JAMES WEXTED STENSON - LIMERICK FENIAN
On 18 November 2009, the
NGA completed research for the 150th Anniversary of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood in Limerick, having already erecting monuments to
Fenians in Cork and London to mark this historic year. The grave of a forgotten
Limerick Fenian was located after research in various archives.
James Wexted Stenson was a compositor and pub keeper in Thomondgate, Limerick during the 1860s, before becoming colour-sergeant of the Limerick City Militia. In that position he came under suspicion of having shown Col. Byron, an American Civil War hero and Fenian organiser sent to Ireland, over the Castle Barracks. Byron apparently made drawings of the barracks for the proposed Fenian rising; both were arrested and detained without trial. Stenson’s pub had also attracted attention as a Fenian meeting place. Stenson was released after months in Limerick Jail in poor health. When he died not long after his release, aged 34, leaving a wife and four young children, his contemporaries felt he had sacrificed his life for Ireland. His funeral, in atrocious weather, was attended by 2,000 people, including 500 young women wearing green ribbons on their bonnets, while the men competed for the honour to carry his coffin. Many mourners carried green laurel branches and many “respectable persons” participated, including three priests, despite the Catholic hierarchy’s condemnation of the movement.
A
contemporary newspaper reported:“Great Funeral Demonstration in Limerick”
“The remains of a true Irishman, named James Stenson, whose death resulted from a lenghtened incaceration in the county of Limerick gaol, where he was confined under the habeas corpus suspension act (and where the most fiendish regime of gaol rules ever made have been carried out against the hapless victims of English misrule who have from time to time got into the tender keeping of its officials), was conveyed on Sunday last to St. Laurence’s Catholic Cemetery, near this city, and, notwithstanding the heavy and constant downpour of rain which lasted throughout the evening and delayed the funeral till a late hour, the cortege comprised nearly 2,000 people…”
His headstone bears the legend "God save Ireland", alluding to the sacrifice of the Manchester Martyrs who had been executed on 23 November 1867.
Erected by his friends
To the memory of
James Stenson
A man of unblemished life
And a martyr to his love of country
Died June 18th 1868
Aged 34 years
He rests not far from the graves of his fellow Fenians, the Daly family of Limerick. John and Edward Daly participated as young men in the rising of 1867. The latter became the father of Edward Daly of 1916 fame, as well as of Kathleen, later Mrs. Tom Clarke, and her patriotic sisters, but died young. John Daly, however, persevered and survived a lengthy imprisonment in England to participate in the preparations for the Easter Rising.
The NGA was delighted to locate and record James Stenson’s grave in Mount St. Laurence Cemetery in Limerick; a committee member has since laid a wreath to his memory.