The Story of Thomas Kenedy & Mary Durham - 1782 - 1838

The Story of Thomas Kenedy & Mary Durham - 1782 - 1838

Ireland in the latter half of the 18th century was a country of major political upheaval.
By the year 1778 the native Gaelic language had been banned in schools and Catholics owned only five percent of the land. Catholics were discriminated against with the blessing of the law.
The majority of the repressed local Catholic Irish were not included in the part-time military force known as the Volunteers, which had been raised to preserve law and order while the regular Irish troops were fighting the War of Independence in America.
An estimated 12,000 people became Volunteers in the spring of 1779. That rose to 40,000 by September and to over 60,000 by May 1782. Members were drawn mainly from the Protestant urban and rural middle classes; officers were elected by the rank and file but generally came from the gentry and aristocracy.
1782 also marked the start of two years of crop failure.
The Volunteers (otherwise known as the Wicklow Volunteers) drew up detailed plans for parliamentary reform but the ruling elite and landowners felt they would relinquish their powers if the bill was introduced and so continually rejected it.
During 1784 some Dublin radicals tried to broaden the base of the movement, recruiting growing numbers of working class Protestants, but also of Catholics, who had up to this point been largely excluded from the movement because of the legal prohibition on their bearing arms. 2
A new group emerged known as The Defenders. They were the Catholic underclass and they did not hesitate to use violence to make their point. The Defenders were limited by their lack of firearms and so committed raids on farmhouses of the wealthier class.
There was tension everywhere caused by the unethical discrimination of class and religion.
There was hunger, both physical and emotional, and it needed to be satisfied.
It was into this environment that Thomas Kenedy and Mary Durham were born. Thomas was born in 1782/3 and Mary 4 years later in 1786.