Tag Archives: Copper Faced Jack

On this day – 9 June 1739   The real Copper-face Jack

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It’s the most famous night club in Ireland. By day it’s an innocuous basement in Harcourt Street, by night it’s frequented by people out to have a good time, or to get drunk, or both. The legend of Copper Face Jacks has not dimmed despite the supposed impoverishment of the entire island of Ireland since 2008. But who exactly was Copper Face Jack?

Actually, he was the grammatically more accurate Copper-faced Jack, and his real name was John Scott, 1st Earl of Clonmel and Lord Earlsfort

Scott was born into a landed family in Tipperary in the mid 18th century and was educated in Kilkenny College. While there, he came to the defence of a fellow pupil, Hugh Carleton, who was being tormented by another student. Carleton was the son of Francis Carleton, a wealthy merchant from Cork. When he heard of Scott’s courage and generosity Francis Carleton took the young man under his wing, and paid for Scott to study at Trinity College, Dublin with his son. Carleton’s support, however, turned out to be a mixed blessing because, shortly after Scott was called to the Bar in 1765 the Cork merchant prince went bankrupt. It fell to John Scott to support him to the tune of a hefty £300 a year until Hugh Carleton was in a financial position to do so.

Scott became an Irish barrister at a time when they were anything but a rarity. In the late 18th century Ireland had over seven hundred barristers when England and Wales had only six hundred between them. The Irish population would have been just over half that of England and Wales combined. Ireland was a litigious nation then, as now, and court cases offered cheap and respectable entertainment for the upper classes of Dublin.

Scott was highly successful at the profession, and used some of the sizeable income he made in the Four Courts to get himself elected to the Irish parliament, as member for Mullingar in 1769. Between 1774 and 1783 he was either Solicitor General or Attorney General for Ireland.  In 1784 he became Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland. Although he was close to Henry Grattan, and was dismissed from his position as Attorney General for opposing the incursions of English officials on the small measure of Irish sovereignty obtained in 1782, he was not beloved of those revolutionary nationalists, the United Irishmen. One of their supporters, William Todd Jones, once wrote to Wolfe Tone of his ‘contempt and detestation’ of Scott.

Were Scott to have read the comment he might well have challenged William Todd Jones to a duel. He fought four in his lifetime, at least one over his involvement with another man’s wife, a Mrs. Cuffe, and almost fought a fifth against a political opponent for remarks made in the House of Commons in 1773. Despite his exalted legal position, he even defended duelling in certain instances, where there was no recourse to the law. ‘In cases of this complexion’, he observed, ‘the courts will never interfere.’

By the 1790s Scott, by now the Earl of Clonmel, had an income of about twenty thousand pounds per annum from a variety of different sources. He also had at least one thing in common with the venue that is called after him, he enjoyed life to the full. As his income expanded, so did his waistline. His diary suggests that he realized the need to lead a more modest lifestyle, but he never quite got around to it. The increasingly corpulent Clonmel finally succumbed to his own excesses at the early age of fifty-seven. In so doing he missed out on the United Irishmen’s rebellion, and the Act of Union, either of which might have killed him anyway.

So what about the famous nickname. Some authorities suggest that this came about because his incessant consumption of alcoholic beverages left him red-faced. Others insist that he had a complexion that was unusually tanned for his day. Either way he was stuck with the unflattering moniker ‘Copper-faced Jack’, which might have been expected to vanish with his passing. Given his elevated status in 18th century Ireland he would be unlikely to be unduly flattered that his nickname has lived on in the way that it has.

The birth of John Scott, aka the Earl of Clonmel, aka Copper-faced Jack, was noted by a breathless nation’s newspapers, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago, on this day.

 

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There was a real Copper Face(d) Jack – On this day, 8 June 1739

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 483px-John_Scott,_1st_Earl_of_Clonmell_by_Gilbert_Stuart

 

 

It’s the most famous night club in Ireland. By day it’s an innocuous basement in Harcourt Street, by night it’s frequented by people out to have a good time, or to get drunk, or both. The legend of Copper Face Jacks has not dimmed despite the supposed impoverishment of the entire island of Ireland since 2007. But who exactly was Copper Face Jack.

Actually he was the grammatically more accurately Copper-faced Jack, and his real name was John Scott, 1st Earl of Clonmel and Lord Earlsfort

Scott was born into a landed family in Tipperary in the mid 18th century and was educated in Kilkenny College. While there he came to the defence of a fellow pupil, Hugh Carleton, who was being tormented by another student. Carleton was the son of Francis Carleton, a wealthy merchant from Cork. When he heard of Scott’s courage and generosity Francis Carleton took the young man under his wing and paid for Scott to study at Trinity College with his son. Carleton’s support, however, turned out to be a mixed blessing because, shortly after Scott was called to the Bar in 1765 the Cork merchant prince went bankrupt. It fell to John Scott to support him to the tune of a hefty £300 a year until Hugh Carleton was in a financial position to do so.

Scott became an Irish barrister at a time when they were anything but a rarity. In the late 18th century Ireland had over 700 barristers when England and Wales had only 600. The Irish population would have been just over half that of England and Wales combined. Ireland was a litigious nation then, as now, and court cases offered cheap and respectable entertainment for the upper classes of Dublin.

Scott was highly successful at the profession and used some of the sizeable income he made in the Four Courts to get himself elected to the Irish parliament as member for Mullingar in 1769. Between 1774 and 1783 he was either Solicitor General or Attorney General for Ireland.  In 1784 he became Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland. Although he was close to Henry Grattan and dismissed from his position as Attorney General for opposing the incursions of English officials on the small measure of Irish sovereignty obtained in 1782, he was not beloved of those revolutionary nationalists the United Irishmen. One of their supporter, William Todd Jones once wrote to Wolfe Tone of his ‘contempt and detestation’ of Scott.   (Tone’s letters)

Were Scott to have read the comment he might well have challenged William Todd Jones to a duel. He fought four in his lifetime, at least one over his involvement with another man’s wife, a Mrs. Cuffe. (Kelly p149) and almost fought a fifth against a political opponent for remarks made in the House of Commons in 1773. Despite his exalted legal position he even defended duelling in certain instances where there was no recourse to the law. ‘In cases of this complexion’, he observed, ‘the courts will never interfere.’

By the 1790s Scott, by now the Earl of Clonmel, had an income of about £20,000 per annum from a variety of different sources. He had at least one thing in common with the venue that is called after him, he enjoyed life to the full. As his income expanded so did his waistline. His diary suggests that he realized the need to lead a more modest lifestyle but he never quite got around to it. The increasingly corpulent Clonmel finally succumbed to his own excesses at the early age of 57. In so doing he missed out on the United Irishmen’s rebellion and the Act of Union, either of which might have killed him anyway.

Some authorities suggest that his nickname came about because his incessant consumption of alcoholic beverages left him red-faced, others insist that he had a complexion that was unusually tanned for his day. Either way he was stuck with the unflattering nickname ‘Copper-faced Jack’, which might have been expected to vanish with his passing. Given his elevated status in 18th century Ireland he would be unlikely to be unduly flattered that his nickname has lived on in the way that it has.

John Scott, aka the Earl of Clonmel, aka Copper-faced Jack, was born 274 years ago, on this day.

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Affairs of honour – the Irish ‘code duello’

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As #anniversaries has featured some interesting duels and duellists of late – some random thoughts on the practice of ‘gentlemen’ attempting to kill each other in ‘affairs of honour’.

Before pistols became widely available in the 17th century ‘affairs of honour’ between gentlemen were usually settled with the sword as the weapon of choice. But Irish playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was clearly on to something in 1775 when he created the bellicose Irish squire, Sir Lucius O’Trigger, in his celebrated play The Rivals. (Although, in the play itself, despite his name, Sir Lucius fights a duel with swords.)

In 1777, with pistols now far more frequently used than swords, a new ‘code duello’ was adopted at the summer assizes in Clonmel ’by the gentlemen of County Tipperary, County Galway, County Mayo, County Sligo and County Roscommon and prescribed for general adoption throughout Ireland.’ The Irish code soon gained wide acceptance in Britain and North America. Under the new code fatalities tended to increase as the use of pistols was more dangerous than the more benign regime of sword-play to ‘first blood’. Also, under the Irish code the practice of firing into the air or the ground to avoid wounding an opponent was discouraged.

Duelling, which was a 17th century import from Britain,  was endemic in Ireland in the 18th century. Such was its popularity that nineteen companies in Dublin alone made or sold dueling pistols. The death rate in such encounters in Ireland was 1:4 whereas in England it was 1:14.  The spread of the practice was assisted by supportive attitudes even within the judiciary and the legal establishment. John Scott, (aka Copper-faced Jack), Ist Earl of Clonmel, was an Irish Attorney General, Solicitor General and Lord Chief Justice between 1777-98. But he himself fought four duels and defended the practice, observing that …

‘There are cases where it may be, and when it is prudent for a man to fight a duel – cases in which the law does not afford him redress – cases of preserving malignity, cases of injured honour, cases of a wounded spirit; and a wounded spirit who can bear? In cases of this complexion the courts will never interfere with its discretionary authority against a man.’

The duel became increasingly socially unacceptable as the nineteenth century progressed, but in Ireland at least it remained an appropriate response to an insult until well into the 1820s. Prominent Irish politicians and aristocrats fought or threatened duels. In 1807, for example, William Congreve Alcock shot and killed John Alcock in a duel in Wexford. Both were contenders for the Wexford parliamentary seat. Alcock accused Colclough of attempting to steal voters to which he felt he was entitled. (www.soundcloud.com/irishhistory)

The duel was used by far more prominent politicians than Alcock and Colclough as a potential means of ridding oneself of inconvenient opponents. Before the passage of the Act of Union in 1800 a pugnacious supporter of the Irish Parliament pledged to challenge sufficient supporters of the Union to swing the vote against the template of Pitt and Castlereagh.   In 1815 then Irish chief secretary Robert Peel challenged the leader of the Roman Catholic Irish opposition, Daniel O’Connell, to a dawn meeting (with pistols) in Ostend. The future Prime Minister made it to Belgium but O’Connell was arrested en route. Peel, naturally, accused O’Connell of having engineered his own arrest in order to avoid the confrontation. O’Connell, just as naturally, accused the chief secretary of having arranged his arrest for the same reason.

In February 1815 Daniel O’Connell fought a duel with a unionist member of Dublin Corporation, John d’Esterre in which d’Esterre died. Thereafter, so mythology has it, when he attended religious services, O’Connell always wore a white glove over his hand as a sign of penitence. O’Connell’s second on that occasion and subsequently on of his most prominent supporters in the 1828 Clare election, the O’Gorman Mahon, was an inveterate duelist. He is rumoured to have fought dozens and to have adopted the duel as ‘his favoured method of conflict resolution.’ Thackeray based his truculent character ‘The O’Mulligan’ (Mrs. Perkins’ Ball) on Mahon.

In the 1840s James Shields, an Irish born Illinois politician, who went on to represent three states in the U.S. Senate, challenged Abraham Lincoln to one-to-one combat over an alleged slight. The two actually faced each other (Lincoln, who towered over Shields, wisely chose swords rather than pistols) but the matter was resolved by the seconds before any blood was drawn.  (www.soundcloud.com/irishhistory)

Even in the 1880s (1881 to be precise) – a time when duelling was supposed to have died out completely – when former Hussar William O’Shea first became aware that Charles Stewart Parnell was involved in an affair with his estranged wife he issued a challenge. However, when Parnell accepted O’Shea backed down. The duel was eventually fought out in the London divorce courts in November 1890, to Parnell’s detriment.

By the early 19th century it appears that duelling in Ireland had become a form of adventure sport for a bored aristocracy and an infinite resource for the ‘gentleman’ who doubled as an aristocratic bully. For example an Irish landlord who delighted in the name of Hyacinth O’Rorke, ‘was accustomed to take his walks abroad with a pistol in one hand and a horsewhip in the other’. After numerous duels and horse-whippings he met his match at the hands of a courageous magistrate, Phillip ‘Caoch’ Perceval, who had the good fortune to shoot him in the head in an encounter. The fact that ‘caoch’ is the Irish for ‘blind’ suggests that Perceval was exceptionally fortunate in killing the inveterate duellist with the florid name.

http://www.libraryireland.com/irelandpainted/gentlemen-ireland.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_duels#British_and_Irish_duels

James Kelly, ‘That Damn’d thing called honour’: duelling in Ireland 1570-1860 (Cork University Press, 1995)

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