Thomas Reynolds 1798 Informer

In December 1797 a man who would be responsible for betraying the society of the United Irishmen in south Kildare and Leinster and the imprisonment of many of the leaders of the organisation came to live at Kilkea Castle. He was the 26 year old Thomas Reynolds, a distant relation of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and a nephew of Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House, captain of the Athy Yeomanry Cavalry. Reynolds was a Catholic whose father Andrew Reynolds, a silk merchant from Dublin, had married Rose Fitzgerald of Kilmead. Thomas Reynolds spent the first eight years of his life at the Kilmead home of his maternal grandfather Thomas Fitzgerald. Educated at a school in Chiswick and later at Liege in Flanders he returned to Dublin in 1788 just a few weeks before the death of his father Andrew. Mr. Reynolds Senior had been a delegate to the Catholic Committee and at the age of seventeen years his son Thomas was elected in his place. Thus was Thomas Reynolds ‘without any kind of restraint pushed forward in a career of politics and family business for neither of which he possessed the requisite knowledge or experience.’ So wrote his own son in his ‘Life of Thomas Reynolds’ published in 1838. Reynold’s biographer claimed that his father was inveigled to become a member of the United Irishmen in January or February 1797 through the efforts of a Richard Dillon, a Catholic and Oliver Bond, a Presbyterian. Whatever the merits of this claim, he was sworn in as a member of the organisation by Oliver Bond at his house at Bridge Street, Dublin. Oliver Bond’s house was later to be inextricably linked with Thomas Reynold’s name because of the events which occurred there in March 1798. Some time previously Reynolds had agreed to take a lease of Kilkea Castle from the Duke of Leinster on the death of the previous tenant a Mr. Dixon, an elderly man who passed away at the beginning of 1797. Under the terms agreed Reynolds employed the Duke’s builder, a Mr. Shannon to provide new roofing, flooring and ceiling for the castle which was located a few miles from Athy. When the work was completed Reynolds and his family moved into Kilkea Castle in December 1797, his mother the former Rose Fitzgerald of Kilmead having died in Dublin on 6th November. Reynolds was soon admitted into the Athy Cavalry Corps and as a frequent visitor to Athy, befriended many of the local townspeople. He accepted Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s invitation to take over from him as Colonel of the United Irishmen in the south Kildare barony of Kilkea and Moone. Soon thereafter Reynolds was visited by Matthew Kenna, one of the mainstays of the United Irishmen’s organisation in South Kildare. Kenna informed Reynolds of the strength of the United Irishmen in that part of Kildare and arranged a vote of the local captains to confirm his appointment as Colonel. At the same time Reynolds was appointed as County Treasurer which entitled him to attend meetings of the Provincial Council of the United Irishmen. Reynolds, whose name was later to become synonymous with the dreaded terms ‘traitor’ and ‘informer’ is believed to have passed on information to Dublin Castle regarding a scheduled meeting of the Provincial Council in Oliver Bonds House in Bridge Street, Dublin. Members of the Leinster Directory were arrested on 12th March and their detention effectively destroyed any hope of a successful uprising by the United Irishmen. Those arrested were:- Michael William Byrne, Peter Ivers from Carlow, Laurence Kelly from Queen’s County, George Cummins from Kildare, Edward Hudson of Grafton Street, John Lynch from Mary’s Abbey, Lawrence Griffin from Tullow, Thomas Reynolds from Culmullin, John McCan of Church Street, Patrick Devine from Ballymoney, Christopher Martyn from Dunboyne, Peter Bannan from Portarlington, James Rose from Windy Harbour, and Oliver Bond of Bridge Street, Dublin. Two days later Reynolds met Lord Edward Fitzgerald at the home of Dr. Kennedy in Aungier Street, Dublin and again the following day when Lord Edward gave him a letter for the County Kildare Committee. On 17th March Reynolds left Dublin for Kilkea and stopped overnight in Naas. There he was met, apparently to Reynold’s surprise, by Matthew Kenna, the man who was Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s principal contact person in South Kildare. Kenna told Reynolds of a meeting arranged for March 18th at the house of Reilly, a publican, near the Curragh of Kildare where the County Committee Members of the United Irishmen were to assemble. Reynolds attended the meeting, although he must have been somewhat concerned that his United Irishmen colleagues would be suspicious of involvement in the arrests in Dublin six days previously. Nothing untoward happened to Reynolds and afterwards he arranged a meeting for local captains of the United Irishmen in Athy on 20th March. The meeting in a back room of Peter Kelly’s shop in the Main Street was convened to coincide with Athy’s fair. Reynolds read Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s letter to the rebel captains and then proceeded to burn it in their presence. Anxious to resign from the Society of United Irishmen Reynolds pressed the South Kildare Captains to allow him to do so citing the earlier arrests in Oliver Bond’s house as his reason for wishing to step down. It was decided that Reynolds would share his position as Colonel with Dan Caulfield of Levitstown. Nevertheless Reynolds was never again actively involved in the affairs of the United Irishmen.