Search Results for 'Shevawn Lynam'

Week III. It took two years since Col Richard Martin’s wife Eliza eloped with John Petrie, a merchant, before the long process of divorce in the 18th century could begin. It promised to be a sensational case given the status of Martin, a larger than life character, one of the largest landowners in Ireland, his reputation as duellist, and his enormous popularity for his gift of mimicry and acting.

On the afternoon of July 14 1789 a mob unleashed its fury and frustration by forcing an entry into the Bastille, a medieval armoury, fortress and political prison in the centre of Paris. In the short but bloody battle that ensued some 98 of the mob were killed, as were three officers of the guard. Three more were lynched, and Marquis de Launay, governor of the prison, and the local mayor, Prevot de Flesselles, who had pleaded for peace, were stabbed to death and beheaded. Although the prison contained only seven inmates at the time of the storming, it was seen as a symbol of the monarchy’s abuse of power. It was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.

One of the most intriguing pieces of theatrical memorabilia in Galway is the poster for two plays, Douglas and All the World’s a Stage, to be performed at Richard Martin’s theatre, Kirwan’s Lane, on Friday August 8 1783. The playbill shows the cast with included Martin himself, his wife Eliza (Elizabeth Vessey) and Theobald Wolfe Tone, who would become Ireland’s famous revolutionary, associated with the French inspired 1798 rebellion.

The Criminal Conversation case taken by Richard Martin against John Petrie, in 1791, the seducer of his wife Eliza, which was extensively covered in the newspapers of the time, and no doubt read with enormous enjoyment by society in both England and Ireland, nevertheless, did not go entirely in Martin’s favour.

Mrs Eliza Martin, threw caution to the wind, and settled down to live openly with Mr John Petrie, a merchant, at his London house in Soho Square. Her flaunting of the end of her 13 years marriage to Richard Martin, a man of legendary accomplishments, and the owner of vast lands in Connemara, who was not a man to be reckoned with, left society wondering what his response would be to this embarrassment.

Such is the weakness of man, it seems, that even the mighty Daniel O’ Connell may have succumbed to the allures of the fair sex, committing an indiscretion in his youth, which came back to haunt him in later years when he and his wife Mary shared ‘abiding affection’.