Squabbling Scholars and the ‘Sheridan Controversy’
‘I have found your correspondent unworthy of credit’, wrote the Rev Robert Leech, in a letter published by the Cavan Weekly News in January 1884.
Leech, who was rector of Drumlane, Belturbet, and a respected local historian, found himself embroiled in a bit of a palaver over his article on the Sheridans of Quilca. His foe, an anonymous historian, simply calling himself ‘A Cavan Man’, took to arguing through the pages of the paper. Their ‘tit for tat’ exchange may have been a great source of amusement for the general reader, and less so, for the unfortunate Leech at the centre of the argument.
The Rev Leech continued to state the facts of his case in the paper, considering his opponent's research to be verging on the erroneous, evidently driven by bullheadedness on their part. Leech, a respected scholar, later produced a popular column around the early 1900s, titled ‘On the Track of the Celt’ which graced the pages of this newspaper. He was also an expert on the German flute.
The Sheridans were originally of ‘Gaelic Catholic stock’ and strongly associated with Quilca, Mullagh, where Thomas Sheridan entertained his dear friend Jonathan Swift. In his account of the Sheridan genealogy, Leech began around the time of the Norman invasion and finishes at the time of Denis Sheridan, chief of the clan who lived in Bishop Bedell’s era. To back up his research, Leech refers to a genealogical table lodged in the College of Arms, Dublin, which was referenced by T.W. Jones in his Life of Bedell, published in 1872. The Sheridans, wrote Leech, had property in Kilmore, at Castle Togher, now known as Danesfort where the present-day Church of Ireland Dean of Kilmore resides.
The Cavan man, firstly, praised Leech’s improved composition style but failed to form the same assessment of his knowledge. Happily, he thanked Leech for having abandoned ‘those personal comments’ which were previously conveyed in a less kind language, incorporating excitable name-calling such as ‘literary vermin’, numbskull, and knave . The anonymous ‘Cavan man’ called into question Leech’s attempted threat to bring him down to size and explains that he did not intend any denial to the ‘antiquity’ of the Sheridans and actually, goes so far as to say, that he upholds the reputation of the learned antiquarian Wharton Jones, for whom he has high regard.
Lands lost by the Sheridans when they were escheated to the crown, were in Rev Leech’s opinion the property of an individual Sheridan, however, our ‘Cavan man’ disagrees whole heartedly with this assessment, stating that all Sheridan property was the sole responsibility of the clan. Such a tenure of land, according to Sir John Davies was not reserved for any one particular individual but rather, as he stated, ‘by the Irish custom of Tanistry, the chieftains of every county, and the chief of every sept, had no longer an estate for life in their chiefries, the inheritance of which did rest in no man, and these chieftains although they had some portions of land allotted to them, did consent chiefly cuttings and cosheries, and other Irish exactions, by which they did spoil and impoverish the people at their pleasure, and when the chieftains were dead their sons did not succeed them’.
The ‘Cavan man’ in his rebuttal states, ‘it is not I, but Sir John Davies, the first law officer of the crown at that time’, who proved this point to be correct.
Elsewhere, he strenuously rejected the Rev Leech’s conclusion that Dr Thomas Sheridan’s wife had been chiefly celebrated for her wit, and that the ‘deprived’ Bishop Sheridan of Kilmore possessed considerable wealth. Leech had in our Cavan author’s opinion, come up with a fabricated ‘random, reckless assertion’, and that Dr Sheridan’s wife was actually a rather unpleasant person, as characterised by one of the so-called ‘master spirits’ of the age who harshly called her a ‘detestably disagreeable’, ‘filthy slut’ and ‘an ignorant, prating, overweening fool’. Leech’s glowing compliments on the apparent humour of the unfortunate Mrs Sheridan were in the ‘Cavan man’s’ opinion, little more than elevated figments from the Reverend gentleman’s heightened imagination.
As for the deprived bishop, Leech’s argument that he possessed a lot of property was dismissed as it lacked proof. The anonymous letter writer recalled that Archbishop King who spoke with Bishop Sheridan, summarised him as a ‘crazy’ poverty-stricken man, ordering that £10 should be presented to him as had previously been done the year before, to keep him away from begging. ‘Cavan man’ tells Leech that he is happy to continue on with ‘this controversy’ and to seek categorical answers as to where the rector of Drumlane obtained his information. The Rev Leech replying to the newspaper, said that, ‘against all these authorities your correspondent (‘Cavan Man’) has only one authority, that of King, as quoted by Mant’ and that others had rejected the theory of the bishop being poor, because he did in fact die rich.
Optimistically, Leech hoped that his writings, had done enough to convince readers that he was not in the habit of issuing reckless statements, and that he preferred to study a number of sources before making any claims. In a follow-up composition, Leech requested the editor to allow him enough space to expand on his point. He was not afraid to state his case, while the letter-writing warrior masquerading behind the mask of ‘a Cavan Man’, had less confidence in taking a public stance. In any case, the controversy provided a bit of entertainment for a few weeks in the early months of 1884. Now, if only Dean Swift had been alive, to have thrown in his tuppence; then that would have created a decent spat.