23/7/2019
This story came from another of those chance encounters while touring Ireland back in the 1990s.
It was over breakfast in a B&B in Ballinhassig in County Cork, when things were still going just a bit crazy up in Northern Ireland, and there’s only Herself and me and a Dublin man this particular morning.
After intros, we quickly settle into a chat across our tables - as you do – and he’s telling us he does a weekly run down south and south-west with ‘deliveries’ (which he doesn’t elaborate on), and that he uses this B&B every Wednesday night.
We move on to things on the news, and inevitably edge our way into events in Ulster, a topic that you tend to approach a bit respectfully, but - like others we’ve spoken to – we’re interested in getting his point of view, on Northern Ireland, on the IRA. And typically for a Republic native, he’s very strong in condemnation, and with a quiet passion says how he hates what the IRA are doing ‘in his name’, and reckons that the majority in the south feel the same, as if it’s somehow all been attached to them without their consent, like some disreputable cousin they can’t seem to get rid of.
Similar subject, but probably to steer to things a touch lighter, it’s then he tells us about one of his distant relatives, one Mick Dwyer – “Dwyer of the Hills”.
Mick Dwyer was his grandmother’s uncle he thinks, and apparently Mick used to come down from the Wicklow Mountains and raid the Brit stations in the outskirts of Dublin every so often in the late 1700s, “...to carry off a bit a loot and make a general pest of himself, much to the delight of the locals.”
But he thinks he finally got nabbed when they offered him an amnesty and a one-way trip to America for him and his family, because “...when the trusting fool gave himself up he was charged and got transported to New South Wales instead. But he had the last laugh now, as he went on to become a publican when Capt Bligh of the Bounty gave him his ticket of leave, and he set about drinkin’ himself to death,” and he has a good old chuckle.
I mean, you just HAVE to chase down a story like that. And it goes like this -
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Michael Dwyer was born about 1770 in Co Wicklow, the eldest of the seven children of John and Mary Dwyer, who took up a 24 acre mountain Wicklow farm when Michael was about 12, and he worked as an ostler for a local family and also helped his father with his sheep.
But his downfall began when he was talked into bigger things in 1803, got himself all caught up in Robert Emmet’s conspiracy, where to his credit he held up his end of the rising by doing what he did best - creating ‘diversionary actions’ in Co. Wicklow.
With so many members of his extended family facing transportation, and his rebel mates looking at execution, Mick finally surrendered in Dec 1803, believing he and his family would be shipped off to exile in America. As promised. Which didn’t seem too bad a deal. But they whacked him straight into Kilmainham Gaol for a year or two, then shipped him and his wife Mary and their two eldest kids – their four younger ones were left behind with relatives – to Exile For Life in New South Wales.
Okay, so it wasn’t America, but at least he wasn’t in chains. AND he was granted a hundred acres of scrub out on Cabramatta Creek, him and a few of his rebel mates. But even that wasn’t going to last.
The colony was being de facto run by the NSW Regiment, the infamous “Rum Corps”.
Capt Bligh (of ‘Bounty’ fame) was Governor.
Bligh had a large chip on his shoulder.
Bligh didn’t get on with The Rum Corps.
But Bligh also had no time for Irish Catholics.
So, in 1807, when Blight was convinced that an Irish uprising was afoot in the colony (and godknows the place needed a bit of a shake up!), he soon had a bunch of them arrested. Yep, including Mick and all of his Irish mates.
The Sydney Gazette bellowed “...some designing Irish Prisoners who had artfully instilled into the minds of their countrymen a certainty of taking the Country and gaining their liberty... (even though) ...at the present moment they are, particularly, living under greater comforts than ever fall to the lot of the labouring poor of any part of the World.”
Ah, wonderfully pompous stuff.
Anyway, Mick was tried for sedition, but actually got off, with the help of Australia’s first Jewish policeman. But Bligh said this was all rubbish and tried him again, zap zap zap found guilty, stripped of his free status and sent to the hellhole of Norfolk Island Penal Colony, and instructed the bloke in charge out there that “Dwyer was a convict for life”, all of which for some reason got right up The Rum Corps collective noses, not for any loyalty they had to the down-trodden Irish, but simply because it was all Bligh’s doing. So Mick was shipped off to Van Diemens Land for a year instead. As if that was any better!
But finally Bligh was chucked out by the Establishment back home for being a total whatsit, and a better life – including Mick’s release – began under the new Gov Macquarie. Good times indeed, as by 1812 Mick – still only about 40 - was back on his bit of land, was made a constable and a poundkeeper, did well, and by 1820 he had a large holding of over six hundred acres of fairly prime NSW farming real estate, and a pub called “The Harrow Inn”.
But Mick liked a drink. Way too much. Which got him chucked out of the constabulary for over-indulgence and sloppy paperwork, and by 1825 he had to sell everything he owned in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, but even this couldn’t keep him out of the Sydney Debtors Prison.
And it was here that Mick was to soon meet his end, rather ingloriously from dysentery. He was 55. But man-oh-man, he’d surely packed a lot into those 55 years!
But even in death he couldn’t get a rest, as he was buried first in Liverpool, then some 50 years later re-interred in Sydney by a well-meaning grandson who just happened to be the Dean of St Mary's Cathedral. But still no rest for Mick! Even in death this poor guy was busy!!
In 1898 the coincidence of the planned closure of the cemetery, and the centenary celebrations for the 1798 Rebellion back home, and Mick - and Mary too by now – were up and off to Waverley Cemetery, where a substantial memorial was soon erected, with huge crowds in attendance.
And finally, a bit of peace. “The Wicklow Chief” was at last at rest. This is one bloke who definitely did not have a boring life! Swing by and say hullo to him if you’re ever in the neighbourhood. Godknows he’s hard to miss!
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