Talk:John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare
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My source for the story about the cats and the funeral was a book called " The lost houses of Ireland". I will a give a citation and full refference as soon as i have found it. It is hiding somewhere in my study...
Robert Prummel
Groningen
The Netherlands
Re. below, Fitzgibbon may have been good to his own tenants but was a remorseless butcher and bigot in his lifetime, as all the contemporary evidence shows. Whether or not dead cats were flung on his coffin, his funeral cortege was attacked by the populace so he was hardly as popular as you make out.
--Damnbutter 16:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This entry is typical of the nonsense perpetuated about John Fitzgibbon. He was never known as 'Black Jack' either to his tenants or to anyone else - at least not in his lifetime. It was an invention of 19th century Irish historians. In fact he was known as a good and improving landlord both to his Catholic and Protestant tenants. He took a keen interest in the improvement of farming on his estates. The story about the dead cats being thrown upon his grave is also a fabrication - no doubt a form of wish-fullfilment on behalf of those same 'historians' Fred Drew According to Lord Ashbourne, in the chapter on John Fitzgibbon in his biography of Pitt, not one of the Dublin newspapers reported anything untoward at Fitzgibbon's funeral. I would like to know the source of the information showing that Fitzgibbon was 'a remorseless butcher' If supporting the Protestant Ascendancy makes him a bigot so be it, but throughout his lifetime he was at pains to support the removal of all legal disabilities suffered by Catholics as Catholics. However he was adamantly opposed to granting them any say in the political process. Certainly Fitzgibbon was unpopular, most particularly with the 'Irish Whigs, Grattan. Curran, Charlemont, Leinster, Ponsonby et al. Fred Drew
The article on the Earl of Clare is growing! I STARTED IT BECAUSE OF THE WONDERFULL STORY OF THE CATS. The discussion shows that Wikipedia is working! Are you, my fellow Wikipedians,content with the story about the cats as it is now? I state that it is a disputed story. Like the one about Luis XIV who had no toilet or the monarch that drank water out of a finger-bowl because he didn't want his guest to feel ashamed. A story that is told about many monarchs , including Victoria and Wilhelmina, but one that is clearly a myth.
Robert Prummel
The Netherlands
Fitzgibbon was not the first to remind George 111 of his Coronation Oath. William Pitt (Chatham) did so in open Parliament in the debate on the Quebec Act in 1774. This Act extended certain privileges to the Catholics in Canada. F. Drew Fred Drew 12:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
