Priest, scholar
Born to a merchant family in Waterford, Wadding went to Portugal at 14 years of age and studied under the Jesuits. He subsequently joined the Franciscans and was ordained a priest in 1613. He became a professor of theology at the Irish University in Salamanca in 1617, but in 1625 he was sent to Rome by King Philip III to promote the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. He remained thereafter in Rome where he founded in 1625 a college for Irish Franciscans and in 1627 another college for Irish secular or diocesan clergy. He was responsible for having March 17 liturgically recognized as the feast of St. PATRICK. He published a 36-volume history of the Franciscans and a critical edition of the works of Duns Scotus. He served in various curial offices, including the Congregations of Rites, Propaganda, and the Index, and was a promoter of the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, securing papal support, including the sending of Giovanni Battista Rinuccini as nuncio to Ireland in 1645. He rejected all honors, including elevation to cardinal, remaining a simple priest until his death.
Walker, George (1646-1690)
Governor of Derry
Born in County Tyrone, Walker was the Church OF Ireland rector at Donoughmore, County Tyrone. He raised a Protestant force in late 1688 to resist the Jacobite army, but was forced to take refuge in the walled city of Derry the following spring. Among those critical of Robert Lundy for being willing to bargain with Jacobites, he and Major Henry Baker, the joint governors of the city, gained credit for successfully withstanding the siege. His diary of the events, A True Account of the Siege of Londonderry (1689) won him great applause, especially when he reported on the event in London. Other contemporary accounts dispute his central role, particular that by Presbyterian minister John Mackenzie, Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry (1690). Nonetheless Walker was made bishop of Derry, but he was killed at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
Walsh, Maurice (1879-1964)
Writer
Born in Listowel, County Kerry, Walsh joined the civil service in 1901 and served as an excise officer in Scotland, England, and the west of Ireland until 1923, when he joined the service of the Irish Free State government. He retired from the civil service in 1933, but even before had begun to write novels. His first, The Key above the Door (1926), was bought by a publisher for 100 pounds, but later sold 150,000 copies. Other volumes include While Rivers Run (1928), The Small Dark Man (1929), and The Road to Nowhere (1934). He wrote short stories as well, the most celebrated, The Quiet Man, which appeared in the collection The Green Rushes (1935) and for which a film version was produced by John Ford, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.
Walsh, Peter (circa 1600-1670)
Priest
Walsh was a Franciscan priest who had led clerical opposition to the influence of papal nuncio Giovanni Battista Rinuccini on the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny in the 1640s. At the time of the restoration, in the early 1660s, he advocated that Irish Catholics agree to a loyal remonstrance, or declaration of loyalty, to the king in which they disavowed any allegiance to the papacy in temporal matters and rejected the papal right to depose monarchs. The hierarchy rejected his proposal.
Walsh, William (1841-1921)
Archbishop of Dublin
Born in Dublin, Walsh was educated at the Catholic University and at Maynooth, where he became a professor of theology from 1867 to 1878, then vice president from 1878 to 1880, and president from 1880 to 1885. He became archbishop of Dublin in 1885. He was sympathetic to the Land League and to Charles Stewart Parnell, and he worked to mitigate the implications of papal condemnation of the Plan of Campaign. He was a supporter of bimetallism, that is, a joint gold and silver basis for currency, and wrote a book on the subject. Committed to Catholic education on primary, secondary, and advanced levels, he served in numerous public appointed posts, which facilitated his efforts to further that goal. They included commissioner of intermediate education (1892 to 1918), commissioner of national education (1895-1901), and first chancellor of the National University of Ireland. A contributor to numerous periodicals, such as Freeman’s Journal, Contemporary Review, and Dublin Review, he wrote a number of books on a variety of subjects, including Harmony of the Gospels (1879), Grammar of Gregorian Music (1885), The Irish University Question (1897), and O’Connell and Archbishop Murray and the Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests (1916). He was sympathetic to Sinn Fbin and opposed the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. Possibly his outspoken political views as a nation alist inhibited his becoming a cardinal, as had his two predecessors.
Walton, Ernest Thomas Slnton
(1903-1995)
Physicist
Born in Dungarvan, County Waterford, Walton was educated at Cookstown Academy, Ban-bridge Academy, and Methodist College, Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and Cambridge. While working with Ernest Rutherford in Cambridge, he and J. D. Cockcroft produced an instrument with which they were able to "split the atom," and for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1951. He returned to Trinity in 1934 and became the Erasmus Smith Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. Walton also became head of the physics department. He was an official in the Royal Irish Academy.
War of Independence
Sometimes called the Anglo-Irish War, the war began with an assault on the Royal Irish Con stabulary in Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, by members of the Irish Volunteers. It occurred about the same time Sinn Fbin members elected to the Westminster parliament in the 1918 general election were meeting in Dublin to form the Dail Bireann. The first phase of the war consisted of attacks by Irish Volunteers on RIC barracks throughout the countryside, which achieved the purpose of inducing massive numbers of resignations from the force. The Dail fiireann came to regard the Irish Volunteers as the Army of the Irish Republic, or the IRA. The Dail also approved the establishment of a rival court system to supplant the existing judiciary and succeeded in getting most of the local and popularly elected authorities to recognize it as the government of Ireland, even at the cost of losing essential grants from the British. The British response to what was happening was mixed, at times treating it as a matter of law enforcement, but at other times as a war. The army presence was reinforced. Replacements for the depleted RIC were found in the notorious Black and Tans and an equally outrageous force of Auxiliaries. An important figure in the war on the Irish side was Michael Collins, who held the official title of minister for finance, but who, more importantly, served as director of intelligence and head of the Irish Republican Broth erhood. A rival was Cathal Brugha, minister for defense, whose authority was largely ignored by Collins in directing, through the IRB, the guerrilla war campaign. Particular bitter incidents took place in November 1920, when Collins's squads killed several British agents in Dublin and on the same day the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries retaliated by firing on a crowd at a football match in Dublin. There were several retaliatory burnings and sackings of towns by the Auxiliaries and a dramatic, ultimately fatal, hunger strike by Terence MacSwiney, the Sinn Fein lord mayor of Cork. Soon after one major assault on the Customs House, which failed, in response to the demands of Brugha for a more conventional form of warfare, peace feelers began and in July 1921 a truce took place with existing forces allowed to keep their respective positions and abstain from confrontation. Subsequent negotiations resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921.
Waterford
Waterford, which is in the province of Munster, is a maritime county bounded on the south by the Celtic Sea, on the west by Cork, on the north by Tipperary and Kilkenny, and on the east by Wexford. The population stands at slightly more than 100,000 and it has an area of 710 square miles. The northern part of the county contains two mountain ranges, the Comeraghs and the Knockmealdowns, while the east is low lying. Farming and fishing are common activities in the county, although there are several towns that have harbors, such as the county town, Dungarvin, and Tramore. But most significant is the city of Waterford, an inland port near the meeting of the Barrow and the Suir Rivers. Founded in the 10th century by the Vikings, it was captured by the Normans in 1170, and for
The town of Dunmore in County Waterford (Library of Congress)
The remainder of the medieval and early modern period, it was the second city of Ireland. Its economy featured shipbuilding and trade, notably exportation of wool and hides to Flanders and other continental ports and importation of wines. The city vigorously resisted efforts to impose Protestantism in the reign of Elizabeth I. Identified closely with the Catholic Confeder ation OF Kilkenny, the city was subjected to a siege by Cromwell in 1649 and was subsequently dominated by a Protestant oligarchy. Domination by the Protestant Ascendancy led to modernization of the town with the removal of medieval walls and the construction of Georgian streets and buildings. Catholics predominated in the countryside and in the later 18th and early 19th centuries became part of the flourishing middle class of the city, when the export of bacon and flour became important. However, as the 19th century advanced, development of waterford remained stagnant. Even a crystal business started in 1783 was forced to close. The population of the town dropped from 40,000 in 1800 to 23,000 in 1841 and barely climbed to 27,000 in 1900. Residents were not drawn to the nationalist revolutionary spirit of the early 20th century, as they continued to return the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate in 1918 when Sinn Fbin swept all before it in much of Ireland. The revival of the crystal industry in 1947 paved the way for development and expansion, including extensive urban renewal and revitalized trade with the Continent.
Wellesley, Arthur, duke of Wellington
See Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, duke of.
Wellesley, Richard Culley (1760-1842)
Politician
Born in County Meath, Wellesley was the elder brother of the Duke of Wellington. He served as governor-general of India from 1798 to 1805 and LORD lieutenant of Ireland from 1821 to 1828 and from 1833 to 1834. He was sympathetic to Catholic emancipation, for which reason he was recalled by his brother in 1828. He placed restrictions on Orange Order demonstrations, which prompted a bottle being thrown at him in the theater. During his second tenure he dealt with the tithe agitation of the Whiteboys and suspended habeas corpus. However, he also worked to remove bigots from the magistracy and the police.
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, duke of (1769-1852)
Soldier, politician
Born in Dublin, Wellesley spent most of his career as a British military commander, serving with exceptional prominence in the wars against Napoleon, and then as a politician, serving in various cabinets and as prime minister. He sat in the Irish parliament for Trim from 1790 to 1795 and supported the Catholic relief bill of 1793. He was chief secretary from 1807 to 1809, but devoted his attention to his military commitments elsewhere. As prime minister he originally opposed Catholic emancipation, but acquiesced in its adoption after Daniel O'Connell's electoral success in Clare in 1828.
Wentworth, Thomas, earl of Strafford
See Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, first earl of.
Wesley, John (1703-1791)
Clergyman
Born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, and educated at oxford, Wesley was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1728. He was disturbed by the absence of religious enthusiasm in the church in the mid-18th century as bishoprics and vicarages were increasingly filled with political appointees, a deistic temperament seemed to prevail, and the lack of availability of religious service for many, especially in the increasingly populated centers of industry and mining where popular needs were not met by parish boundaries organized according to a rural social structure. His criticisms of the church and his "revivalist" style of services created great animosity toward him, but he never broke with the church, although his followers did so after his death in establishing the Methodist Church. He was also very critical of Calvinism and Catholicism. Hostility toward the latter was a partial reason for his making 21 missions to Ireland to further his concept of religious enthusiasm. After his death there were 15,000 Methodists in Ireland.
West, Harry (1917-2004)
Politician
Harry West was a member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for Enniskillen from 1954 to 1972 and was Northern Ireland minister for agriculture from 1960 to 1966 and 1971 to 1972. He opposed Brian Faulkner's policy of power sharing and replaced him as leader of the ULSTER UNIONIST Party in 1974, when he led the party into a United Ulster Unionist Coalition, joining the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party and the Demo cratic Unionist Party in putting up single anti-SUNNiNGDALE Unionist candidates in all 12 constituencies. He himself was elected to parliament for Fermanagh-South Tyrone as he benefited from a split in the nationalist vote in that constituency. However, he lost in the October vote when a single nationalist candidate ran. He replaced Brian Faulkner as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. West was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 and to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975, in both instances for Fermanagh-South Tyrone, but was not elected to the European Parliament in 1979, after which he resigned his leadership of the party. He lost in a by-election to fill the Westminster seat for Fermanagh-South Tyrone in April 1981 to Bobby Sands, the candidate hunger STRIKE. He remained an active member of the Ulster Unionist Council.
Shannon, Lough Ree, and with the counties of Longford and Roscommon. Important towns are Athlone to the west and the county town, Mullingar, to the west. originally intended to be part of the Norman settlement, most of it slipped out of the Pale and remained Gaelicized, assuming an almost frontier-like character. In 1542 it was designated a separate county from Meath. Its topography is primarily gentle pasture area with some raised bogs. The 19th-century Royal Canal, linking Dublin with the Shannon, dissects the county. The town of Athlone was besieged three times by the Williamite forces in 1690. Famous natives of the county include the tenor John McCormick and the novelist Brinsley MacNamara. One of the county's larger lakes, Lough Derrevaragh, was the site of the ancient legend about the Children of Lir.
Wexford
A county at the southeast corner of Ireland, Wexford has population of over 116,000 and an area of 907 square miles. The county is bounded by St. George's Channel on the east, by the River Barrow on the west, and by the Celtic Sea on the south. The Slanney River bisects the county. The county town, Wexford, was founded by the Vikings and further developed by the Normans. It is one of the more intensively tillaged counties in Ireland, while its coast features dunes, sandbanks, and some erosion. Its port of Rosslare serves as the ferry gateway to Britain and the Continent. Besides farming, the county has a variety of manufacturing industries and is a major center for freight forwarding, haulage, and shipping. The town was sacked by Cromwell in 1649 and the county was the scene of major action in the Rising of 1798. Famous natives include the politician James Dillon, the Arctic explorer Robert John Le Mesurier McClure, and Irish Parliamentary Party political figures John and William Redmond.
Westmeath
A midlands county in Leinster, Westmeath has a population of 72,000 and an area of 679 square miles. It shares boundaries with the river
Whaley, Thomas (1766-1800)
Politician, eccentric
Born in Dublin, Whaley inherited a massive fortune as a teenager. He was a member of the Irish parliament for Newcastle, County Down, in 1785 and later for Enniscorthy. He accepted bribes from both sides in the debate over the Act OF Union, which he first voted for and then against. Whaley was a notorious gambler who accumulated enormous debts. However, his victory in a wager that he could travel to Jerusalem and return within a year marked one of his celebrated winnings.
Wheatley, Francis (1747-1801)
Painter
Born and trained in London, Wheatley was a portrait and a landscape painter. He visited ireland in 1767 and returned in 1779 to escape creditors. He was soon employed to paint portraits. He also painted a number of subjects that would be of historical importance. Celebrated works include A View of the College Green with the Meeting of the Volunteers on the 4th of November 1779, The Irish House of Commons in 1780, and Henry Grattan Urging the Claim of Irish Right. He returned to London, and exhibited paintings with irish subjects, many done from sketches he had made while in Ireland, such as Donnybrook Fair. Wheatley became a member of the Royal Academy in 1791.
Whitaker, T. K. (Thomas Kenneth Whitaker) (1916- )
Economist, public servant
Born in Rostrevor, County Down, Whitaker was educated at the Irish Christian Brothers' School in Drogheda and later obtained a B. A. in mathematics, economics, and Celtic studies and subsequently a M. sc. in economics from the University of London. He did extremely well in civil service examinations and advanced rapidly in the Department of Finance, where he became secretary of the department at the age of 39. In that position he organized a detailed study of the then stagnant irish economy and drafted a Programme for Economic Expansion, which was published as a white paper in November 1958. The program, which called for abandonment of a protectionist and primarily agricultural economy and for the acceptance of free trade, international competition, and industrialization, became the guide for the economic rejuvenation and modernization that began during the government of Sean Lemass. Whitaker also organized the breakthrough exchange of visits between Lemass and Terence O'Neill in 1965. He left the Department of Finance in 1969 and became governor of the Central Bank until 1976. He was named to the Seanad from 1977 to 1982. He chaired several public bodies including the National Industrial and Economic Council (1963 to 1967), the Economic and Social Research Institute (1974-87), the Council of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (1980), president of the Royal Irish Academy (1985-87), chairman of the Committee of Enquiry into the Penal System (1983-85), and chancellor of the National University of Ireland (1976-96). He received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, Queen's University Belfast, and the University of Ulster.
Whiteboys
The Whiteboys were participants in an agrarian protest movement, primarily in the 1760s, that started in Tipperary, and spread to Limerick, Waterford, Cork, Kilkenny, and later to Laios, Carlow, and Wexford. They wore white sheets over their regular clothing at their assemblies and threatened landlords and their agents, whose property they attacked in protest over enclosures of common land, the encroachment of pasture on tillage land, tithes, and evictions. The nickname of the movement, "Whiteboys," became the common name for agrarian protest and was the name given to legislation, which even listed certain offenses as capital, passed to restrain them.
Wicklow
Wicklow is a maritime county in Leinster, bordered on the north by Dublin, on the south by
Wexford, on the west by Kildare and Carlow, and on the east by the Irish Sea. It has a population of over 114,000 and an area of 784 square miles. Much of the county consists of mountain ranges, including the second highest mountain in Ireland, Lugnaquilla, and strikingly beautiful landscapes, such as those seen at the Glen of the Downs, Glendalough, Glenmacnass, and the Vale of Avoca. Glendalough is the site of an early Christian monastery founded by St. Kevin. The mountains were places of refuge for rebels, especially after the Rising of 1798. The county contains many stately homes of the era of the Protestant Ascendancy, such as the ruins of Powerscourt and Russborough House (which houses the Alfred Beit art collection). Another attraction is Avondale House, the home of Charles Stewart Parnell. Besides agriculture and various forms of food processing, the county has numerous other industries, including computer software, refrigeration motors, pharmaceutical chemicals, veterinary products, and telecommunications equipment. The county town is Wicklow and other towns, mainly on the coast, are Bray, Greystones, and Arklow. Important natives besides Parnell include Robert Barton, Robert Erskine Childers, and the 1798 rebels Michael Dwyer and Joseph Holt.
Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900)
Writer
Born in Dublin, the son of a celebrated surgeon and a feminist poet, Wilde was educated at Trin ity College Dublin and at Magdalen College oxford as a scholar of the classics. He was influenced by the aesthetics of John Ruskin and Walter Pater. Wilde settled in London in 1879 and became a writer, lecturer, and critic. He established a reputation as a dandy and as a wit, and even went on a lecture tour of the United States in 1882 to accompany and act as a foil to the touring Gilbert and Sullivan musical Patience, which satirized the aesthetic movement. He returned from America, married, and had two sons. He edited a women's magazine, Women’s World, wrote essays, such as "The Critic as Artist" and "The Truth of Masks," and plays, which were a study of manners and which satirized high society, such as Lady Windermere’s Fan (1891), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), and An Ideal Husband (1895). One play, Salome (1893) was banned, but later performed in Paris. His celebrated novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891), about a hedonist who retains his youth while his portrait manifests his personal decay, provoked great praise and rebuke. In 1895 he sued the Marquis of Queensberry for libel, when the later accused him of being a sodomite, as he was having a homosexual affair with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel suit backfired as the extent of Wilde's involvement in the homosexual world of the time became public. He was subsequently convicted and imprisoned for two years for gross indecency. He wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1896) about his experience in prison. Upon release, broken in spirit and ill, he drifted to Paris, where he died from meningitis. While in prison he wrote a letter to Douglas, De Profundis, an autobiographical apologia that was published in 1905.
Wild Geese
The Wild Geese refers to the thousands of Irish men and women who went to the Continent in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, usually fleeing imposition of the new order being imposed on Ireland, especially in religious matters, but also in the holding of land. They were of both Old English and Irish backgrounds. Since many of them were from a noble position in Ireland, they gained positions in various continental armies, especially those of the great Catholic powers, originally Spain, but later Austria and France. A substantial number arrived after the defeat of the Jacobite forces in 1691. The role of the Irish in several victories by continental armies against the English, especially during the mid-18th century wars, was a source of great satisfaction for the exiles. The Irish often brought their families with them and drew further relatives in subsequent years. They played important roles in continental European societies, military, political, and commercial, and actively supported the various Irish colleges on the Continent that educated clergy for Ireland, especially during the era of the Penal Laws. Some Irish sided with the monarchy during the French Revolution and others served in the Napoleonic armies.
William III (1650-1702)
King of England
William was the son of the Prince of Orange, ruler of the Netherlands, and of Mary, the sister of Charles II and James II of England. He married Mary, the daughter of James II and his first wife, in 1677. When James, who had converted to Catholicism, succeeded to the throne in 1685, anxieties mounted among Protestants. They intensified and spread to the ordinarily loyalist "Tories" who accepted a Catholic king as a temporary measure preferable to the election of a ruler who might usher in a return to the republicanism of the era of Cromwell. However, when James became increasingly impolitic in his awarding of position and favors to co-religionists, especially in Ireland, a coalition of Whigs and Tories invited William and his wife Mary to assume the throne. James fled, but challenged the coup d'etat from exile. The Irish parliament, summoned by his lord lieutenant, and predominantly Catholic in membership, the Patriot Parliament, continued to regard James as King of Ireland. Ireland became the focal point of what was becoming a grand alliance against Louis XIV of France, who was a patron of James. Both William and James confronted each other at the Battle of the boyne, with William's forces triumphing. James fled Ireland and several years the Williamite forces prevailed. William's success guaranteed the position of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, as the Irish parliament undertook the passage of what would be called the Penal Laws for the purpose of permanently inhibiting any prospects of a Catholic revival and challenge to the political domination and control over most of the land by Protestants, who were usually settlers or descendants of settlers who had come to Ireland no earlier than the middle of the 16 th century. William, himself, although temperamentally a Calvinist and scarcely sympathetic to Catholicism, was also a political pragmatist. That pragmatism made him unsympathetic toward a punitive peace with the Irish Catholics, but it also inhibited him from interfering with the policies of his Irish Protestant allies. Accordingly, he acquiesced in the passage by the Irish parliament in 1697 of a mutilated confirmation of the Treaty of Limerick that had ended the war in Ireland in 1691. Ignored were guarantees that Catholics who accepted William were to be entitled to the same liberties as they had under Charles II. Accordingly, a significant number of Catholics had their lands confiscated, reducing Catholic ownership from 22 to 14 percent of the land in Ireland. The triumph at the Battle of the Boyne and the guaranteeing of the Protestant Ascendancy made William a natural figure of celebration in Protestant circles and an object of scorn among Catholics, a position that he would not necessarily have sought. Developments in Ireland were a tragic contradiction of the liberal and constitutional rational for the "Glorious Revolution" that brought William to power. He outlived his wife, died childless, and was succeeded by his sister-in-law, Mary, the other Protestant daughter of James II.
Williams, Betty (1943- )
Peace activist
Betty Williams was one of the founders of the Peace People in 1976, a popular movement that conducted marches protesting the violence in Northern Ireland. The movement was formed in response to the death of three children in the same family. They were killed by a joy-riding car driver, who had ignored an order to stop and had been shot by the army. She shared in the Nobel Prize in 1976 with Mairead Corrigan. Several years later she divorced her husband and left Northern Ireland for the United States where she married James T. Perkins. She has lectured extensively in the United States. She was Visiting Professor in Political Science and
History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where she worked to unite ethnic and cultural groups on campus and in the local community and heads the Global Children's Foundation. The awards she has received include the Eleanor Roosevelt Award of the International Platform Association, the Carl Von Ossietsky Medal for courage from the Berlin section of the International League of Human Rights, and an honorary doctorate in law from Yale University.
Wilson, Henry (1864-1922)
Soldier, politician
Born in Currygrane, County Longford, Wilson was commissioned in the Longford militia. He served in the Royal Irish Brigade in Burma and in South Africa during the Boer War. Attached to the headquarters staff, he became a brigadier general in 1907 and was attached to the war office. He became the assistant chief of the General Staff of the British forces in France at the beginning of the First World War. Wilson was sympathetic to unionist resistance to Home Rule and was supportive of those involved in the mutiny at the Curragh. Lloyd George looked favorably on him and he was made chief of the Imperial General Staff in February 1918. In 1919 he was knighted and made field marshall. He was supportive of strong measures against the insurgents in the war of independence, although he was also critical of the criminality of the Black AND Tans, whose employment he had advised against. He retired in 1922 and was elected in a February by-election as a Unionist member of parliament for North County Down. On June 22, 1922, he was shot dead by two Irish gunmen. Speculation continues as to who ordered his assassination, whether it was an order given much earlier by Michael Collins that he had failed to rescind, it was an independent action, or, as the British assumed at the time, it was done at the orders of the anti-treaty Irish Repub lican Army (IRA). At any rate, it served to increase pressure on the Provisional Govern ment to take firm action against the Irregulars who were occupying the Four Courts, which started the civil war.
Workers' Party See Official IRA.
Wyndham, George (1863-1913)
Politician
Born in London, and the great grandson of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wyndham served as private secretary to Arthur Balfour. He was elected to parliament for Dover as a Conservative in 1889 and was chief secretary for Ireland from 1900 to 1905. Supportive of what was called constructive UNIONISM, he supported a continuation and expansion of the reform programs commenced by Balfour when he was chief secretary. His most celebrated accomplishment was the 1903 Land Purchase Act that was based on recommendations of the Land Conference of 1902 chaired by his cousin, Lord Dunraven. The act went very far in almost completing the process of tenant land purchase. He incurred the suspicions of many unionists for his generous response to Irish concerns, including political devolution and university reform, and resigned his position 1905. See also Land Purchase acts.
Wyse, Thomas (1791-1862)
Politician
Born in County Waterford into the Catholic gentry, Wyse was educated at Stonyhurst and Trin ity College Dublin. He was a major activist supporting the Catholic Association and the successful campaign to overturn the Beresford interest in County Waterford and elect Villiers Stuart, a supporter of Catholic emancipation, in an 1826 by-election. He sat in parliament himself for Tipperary from 1830 to 1832 and for Waterford from 1835 to 1847. He disliked Daniel O'Connell and did not support repeal of the Act OF Union. Wyse chaired a commission on education, which recommended developing intermediate education and local third-level colleges, or what would become the Queen's Colleges. He held ministerial office in the Whig governments from 1839 to 1841 and from 1846 to 1847 and in 1849 became British ambassador to Greece.
World History
