IRELAND – LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD


Autograph letter signed ("E:F.") by Lord Edward FitzGerald to his sister Lucy, couched partly in the third person: "Thank my dearest Lucy for her Letter, I dont tell you the news for I saw Borne who told me he wrote it to Carton; I shall go to Kildare tomorrow, or send for Pam to Town for a few days, it depends upon some business that if I dont finish to day will keep me a few days I will write to you tomorrow and let you know if she comes I wish you would come and see her, but any how come to Kildare, if she dont come here – dont be uneasy dear Lucy; I wrote to Mother last night telling her the Fleet had left the Coast, I shall write again to night I long to see you"; with integral address leaf dated and bearing Lord Edward's Free Frank as an Member of the Irish House of Commons ("Dublin December thirty one 1796/ Lady Lucy FitzGerald/ Carton/ Maynooth/ Edw.d: FitzGerald"), 1 page, wafer seal, 4to, Dublin, 31 December 1796
|'I WROTE TO MOTHER LAST NIGHT TELLING HER THE FLEET HAD LEFT THE COAST' – LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD AWAITS NEWS OF HOCHE'S INVASION FLEET. The French fleet, with some fifteen thousand soldiers on board, had set sail from Brest that November, aiming to land at Bantry Bay and assist the planned rising of the United Irishmen under FitzGerald's command. The weather however was atrocious and although much of Hoche's fleet did manage to reach Bantry Bay in late December, any landing was out of the question, and the fleet limped back to port in Brest that January.But the fact that our letter refers, in however a guarded way, to the fleet is worthy of comment, for: 'By 1795 a consensus developed among the FitzGeralds to protect the family as Edward's radicalism deepened into treason. With Edward's prompting, they all agreed to avoid overt political commentary in their letters. The young FitzGerald girls were warned "never to leave their private opinion to the mercy of the post office" because "all the letters to and from FitzGeralds are opened" (NLI, MS 35,005). Between 1795 and 1798, despite the circulation of hundreds of letters within this intensely epistolary family, there is only trivial or vaguely general political comment' (Kevin Whelan, Dictionary of Irish Biography). Among all his adoring family, it was Lucy who was his most passionate defender: she 'wore her hair cropped, enjoyed Irish jigs and French revolutionary songs, made it known she had read Tom Paine, and spoke openly of her support for the United Irishmen... After Lord Edward's death (4 June 1798), and hoping to perpetuate his legacy, Lucy wrote an open letter, "To the Irish nation", in which she encouraged a continuance of the republican struggle... She also wrote to Thomas Paine, addressing him as "citizen" throughout and enclosing a likeness of her brother' (Frances Clarke and Sylvie Kleinman, IDOB).