Fireball MacNamara

Fireball MacNamara referred affectionately to his pistols as "Bás Gan Sagart" or "Death without Priest".  Of these Michael Hogan, The bard of Thomond wrote: "Through Erin and Britain our glory is known.  And the skulls of dead foemen would build me a throne"

Fireball MacNamara - folk hero and infamous duellist

John MacNamara, hereditary chieftain of Clan MacNamara, also known as Seán Buí Mac Conmara or "The MacNamara" and more familiarly as "Fireball" opened one bloodshot eye slowly and painfully and tried to recall his surroundings and the events that had brought him to this unfamiliar bedchamber.  His throbbing temples and raging thirst told him he had had overindulged in Madeira or, (Beannacht Dé orainn!), perhaps even the death-dealing poitín brought from Caherciveen by that reprobate, O’Connell.  A vague uneasiness crept over him as he remembered fragments of the previous three day's events.  He could smell gunpowder - never a good omen and he was definitely not in his cosy bed in the chamber above the big fireplace in Moyriesk House.  "Bás gan Sagart", (Death without a Priest), his favourite flintlock pistol, was still in his belt but had been fired.  He was probably in trouble again.  ("Máthair Dé; nach bhfuil aon ciall agam?").  A large recumbent figure lay sprawled on a feather tick on the opposite side of the room, snoring loudly, still wearing his finery from the duel, his once immaculate linen now soiled from two day's roistering and smelling mightily of strong drink.  Fireball's turgid brain finally cleared as painful consciousness ebbed back.  The huge wreck on the tick mattress was none other than the Liberator, Daniel O'Connell.  A ball from "Bás gan Sagart" was lodged in John D'Esterre's guts whither O'Connell had directed it and for once he, Seán Buí "Fireball" MacNamara was a witness to and not a participant in an illegal duel over a matter of honour - if such a monumentally inconsequential squabble could be termed a matter of honour.

Daniel O'Connel's final duel

John Norcot D’Esterre, had been encouraged to challenge O’Connell, the acknowledged champion of Catholic Emancipation, to a duel, confident that if O’Connell refused he would be labelled a coward and lose the support of the people and if he accepted he would lose his life.  D’Esterre was a crack shot, and it was said that he could snuff out a candle from 10 paces.  The provocation was remarkably mild for an oratorical fire-eater: O’Connell had dismissed Dublin Corporation as “a beggarly corporation”, but this was nothing more than a deliberate attempt to assassinate O’Connell and his reputation.  D’Esterre set-out with a horsewhip to reprimand O’Connell and declaimed loudly that O’Connell was a spiritless coward who would never fight him.  Faced with no alternative, O’Connell engaged the services of a second, the aforementioned notorious "Fireball" MacNamara the scourge of the Munster gentry.  He accepted the challenge in anticipation of which he borrowed Fireball’s "Bás gan Sagart", the pistol with more notches than any in Ireland.   Michael Hogan, the Bard of Thomond, in his "Fireball MacNamara’s Address to his Pistols" had aptly described its owner:

Come here, Máire Bán* with your brow like a queen,

And fill me a cup of our darling poteen ;

Fill it up, like your proud spirit, sparkling and high,

Till it beams to the brim, like the glance of your eye !

Here's freedom for Erin! Here’s joy to the brave

Who sank in her old glorious cause to the grave !

Here's woe to the tyrant, and shame to the slave,

And death and disgrace to the traitor and knave!

Come here, Bás Gan Sagart* and show me your mouth,

You've always told truth when you spoke inside out ;

Now I'll give you your breakfast of powder and lead,

To blow out the brains of some arrogant head!

Hurrah ! boys hurrah! To the combat away!

There's conquest and glory before us to-day!

I'll cool my red vengeance and crown my desire,

With a place on the field and a quick round of fire!

Through Erin and Britain our glory is known.

And the skulls of dead foemen would build me a throne!

* Máire Bán, Fair Mary was Fireball's sister.

* Death without the Priest was the appellation he gave his pistols.

 

Both men took two loaded pistols and they were placed on the ground.  D’Esterre fired first and missed, the bullet entering the ground before O’Connell’s feet.  O’Connell aimed low and took his shot.  The bullet hit D’Esterre. He bent a little on his right leg, turned round, and fell on his face.  The surgeons rushed to help D’Esterre but were unable to find the bullet, which had passed through the bladder to the lower part of the spine.  The injury was fatal and he died two days later by which time Fireball and the Liberator had embarked on a monumental drunk.  That night there were wild celebrations in Dublin.  Word of the result reached Daniel Murray, the soon-to-be Archbishop of Dublin, and he exclaimed in triumph: “Heaven be praised!  Ireland is safe!”  By this time O'Connell and his second, vaguely aware of their soaring notoriety, were comatose in a back room at the Hammam Hotel where their friends had deposited them - there was no point in risking repair bills or lawsuits by booking them into the best rooms.  Fireball found a half empty bottle of Madeira with which to physick his violent headache and shook the still snoring O'Connell into wakefulness, not wishing to suffer alone and unable to countenance the other’s stentorian snoring..  Fireball eventually recovered from his hangover and betook himself home to Quin in County Clare to resume his usual round of drinking, gambling and hellraising but the guilt-stricken O'Connell would spend the remainder of his life struggling to support D'Esterre's daughter.  He would never duel again, and from then on often wore a glove or wrapped a handkerchief around the hand that fired the fatal shot while attending church or passing the door of D’Esterre’s widow.  Some believed that he should have killed D’Esterre outright and mercifully; others that he should have deliberately missed, his honour assuaged.  He had probably aimed low intending to wound lightly or miss and the shot had instead done fatal damage for in those days before antibiotics, an abdominal wound was fatal.  Nor did the perfidious English give up easily the idea of assassinating O'Connell.  Shortly thereafter he was bayoneted while drunk by a soldier and survived only because his Hunter watch turned the blade.  He later travelled to London on business and was about to partake of a cup of tea in a café when an Irish waitress stopped him:

Daniel o'Chongaile, an d'tuigeann tú gaeilge? (Daniel O'Connell, do you understand Irish?)

Tuigeann mé Gaeilge o chailín ó Éireann. (I understand Irish o girl from Ireland)

Tá nimh id' chupán agus ná ól é.  (There's poison in your cup and don't drink it)

Seán Buí "Fireball" had led the interesting if chaotic life of an eighteenth century blade who was both a Gaelic Chieftain and a “Squireen”.  His father and Grandfather had been military men and from the cradle John MacNamara gave indication of future association with battle.  It is reported that he received his first morsel of food from the point of a sword, held before his mouth. The Macnamaras were large land-owners who had adopted the Protestant faith in order to retain their property through the period of the Penal Laws of the seventeenth century although the conversion may have lacked zeal or sincerity and fireball certainly retained catholic sympathies.  Fireball had little interest in the family estate, preferring the tavern, gambling, slow horses and fast women to the duties of a "squireen".  His despairing father had despatched him to France where he was commissioned as an army officer.  As a rough young Gaelic-speaking squireen from west of the Shannon he lacked the polish of the aristocratic young French officers and some unwisely teased him about his uncouth manners, strange accent and traditional Gaelic title of "Tánaiste".  In short order he challenged thirty of them to a series of duels resulting in several deaths and as a result acquired in a short time considerable notoriety and was obliged to flee France to avoid court-martial.   First in Flanders and later in the armies of southern European states, he continued his career as an expert swordsman and lethal pistol shot - with a total of fifty-seven duels recorded, many of them fatal to his opponents.  During these years he apparently acquired the nickname "Sean Buidhe" (Yellow John), a reference to the dark tan he developed from exposure to the Mediterranean sun.  This was no surprise as among his ancestors had been a Spanish sailor, an officer of the Armada in 1588 who had been shipwrecked and had come ashore at Miltown Malbay and who, having somehow avoided the English-inspired massacre that followed, had married a MacNamara and had passed on to his progeny their brown eyes and skin that darkened in Summer.  John MacNamara returned to County Clare. His fiery temperament led him into many difficult situations that he most often resolved by recourse to a duel, an exercise which he entered into with characteristic abandon. He named his duelling pistols "Bás gan Sagart" - Death without a Priest. Although a Protestant, he espoused the cause of Catholic Emancipation and admired the charismatic O'Connell who was a fellow aristocrat from Kerry.  He once stood at the door of the old parish Catholic Church in Chapel Lane, Ennis, and defied the authorities to come and stop the bell being rung for Mass. This restriction which prevented the ringing of the church bell was greatly resented by the Catholic community. His challenge to the authorities appears to have been ignored who probably and with commendable common-sense, saw little point in sacrificing their lives to silence a bell in an obscure popish chapel in an obscure provincial town.  About this time he acquired the moniker, "Fireball" a reference to the muzzle-flash from "Bás gan Sagart" which was the last thing seen by many of his critics before they departed this life for the next.  His hell-raising lifestyle led finally to the loss of the family estates and 1798 found him on Vinegar hill in Wexford with the ill-fated United Irishmen of that county facing English artillery and musket fire.

I fought at the Battle of Vinegar Hill

And I thrashed the red Sassanach hirelings to hell,

And lest you may think that I'm coining a lie,

See here is the print of a ball in my thigh.

O Erin, poor Erin acushla machree,

If your rights could be won by the hand of Seán Buí,

We would fight in your cause, Bás gan Sagart and me,

To make you a nation, Immortal and free.

There are many accounts of his exploits.  One tells of how he was once present at a court in Chapel Lane, Ennis, where the old Courthouse once stood.  A poor man was accused of some great crime.  Fireball was listening to the court as it went on.  The judge, whose name was Sparrow said that if there was a nobleman present who would vouch for the criminal he would be set free.  The man said he knew a Mr Crowe but the Mr Crowe said he did not know the man.  Fireball stood up and said aloud “I know him”.  They were all greatly afraid of Fireball and his reputation for fighting duels so the man was let free.  When the man went out, he thanked Fireball, and Fireball said: “Trust not in Crowes nor Sparrows, But only in the MacNamaras”.  He managed to squander his inheritance in the manner of many an Irish hellraiser and his estate was sold to De Vesci.  He was immensely popular with the peasantry who saw in him a champion of Catholic Emancipation and the occasion of many hilarious exploits. 

History does not record how Fireball avoided hanging in the aftermath of 1798 when the English embarked enthusiastically on an orgy of executing revolutionaries.  One of the more colourful hangmen was Hempenstall, "The Walking Gallows" who was so tall he could stretch the neck of a "Croppy" by throwing a noose over his shoulder.  Sometime thereafter Fireball MacNamara passed into the realm of legend and two versions exist of his later life.  One has him relocated to London where he becomes the doyen of smart society, especially the aristocratic and wealthy female youth.  He comes to the attention of the English authorities and is charged with highway robbery and hanged despite pleas for mercy from his admirers.  The other has him ending his days in obscurity in a thatched cottage in the village of Quin. We do know that John "Fireball" MacNamara is buried in the Lady Chapel of Quin Abbey. His memory is perpetuated by a fine Celtic Cross which bears the inscription "Erected by Clan MacNamara to the memory of Sean Buidhe "Fireball" MacNamara, Chief of Clan and a 1798 Patriot". He was the last of the MacNamara chieftains and a direct descendant of the man who built Quin Abbey.

Michael Hogan, the Bard of Thomond, composed a second poem in his memory - "The grave of Sean Buidh MacNamara". In this poem Hogan captures well the legend that lives on not only in the MacNamaras but in all the Dalcassian tribes of Clare:

Behold yon grey moss-covered stone

Where Thomond's maids shed drops of sorrow

There Sleeps Seán Buidh - cold, low and lone,

The great and glorious MacNamara

The heart and nerve that never shook

The hand that left no mark unstruck.