An Irish Heroine

It’s a long time since I’ve written a non-technical post, but I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while. A largely unrelated (it mentioned the word ancestory) Twitter conversation between historians Lucy Inglis and Ellen Leslie reminded me to do so.

An ancestor of mine, Anne Devlin, played an important part in Irish history and its struggle against British rule in Ireland.

Born in Co. Wicklow in about 1780, she moved to Dublin in 1797 to help her landlord’s sister-in-law in her new home. Her father fetched her back from Dublin a few months later, it’s thought that he was aware that the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was about to take place and wanted her safe.

The Devlins, at the time, were known as a family of rebels, and because of this the family home was often raided by the British. Once such raid following the 1798 rebellion resulted in her father’s imprisonment. When her father was released in 1800, the family decided to move to Rathfarnham in Dublin.

In 1803, Anne met and became the housekeeper for one Robert Emmet, an Irish Republican and staunch Nationalist. Emmet himself was from a wealthy Protestant family but he wanted fair representation for Irish Catholics in Parliament. At the time Anne joined his household, Emmet was in the midst of planning another rebellion against British rule, later that year.

Anne was more than a housekeeper to Emmet, as he had complete trust in her and she was entrusted with delivering Emmet’s letters throughout the capital, which of course meant that she was fully aware of the names and faces of Emmet’s network.

Emmet’s rebellion was a total failure, and he fled. Anne, as his housekeeper, was arrested (the harrowing details of which you can read elsewhere) and imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. Anne was questioned by Dublin’s Chief of Police, Major Sirr, and the prisoner’s governor Dr Edward Trevor, used both mental and physical torture in an attempt to reveal the whereabouts and anything else that she new about Emmet and his circle.

She refused.

Emmet was eventually captured, tried and executed for treason, and Anne languished in jail for 3 years with many of her family (including her 9-year old brother James, who died there), but was never charged.

Released in 1806, Anne married and attempted to lead a normal life, marrying and bearing two children. In her later years she became too sick to work and ended up living in a hovel in the Libertine area of Dublin where she died on the 16th September, 1851. She is buried in Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin.