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Shortly we will feature a review of Francis
Gallagher’s short biography of Thomas Russell. First a note on how Newry featured in his life.
Originally from Cork
(son of a Church of Ireland decorated British army officer and a Catholic
mother from Tipperary) Russell, who served with distinction himself in the Army
before taking up a career as a librarian, was a phenomenon in many ways.
Most unusual about him were the radical views he held,
inspired by the French revolutionaries of the time and his sensitivity to the
plight of the poor and of Ireland’s
Roman Catholics. He was very handsome
and with his generosity of spirit and sensitive nature was a welcome guest in
the homes of the wealthy and influential citizens of Belfast in the early years of the last decade
of the century.
In the home of one such Belfast lady, Mrs Martha McTier, Russell was
introduced to a beautiful young girl from Newry, Eliza Goddard. An unusual and passionate romance
developed. However Eliza’s father, a customs
official considered Russell – because of his involvement with the United
Irishmen, would be unable to provide for his daughter. He did all in his power to discourage the
relationship, going so far as to send to Dublin Castle
a radical pamphlet that Russell had written. Her father had his way. Eventually, to Russell’s great sorrow, Eliza was married to an army
officer, Captain Kingston.
But Russell felt a pure love for Eliza that endured
right up to his early and untimely death. He placed her apart from other women. Her angelic qualities and sweet countenance
made her hard to forget. The loss of her
love haunted him. Visiting Newry with
Jeremy Hope to drum up support for Robert Emmett’s Dublin Insurrection of 1803,
his friend enquired why Thomas was suddenly very quiet: because we approach the
home of Eliza, he was told. These
feelings were with Russell at all times of trial in his life. For example, when, later in the same year he
moved on to organise Loughinisland, her image again haunted him: there was a
kindness and intimacy about her that was not easily forgotten: he never recovered from the withdrawal of her
sweet and shy love.
Even after the failure of the insurrection, Russell’s
capture and trial, these thoughts were on his mind. The night before his trial he dreamed of her.
‘Recollections of her sweet and pure beauty no doubt
comforted him’, writes Francis Gallagher in his biography. Russell could not bear to leave this life
without being with her again. Yet he did.
It is perhaps ironical that Russell was opposed to the
marriage of his niece to his friend, fellow revolutionary and lieutenant
William Henry Hamilton on the grounds that a stable marriage and the life of a
revolutionary didn’t fit well together. There is perhaps further irony in the fact that the marriage survived,
as did Hamilton
– unlike Russell. Imprisoned for three
years in Kilmainham for his part, Hamilton, on
his release emigrated to Latin America where
he fought in the revolutionary army of Simon Bolivar. |
History 
