winked at by the police, and this for several reasons. It is true that some of the witnesses had left Dublin and others had died, but not the least potent of the considerations that weighed was the knowledge that Lambert had received nothing for the keys – that he had been actuated purely by what he believed to be a patriotic duty to the Fenians; and that although he had known all along where Stephens was in hiding, and that he (Lambert) had fallen upon some very rough times in Paris, he had never blabbed’. (Lock presented to Michael Lambert)
In later life, Michael Lambert set up his own business and became president of the Amnesty Association, which agitated on behalf of Fenian prisoners in British jails, supported dependants and collected funds to allow relatives to visit them. Thus he became acquainted with Michael Davitt, who agitated for prison reform. Lambert was among a group of prominent old Fenians, including Shawn O’Clohissy, seated on the platform of the Rotunda during O’Donovan Rossa’s visit to Dublin in August 1894. O’Cloghissy, a jeweller, was also an old Fenian and had been grand marshal at the McManus funeral in 1861, and later became the first president of the Dublin Trades Council. Both retained their admiration for James Stephens. (It is interesting to note that a retired member of the NGA governing body, Gerard McGowan, is a great-grandson of O’Cloghissy.)
In
1908 Michael Lambert insisted on accompanying some Irish-American veterans of
the Fenian rising on a commemorative walk to Tallaght, which overtaxed his
strength and led to his death on 14 August.
The IRB distinguishes itself among revolutionary bodies that, although defeated in the field in 1867, it continued as a small group of dedicated activists and at Easter 1916 staged a second, more successful, insurrection. It disbanded around 1924.
The NGA is honoured to care for the graves of many of those mentioned here, including Stephens, O’Donovan Rossa, O’Leary, O’Mahony and some of the rescuers of Stephens from the Richmond Bridewell, such as Devoy and Denis Duggan. Two founders of the NGA were Fenians: J. W. O’Beirne and James Stritch. It is to be regretted that such an important movement in modern Irish history as the IRB has received little recognition during this anniversary year.
.