{"id":4425,"date":"2019-01-09T01:13:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T01:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/?p=4425"},"modified":"2019-01-09T01:29:42","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T01:29:42","slug":"from-ballinamuck-to-fiji-odyssey-of-a-stranger-from-clare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/from-ballinamuck-to-fiji-odyssey-of-a-stranger-from-clare\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ballinamuck to Fiji – Odyssey of a Stranger from Clare"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are epic tales of Greece, of Scythia, of Rome
\nOf China, romances and heros out there
\nBut few had the life of chance, adventure, romance
\nAs Paddy Connel, a stranger from Clare…
\nFrom wandering roads of Munster to being courted by kings
\nHe first was to survive vengful soldiers running amock
\nKilling rebels defeated, the rebellion now ended
\nOn the boggy drumlins and plains of Ballinamuck
\nHe lay on the field, played as if among the dead
\nWho perished at the battle that day
\nA man from Clare with a knack of survival
\nWho for his life did silently pray.
\nPoor Blake was dead, Magee strung from a cart:
\nThe survivors marched to Ballinalee to be hung!
\nRobin Gill survived, fought on, and thrived
\nOf him today poems recited, songs sung.
\nYet a stranger future lay ahead for the stranger from Clare
\nWho was pressed ganged into the ranks of Red Coats
\nTurning at Castlebar, here he lay to escape
\nSet to cross wild wide waters in wilder boats!<\/p>\n

\"Edenmore<\/a>
Edenmore Hill – from here to Shanmullagh the rebels were slaughtered. Among them, our hero lay, playing dead… and escaped to a future life not even he could have imagined…
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Times were hard, how hard, who his people are the papers don’t tell
\nBar for loitering in Clare he was press ganged
\nHe turned his coat at the Races of Castlebar
\nEnded up at Ballinamuck where Gunner McGee some say was hanged.
\nSuch is the brief back story of the Man from Clare
\nMuch greater men were not to have such varied or forgotten lives
\nTo end there days on a tropical isle
\nWith not one, but eight exotic wives!<\/p>\n

When darkness had fallen and cloaked the land
\nThe dead littered like sheep it was side the landscape
\nOur hero came to life, the soldiers mostly been gone,
\nHe quickly made his escape.
\nHis luck was not to last – he was captured in time
\nGot thrown into Fort William Jail
\nBut even in misfortune our Paddy found Lady Luck
\nHer favoured son she did not fail.<\/p>\n

\"Paddy<\/a>
Paddy Connel playing bookmaker at cockroach races in Fort William jail – as satarised in “The Beverly Times”<\/a> in Australia in 1958<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fort William jail with cockroaches was overrun
\n– As is often the case in these sort of places –
\nOur hero declared himself a bookmaker to be:
\nSetting up cockroaches as if horses in races.
\nIt was not to last, it was good when it did!
\nSomeone told the jailor, – prehaps for revenge for wagers lost was set?
\nHe had in his new cell the cockroaches as well:
\nBut being alone there was no one upon them to bet!<\/p>\n

In time the For William jail from the troubles was filled
\nSo even the jailors thought it unsafe and too full:
\nBeing the least of the offenders our hero was moved:
\nTo be cast into a Lee floating prison ships hull…
\nAs the boat bobbed up and down, a sensations so strange
\nWhich he had probably never experienced before:
\nLittle did he know in the years that were to come
\nHe would experience those motions many many times more!<\/p>\n

Lady Luck who on him smiled on often, was the loser
\nIn battle with her cousin known as Fate:
\nA prison ship floated in to the Port of Cork
\nIts captain turned up to the jail gate:
\nHe was looking for cargo to fill his ships
\nHeading to Australia far far from there
\nNever again was Paddy Connel to see
\nHis native childhood fields of Clare!
\nHis pleas that he was not for transportation fell on deaf ears
\nTo the bowels of the ships he was flung
\nHigh above the deck in the wicked ocean winds
\nFlapping voilently the sails they were hung!<\/p>\n

In time as time does, she ship it arrived
\nThe names of the passengers were read out
\nConnel was extra – no one knew why –
\nThat he was sent in the wrong, Connel did shout!
\nNow Connel was no good to have in a jail
\nWas too annoying to around all to be
\nSo with a bee in his ear, in a land far away
\nTo fate and the four winds was set free.<\/p>\n

Old habits by hard, and on Sydneys streets
\nFor fighting and being hard a name was soon made
\nFacing everyday the extremes of boredom and immident death
\nNot too many of much were afraid.
\nA Frenchman – Satori by name – arrived in the town
\nTalking of a distant exotic land called Fiji
\nWhere he had a ship whose crew were mostly dead:
\nHe wanted crew – Connel stepped up said: “Take me!”<\/p>\n

His destiny set when his eyes they met
\nThe “General Wellesley” in Fiji’s Sandlewood Bay
\nHe said it was not fit to float in a puddle
\nSo Satori said that on the island he must stay.
\nIn an isle of cannibals one would think it a fate of death
\nBut Lady Luck was winning her battle with Fate
\nThe luck of the Irish was with Connel as well…
\nTo capitalise on fleeting luck was his trait!<\/p>\n

\"Paddy<\/a>
Paddy Connel leaving for Fiji – as noted on Carole Riley genealogy site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

King Tambaivalu needed a white man
\nTo balance the power of Charles Savages ally
\nOur Paddy stepped up, and quickly was hired:
\nGreat luck, as many whites were eaten when they did die!
\nFate in its battles with Lady Luck gave up the ghost
\nVictory on Paddys king followed close behind
\nA “Ratu” or prince with eight wived he was soon made
\nBallinamuck and Clare long gone from his mind…<\/p>\n

Now, Paddy was a braggart, but met his match
\nWhen of his siblings of ten he did tell –
\nHe was mocked by the cheifs who had more by a wife:
\nAs much more by each other wife as well.
\nNow Paddy had eight wives, and he set to make
\nA family of fifty at least to leave behind…
\nThats why many folks family trees in the County of Clare
\nDistant cousins in Fiji can find!<\/p>\n

But Fate rallied against Luck, and aided by fortune
\nThe king died, replaced by his son
\nThey did not get on, a piracy shipwrecking went wrong,
\nThe descent of Connels star had begun.
\nBut Lady Luck faintly smiled, Paddy was exiled
\nWith his collection of skulls, his kids and eight wives:
\nHe was lucky in misfortune and normally such a man
\nAnd his family would lose their lives!<\/p>\n

\"Bog<\/a>
Bog at Edenmore, Ballinamuck, Co. Longford – many rebels of the 1798 Rebellion perished here while more used the cover to escape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Paddy was to die a bitter failed man
\nFor while he had living children a mere forty eight
\nHis aim of fifty had eluded the stranger from Clare…
\nThe winner of the war of the Gods it was Fate.
\nThere he was buried, far far from the men
\nAmong who he lay claiming to be dead in Ballinamuck back there
\nIn distant Ireland he never more did see
\nBeing far far from his own native Clare!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The strange and true tale of a man who survived the 1798 rebellion, only to end up with eight wives in Fiji – a place farther from his native County Clare than even the remote Ballinamuck of North Longford…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,159],"tags":[561,4167,413,4165,4164,4172,3500,4171,4169,4166,4170,4168,562],"class_list":["post-4425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1798-rebellion","category-wanderings-of-the-gael","tag-561","tag-australia","tag-battle-of-ballinamuck","tag-figi","tag-fortwilliam","tag-irish-diaspora","tag-races-of-castlebar","tag-ratu","tag-rewa","tag-sydney","tag-tambaivalu","tag-transportationballinamuck","tag-turn-oot","column","twocol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Paddy-Connel-playing-bookmaker-at-cockroach-races-in-Fort-William-jail.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EI4f-19n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4458,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/rebel-asleep\/","url_meta":{"origin":4425,"position":0},"title":"Rebel Asleep","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"23rd February 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Pondering the sleeping rebels who fled after defeat at Ballinamuck in 1798 who sought refuge in Edenmore Bog","rel":"","context":"In "1798 Rebellion"","block_context":{"text":"1798 Rebellion","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/category\/irelands-wars\/1798-rebellion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Edenmore Hill and the Edenmore Bog Walk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Edenmore-Hill-and-the-Edenmore-Bog-Walk.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Edenmore-Hill-and-the-Edenmore-Bog-Walk.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Edenmore-Hill-and-the-Edenmore-Bog-Walk.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Edenmore-Hill-and-the-Edenmore-Bog-Walk.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":344,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/reaction-and-reflection-on-rebellion-re-enactment-in-ballinamuck\/","url_meta":{"origin":4425,"position":1},"title":"Reaction and Reflection on Rebellion Re-enactment in Ballinamuck","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"7th September 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Was it to be remembered that they took the sword Under the banner of green, the Oath and the Word, Against overwhelming odds, for freedom for to stand - Put aside all differences, to free their native land... Today, others claim in a spirit of jest, To re-eneact the battle,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1798 Rebellion"","block_context":{"text":"1798 Rebellion","link":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/category\/irelands-wars\/1798-rebellion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cattle Graze by the Croppys Grave in Ballinamuck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Cattle-Graze-by-the-Croppys-Grave-in-Ballinamuck.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Cattle-Graze-by-the-Croppys-Grave-in-Ballinamuck.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Cattle-Graze-by-the-Croppys-Grave-in-Ballinamuck.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Cattle-Graze-by-the-Croppys-Grave-in-Ballinamuck.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.writingsinrhyme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Cattle-Graze-by-the-Croppys-Grave-in-Ballinamuck.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/writingsinrhyme.com\/index.php\/real-heros-never-boast-being-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":4425,"position":2},"title":"Real Heros Never Boast, Being Dead","author":"Tom\u00e1s \u00d3 C\u00e1rthaigh","date":"14th August 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Silent they lie, neath clay, the slain... 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