Limerick's Life

Deportation wishes Athlunkard Bridge, Corbally. McAdam the Traitor

M.O'Driscoll Gold and Silversmith (no longer used) on Bridge Street, just off Mathew Bridge it was previously owned by George Moore in 1769 and Henry Downes 1788.
There is a story that during the 1846-50 Famine a man in order to avoid entering the workhouse or starving to death stood outside this shops window and smashed it with his fist through the window. He placed his hand on the jewelery inside. He remained there until he was arrested and as he wished he was deported to Australia.
Click on thumbnail for larger view.


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The following poem was published in the Limerick Leader, 24 October 1936. It is written by a Limerick man who has long departed the city, who is recalling times of old, such as the Siege of Limerick, when the Williamite Army famously crossed the Shannon where Athlunkard Bridge stands today.

Athlunkard Bridge, Corbally.
(Respectfully inscribed to the Most Rev. George Butler, D.D., Bishop of Limerick)

Far over the tumbling billows
Of the broad Atlantic sea
The thoughts of my heart oft wander
To the friends who are dear to me;
And I visit well-known places,
The scenes by boyhood knew,
Where the Shannon by Limerick city
Rolls down all his waves of blue.

I mark how the lordy current,
As it sweeps in its grand career,
Gives back like a might mirror
Till the eyes of my fancy rest on
That bend in the river's course
Where the Bridge of Athlunkard
spans it,
As a rider does his horse.

The memory bounding backward
Through the, long vale of years,
Recalleth a sombre vision
Of banners and blood-red spears-
All red with the blood of out kindred -
And enter Limerick town
Over Athlunkard's arches
And pillars of granite brown.

And I anxiously ask - Shall ever
Athlunkard's Bridge again
Re-echo the measured tramping
Of some fierce marauder's men;
Of Hessian or maybe Hindoos
Let loose on our trampled land
To plunder and slay out people,
As did once "Fierce Billy's Band"?

And a voice within me answers :
"See that palace upon the ridge
That rises in graceful beauty
Close by Athlunkard Bridge?
There dwells in that lordy palace
One fitted like king to reign,
And to watch o'er his faithful people
As a chief o'er his broad domain.

"And as long as that noble prelate
In his hand the crozier wields,
No ill can befall his people,
No marauders waste their fields.
Athlunkard Bridge may have echoed
The foreign foes' tramp of old,
But whilst Butler guards the approaches
'The pass can ne'er be sold.' "

As again upon Fancy's pinion
I fly from Athlunkard Bridge,
From its old historic approaches
And the palace upon the ridge,
There rises within my bosom
This sentiment fond and true -
"Would each pass in our brave old
island
Were sentinelled safe as you!"

- John F McGrath,
New York, February 1879.
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Apparently during the 1690 siege of Limerick, when the Williamites were nearing the Shannon in Corbally, Philip McAdam, who was supposedly employed as a fisherman had a plot to destroy the Irish defenses, by leading the enemy to the only safe place to cross the Shannon. McAdam “feigned sickness” and remained behind at the banks of the Shannon as the other fishermen on “fearing” the “cruelty of Williams soldiers”, had fled to Clare or to the woods in Cratloe. The Williamite army seeking the advantage of a suitable fording point at which to cross the Shannon, one of the cities natural defenses, approached McAdam with an offer, one account states that he was “handsomely rewarded for his treachery” against the Irish by receiving “a large tract of land in the vicinity” from the Williamites. While an alternative version of the tale sees McAdam in a more favourable light, in which he was forces into a decision of either show the Williamites the crossing point on the Shannon and receive “a keg of gold” or in refusal to face “a block and headsman’s axe”.

On choosing the former, he directed the enemy to the place known as Annaghbeg in Corbally, which was located opposite Plassey mill about two miles up from the city. At Annaghbeg there was a ford which until recently had been marked with “two short rows of rocks running parallel to the river bank”.  Consequently, the Williamite troops crossed the Shannon at Annaghbeg and went on to sack the city.

When Philip McAdam died he was buried in his family grave in Kilquane churchyard in Parteen, the Abbey fishermen, who felt such vengeance against the man, had a shelter close to the church grounds, in which they would rest and eat. On stopping at this particular shelter they felt it their duty to visit the grave of McAdam spit on it and in other ways vandalize it.  This grave was ritually desecrated for over two centuries until at least 1918, in an act de rigueur by the families of the fishermen who felt betrayed by McAdam.

The following poems were recited in relation to the betrayal the fisher folk felt,

1. Here lies the body of McAdam the Traitor,

Who lived a fisherman, and died a deceiver,   

The devil came for him in flashes of thunder,   

And now he is in hell and it is no wonder.        

Here lies the grave of McAdam the traitor,

Who’s burning in hell with the thirst,

And anyone who don’t desecrate his grave,

I pray that their belly burst.

2. McAdams nose is long

McAdams nose is strong

It would be no disgrace

To McAdams face

If McAdams nose was gone.

One source claims that the community would take an annual pilgrimage of sorts to the headstone bearing his name and at this they would spit, throw stones, and dance on his grave, this ritual that I have already stated continues until at least 1918. The first two lines of poem number one, recorded above were etched into his tombstone, at sometime between 1839 when there was no mention of the inscription in the recording made by John O’Donovan The Antiquities of County Clare  and 1866 when it was recorded by Maurice Lenihan in his History of Limerick, this inscription shows the ferocity with which this man was despised by the community involved. As “disrespect for the dead was not prominent” during the ninetieth and early twentieth centuries, in normal circumstances for Irish society and even less so in predominantly catholic communities the likes of which the fishermen belonged too, hence this man must have been extremely alienated from his society to warrant such an attack.

The historical truth of this story is that the Williamite army did in fact cross the Shannon at Annaghbeg on the morning of 10 August 1690 with out “opposition”. On the previous night of the 9 August 1690, a troop was sent to view the ford at Annaghbeg where the “enemy being thus posted so very advantageously that we expected to have met with great difficulties and opposition in passing the River, which is very Rapid, and the bottom stony, but the Enemy in the middle of the Night abandoned their Station with great precipitation”. I have found no reference to a man by the name of McAdam in any of the sources written at the time of the siege and quoted in the Old Limerick Journal 1690 Siege Edition. 

Major Thomas Stannard McAdam a descendant of McAdam was asked about the tale and the receipt of the land by Maurice Lenihan during his compilation of his book on the history of Limerick, the Major produced papers to prove that his ancestors had rented the estate from the earl of Thomond long before the siege.

Another variation of this tale is that it was not in fact a Philip McAdam or an incident surrounding the siege of Limerick, which the Abbey fishermen refer to when speaking of the traitor or desecrating the McAdam grave but another man by the name of Thomas McAdam of Blackwater Co Clare, a possible descendant of the accused Philip McAdam, as both he and Philip’s actual descendant Thomas Stannard resided in Blackwater, Co. Clare. Thomas was a leaser of the Lax weir between 1818 and 1834, on one occasion during this period, on catching poachers on the weir he shot one of them, a fisherman, named John Hartigan in the eye, leading to Hartigan’s death a few months later. This may have seen as just cause to vandalize the McAdam grave. Although it is also possible that it was both men of the McAdam clan at whom the stories, poems and despoliation was aimed.

In conclusion the tale of McAdam the Traitor, although, not necessarily historically accurate played a pivotal role in the social structure of this fishing community and was a vital element in keeping the community together albeit by fear of the consequences of going against convention. The legends of this man, which was maintained through generations through the use of folklore alone, adapting as it went but the basic moral of the story, was ingrained in the tale, therefore no matter the teller or the method by which it was told, and the moral to this story remained the same, do not betray your community or eternal damnation will be yours.

The restored McAdam headstone inserted into the wall of Kilquane church, click on thumbnail for larger version.

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