Sir, - I have read today's "Irishman's Diary" (August 17th) by my former colleague, Patrick Comerford, with great interest. I feel it necessary to add some qualifying information. "Thomas Dixon, a sea captain and publican is undoubtedly one of the darkest characters on the rebel side in 1798... His cousin, an excommunicated priest, also called Thomas Dixon, had died on a ship in Duncannon awaiting transportation. Soon after Dixon forced three prisoners to execute Francis Murray, the man who informed on his cousin . . . he remained in Wexford to take control of the streets and engage in an orgy of murder against real or imagined Orangemen", we read.
To be very brief, Thomas Dixon, sea captain, master, merchant in a dominant position in the grain port of Castlebridge in Wexford harbour, was married to Margaret Roche, a sister of General Edward Roche. The Roches, a highly respected family, had been evicted and their lands granted to a Cromwellian officer, Le Hunte. In the period of the 1798 outbreak, Margaret Dixon, Thomas Dixon's wife, recorded as a very handsome woman, was raped by a redcoat. This condones nothing, but may explain the ungovernable fury of Captain Thomas Dixon.
Father Thomas Dixon was one of the few Catholic curates who defied the vigorous strictures of his bishop, parish priests and Church, to throw in his lot with the United Irishmen. He was not excommunicated. He was suspended by Bishop Caulfield.
Patrick Comerford goes on:
"But 37 Protestants were executed on Wexford Bridge alone that Friday . . ." giving the clear impression that Protestants were executed because they were Protestants. The corollary would be that Catholics were dispatched because they were Catholics. The prisoners arrested and lodged in Wexford jail were prisoners regarded as worthy of nothing - less than jail and trial by the United Irishmen. Religion had nothing whatever to do with it. If the Catholic nobleman, Sir Thomas Esmonde, could have been apprehended by the United Irishmen he too would have been in Wexford jail along with his Catholic sergeant Doyle.
Margaret Dixon's brother, General Edward Roche of Garrylough, one of the most distinguished and literate of all the United Irish leaders, arrived at Wexford Bridge and saved many loyalist prisoners' lives. He had previously saved the life of one of the most demonic wretches ever to disgrace his cloth, the Prebender of Toome and magistrate, Roger Owen. This most fortunate of provocateurs, arrested and lodged in Wexford jail, also escaped the attention of Thomas Dixon and was saved again by the arrival in Wexford of Edward Roche.
I look with pleasurable anticipation to Patrick Comerford's lecture on "The Church of Ireland Clergy of the Diocese of Ferns and 1798" in St Iberius Church, Wexford, on September 3th at 8 p.m. - Yours, etc.
Drinaoh Lodge,
Wexford.