Jonah Barrington (judge)

Barrington's former home, 14 Harcourt Street, Dublin. The plaque gives his birth year as 1760.

Barrington was the third son, one of thirteen[2] or sixteen children; six at least, and probably seven, were sons;[3] of John Barrington, an impoverished Protestant gentleman landowner in County Laois and his wife Sibella French of Peterswell, Co. Galway. He was raised and schooled by his grandparents in Dublin and entered Trinity College Dublin in 1773, aged 16 but he left Trinity College without a degree.[2]

He joined the Irish Volunteers and supported the Irish Patriots in the early 1780s.[4] His father raised and commanded two Corps; the Cullenagh Rangers and the Ballyroan Light Infantry. Barrington's elder brother commanded both the Kilkenny Horse and the Durrow Light Dragoons. Barrington's father, through his correspondence with General Hunt Walsh, then secured him a commission in Walsh's regiment. Upon learning that the regiment was to be sent to America to fight in the ongoing conflict, and fearful of dying on some foreign battlefield, Barrington wrote to Walsh asking him to instead present the commission to another candidate, claiming that he himself was too tender to be of any real use. Barrington's fears proved well founded when his replacement, the only child of one of Walsh's friends, was killed in his first engagement.[5]

According to one of his sometimes spurious personal memoirs, on 20 March 1780. Barrington travelled to Donnybrook to duel with a Richard Daly.

Daly had fought 16 duels in three years - three with swords and thirteen with pistols. Remarkably, he, and his opponents, had always escaped serious injury. Barrington had no pistols so he and his second, Richard Crosbie, had spent the previous night constructing a pair 'from old locks, stocks an barrels'.[7] At Donnybrook, Daly's second, Jack Patterson, a nephew of the Chief Justice, approached Crosbie, explained that it was all a mistake and asked that the two shake hands. Barrington was in favour, but Crosbie would have none of it. Taking out a duelling handbook, he pointed to rule No.7 - 'No apology can be received after the parties meet, without a fire.'[7]

Taking up their positions Barrington lost no time in pressing the trigger and Daly staggered back, put his hand to his chest, and cried "I'm hit, Sir." The ball had not penetrated but had driven part of a brooch slightly into his breast-bone. Barrington only then thought to inquire why duel was even taking place. This time the rule book noted: "If a party challenged accepts the challenge without asking the reason for it, the challenger is never bound to divulge it afterwards."[7]

Barrington is most notable today for his memoirs that included scathing but humorous thumbnail portraits of contemporary Irish lawyers, judges and politicians during the last years of the Protestant Ascendancy. Personal sketches also includes vignettes on Irish people from every background. His works were reprinted with frequent additions and renamings as:

• Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland (London: G. Robinson 1809);

republished with a 2nd volume as: Historic Memoirs, Comprising Secret Records of the National Convention, the Rebellion, and the Union, with Delineations of the Principal Characters Connected with These Transactions, 2 vols. (London: R. Bentley & H. Colburn 1833 [1809–33])

3rd edn: ..with memoir of the author, an essay on Irish wit and humour, and notes and corrections by Townsend Young; 2 vols. (London: G. Routledge & Sons 1869)

4th edn. in 2 vols, (Glasgow & London: Cameron & Ferguson 1876);

• Personal Sketches of his Own Times (3 vols. 1827–32): Vols. 1 & 2 (London: Henry Colburn 1827); Vol. 3 (London: Henry Colburn & R. Bentley 1832)

reissued as (George Birmingham, intro.): Recollections of Jonah Barrington (Dublin: Talbot; London: T. Fisher Unwin 1918);

• Historic Memoirs of Ireland, 2 vols. (London: R. Bentley & H. Colburn 1833)
• The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (Paris: G. G. Bennis 1833)

2nd edn. (Dublin: James Duffy 1853)

Since his death Barrington's work has been quoted by a wide selection of editors, primarily following two themes; the political drama surrounding the Act of Union and the colourful nature of life in 1700s Ireland.

• Frank O'Connor, ed., Book of Ireland (London: Fontana 1959 & edns.), was impressed by: "Merry Christmas, 1778" uninterrupted match of hard-going till the weather should break up ... hogshead of superior claret’ ... ‘the pipers plied their chants ... I shall never forget the attraction this novelty had for my youthful mind (p. 139); Sir Boyle Roche ... the most celebrated and entertaining anti-grammarian in the Irish Parliament (p. 183); on duelling Ough, thunder! ... how many holes did the villain want drilled in to his carcass? (p. 262); Crow Street theatre: immediately ... on being struck, he reeled, staggered, and fell very naturally, considering that it was his first death (p. 278).
• Roy Foster: the racy Personal Sketches...confirmed him as the chief historian of the "half-mounted gentlemen" of Ireland.[8]
• W. B. Yeats: Mrs French, in the first section of Yeats's poem The Tower, is a character from Barrington's Recollections, where it is used to illustrate mutual attachment between the Irish peasantry and their landlords.[9]
• James Joyce: Tom Kernan makes reference to Barrington's Reminiscences (recte Recollections) in Ulysses: Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington.[10]
• John Mitchel quoted Barrington in his History of Ireland, concerning the approach to the 1798 rebellion: Mr Pitt counted on the expertness of the Irish Government to effect a premature explosion. Free quarters were now ordered, to irritate the Irish population; slow tortures were inflicted, under the pretence of forcing confessions; the people were goaded and driven to madness (p. 264).
• A Dictionary of Irish Writers (1985), ed. Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, lists his Historic Anecdotes and Secret Memoirs of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland (1809).[11]
• A book of selections was published for the American market in 1967.[12]

• Webb, Alfred (1878). "Barrington, Sir Jonah" . A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son – via Wikisource.
• Ireland 1691–1801
• Personal Sketches online; accessed June 2015