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Shays's Rebellion, led by Daniel Shays, erupted in Massachusetts in 1787 as a response to the economic hardships and perceived taxation injustices imposed by the new U.S. government, marking the first significant test of the nation's political stability.
Mayo “My ancestors hailed from the area,” he writes.
“Lacken, Lacken Strand, Lacken Pier and Rathlackan are all within a stone’s throw. Lovely part of the world. ” It is indeed.
But his email also reminded me of another coincidence, this time involving Thursday’s Diary – about theStairway to Heaven – Frank McNally on how our favourite painting became a TikTok sensationMore than once a friendly hello has been met with silence, even here in Ireland When I first met Victor, back in the 1990s, he played regular traditional music sessions in a pub called The White Horse on George’s Quay. Horses are a common motif in drinking establishments, of course, for all sorts of reason.
Thus, Dublin pubs names also include a Blackhorse, and even a Bleeding Horse. Then there is the Horse Show House, the Horseshoe Bar , and in Cabinteely, the Horse and Hound. But if the fanlight statues were perceived to have had a political meaning once, so must have been pubs called the White Horse, although with those too, no doubt, the significance became fossilised and forgotten over the centuries.
Anyway, Victor subsequently relocated to the Netherlands, where he works as a photographer and video journalist but still plays trad sessions, mostly in an Irish pub called Mulligan’s. Meanwhile, back in Dublin, the old White Horse has for some years past been a dead horse. Today – sic transit Gloria mundi – the site houses a branch of Starbuck’s. The American Revolution you’ll have heard of by now, its fame renewed by the 250th anniversary celebrations.
Less well known is Shays’s Rebellion, which broke out 240 years ago this weekend, and for a time threatened to be a second revolution. That too was partly inspired by perceived injustices of taxation, except that this time they were overseen by the new, democratically elected government rather than the British.
The rebellion was led by one Daniel Shays, a Massachusetts-born son of Irish immigrants, who had distinguished himself as a captain in the revolutionary wars, but arrived home afterwards to debts he couldn’t pay because he was still owed for his military service. Others similarly aggrieved joined in a populist uprising against the new regime, beginning on August 29th, 1786.
It lasted a few months and cost a dozen lives before petering out, although it probably helped precipitate certain constitutional reforms that followed. Shays was subsequently pardoned for his part in it, while being vilified in the Boston press as a dangerous radical. But future president Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France, was notably relaxed about the whole affair.
“The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” he wrote calmly from Paris, where the tree of liberty was soon to be refreshed to extreme lengths, with consequences that would be felt as far away as Mayo. The exact extent of Shays’s role in the rebellion named after him is still a matter of debate. Some historians argue it was greatly exaggerated. His is an unusual fame in general.
Irish readers would be forgiven for thinking “Shays’s Rebellion” is a typo. And the people who organised his original tombstone most have thought so too. He was first buried as Daniel “Shay”, a more plausible version of a well-known Irish surname.
Then one of his ancestors insisted on adding the ‘s’. But there wasn’t room on the original for the extra letter, so they had to erect a whole new headstone. Getting back to Humbert and Kilcummin, tradition has it that when he stepped ashore there, accompanied by 1,000 French troops, locals greeted him by playing a jig called Paddy O’Rafferty.
This is quite likely, because if there had been a hit parade in 1798, that tune would have been in the top 10. It had been catalogued three years earlier by the music collector Edward Bunting, and such was its popularity that by the early 1800s it was often the first or second dance called at events involving the gentry. It also spawned a series of ballads, the lyrics of which were sometimes in questionable taste.
Song versions tended to concern Paddy O’Rafferty’s courtship and marriage. And in one, according to the music historian Katie Howson on her blog Unsung Histories, the marriage ends with Paddy “knocking his wife into a bog, burying her and dancing on her grave”. By the 19th century, Paddy had also become a stage character on either side of the Atlantic. But perhaps fortunately, the ballad versions went out of fashion eventually.
Today, the wordless jig lives on, a staple of the traditional repertoire. It was played at Bessie’s Bar in Kilcummin as recently as last Saturday night. And as a descendant of those parts assures me, you will also still hear it regularly in Amsterdam.
Stairway to Heaven – Frank McNally on how our favourite painting became a TikTok sensationKaroline Leavitt leaves chaotic White House with immaculate timingAndy Burnham in Belfast: Mixing up Donegal and Drogheda, but crystal clear on Border pollElectric Picnic 2026: Saturday stage times for all the top areas, weather forecast and more
Shays's Rebellion American Revolution Taxation Massachusetts U.S. Government
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