The background of this petition is rather fascinating. The famine of the 1840s created a crisis in Irish discontent with English rule, culminating in the abortive Young Ireland uprising of 1848, led by William Smith O’Brien (1803–64). O’Brien entered Parliament from Ireland in 1828. His political opinions moved steadily to the left. In 1843 he joined the Repeal Association and rapidly became the second-in-command in the Irish nationalist struggle. O’Brien’s group, called Young Ireland, became convinced that only direct action would free Ireland, and in 1846 O’Brien formed the Irish Confederation. This group rose up against the government. The revolt was abortive, and the only engagement was an attempt to attack a police detachment in County Tipperary, otherwise known as "the battle of Widow McCormack's Cabbage Patch." O’Brien was arrested and sentenced to death for treason.

Petitions appeared all over Ireland as well as in many parts of England, calling for clemency. Other petitions, mostly from England, called for O’Brien’s immediate execution. O’Brien’s sentence was commuted to transportation to Tasmania, and he lived there for some years. He received a full pardon in 1856. Afterward he returned to Ireland and traveled on the Continent and in America, but he was no longer politically active.

The O’Brien petitions, signed in 1848 and 1849, were apparently stored and then forgotten. The petitions contain signatures as signed by over 80,000 people from every part of Ireland and from Liverpool, Manchester, and other parts of England. By contrast, census records from this period are non-existent, and other records are spotty at best. As a result, these petitions probably contain the only record of the existence of many people of that time.

The petitions apparently went unnoticed for nearly 150 years. Genealogists and historians were unaware of their existence, and they were never transcribed or microfilmed. This genealogy treasure simply gathered dust until Ruth Lawler discovered them. Quoting from Ms. Lawler’s introduction on the CD-ROM:

Once I had decided that this huge and unique source should be collected on database, I spent the following three years of my time doing just that. With the permission of Dr. David Craig, Director of the National Archives, and the practical support of Brian Donovan of Eneclann, the electronic publishing firm, we have produced an accessible C.D. that brings the source to the widest possible audience. In preparing the data, we found petitions from thirty-one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland--King's county (modern day Co. Offaly) was the one county that does not appear to have produced a petition. It should be noted, however, that many of these petitions only came to light in the course of preparing the data for publication, and there may still be others that have not yet been found. In addition, petitions were produced from 6 regions in England.

Ms. Lawler then lists the number of signatures collected in each county and gives a total of 80,974 signatures, including 7,830 from England. She then writes:

The rolls and bundles of the original manuscript were, in some cases, extremely difficult to read. Where possible, I have checked against other primary source material in the National Archives of Ireland to help confirm the spellings. For example I was able to consult Thoms Directory 1846-50 for the City of Dublin and for religious ministers and local government officials in other counties, and Griffiths Surname Indexes for some of the petitioners outside of Dublin.

The original Petitions were deposited in the State Paper Office in Dublin Castle and transferred to the National Archives in 1989. These Memorials were held in two sections in the National Archives records, the first in the Parliamentary Papers and the second in the Chief Secretaries Office Records. These two have now been brought together under a single series, Series O in the National Archives. In consultation with the archivists of the National Archives, I have inserted page numbers in the electronic copy, to improve the search facility, as the original Memorials were submitted as several petitions and therefore have no sequential numbers. Anyone who uses the original manuscript to find a name will still need to read the entire petition to find a signature - although they may try to navigate the document by counting down the 'joins', i.e., where the individual petitions were fastened together to form a larger document. The page numbers that I have introduced into the electronic copy are in fact based on these original 'joins', in an attempt to preserve something of the integrity of the original manuscript in the electronic copy. In some cases there are only a few signatures on a page, and on others over a hundred names, addresses, and occupations with additional remarks.

Eneclann, a Trinity College campus company in Dublin, Ireland, produces the William Smith O’Brien Petition CD-ROM disk. The disk includes all the software required to install it on Windows95, 98, NT or 2000. I found the software installation was quick and easy, and soon I was looking at the records on the CD-ROM. There are three different types of searches available: Standard, Expert and Soundex:

The Standard Search allows for a combination of surname, forename (first name), location and occupation fields. The fields are optional; you can leave them blank to include all records or enter specific search terms to narrow the results to only the records you seek. For instance, specifying a search of the surname Lowe in the location of Limerick will produce a listing of all records that match those two.

Expert Search allows for wildcards and Boolean logic. It allows for a very powerful combination of Boolean terms such as And, Or, Not, Exclusive Or, Phrase, Proximity and more.

The Soundex Search returns results for names that sound alike, such as Smith and Smythe. Remember the spelling wasn’t standardized in the 1840s and even related individuals may have used more than one method of spelling the family name.

For instance, here is an entry I found when looking for the surname Lafferty:

Lafferty, Joseph Drumragh Co TyroneL163222

Surname: Lafferty

Forename: Joseph

Address 2: Drumragh

Page/Sheet No: 3

Signed At: Drumragh Parish

Petition: William Smith O'Brien Petition

Remarks & Occupation: Inhabitants of Drumragh Parish Co Tyrone

Immediately below that record displayed on the screen there was a hyperlink labeled "Scan of Header (Drumragh Co Tyrone (CRF 1848 O 16/2/139))." I clicked on this link, and then an image appeared on the screen showing the top part of that particular petition but not listing all the names included.

The information on this CD-ROM can be printed and can be saved as HTML files. I also found it was easy to "cut-and-paste" individual records, as I did to insert the Lafferty entry into this newsletter. However, there is no method of exporting large amounts of data; For example, you cannot quickly produce a listing of all the Murphys in Limerick.

The William Smith O’Brien Petition records are an excellent source of genealogy data. The CD-ROM contains transcribed records that are not available elsewhere. If you have ancestors living in Ireland in 1848 and 1849, you may well find information on them in this new resource. The data includes names, residences and occupations, information that you may not be able to find elsewhere.

The William Smith O’Brien Petition CD-ROM sells for $39.95 (U.S. funds) or £36.00 (Irish pounds) or €46.09 (Euros). Those prices do not include taxes and shipping. For more information, or to order online, go to: www.eneclann.ie.