Hardly anyone remembers Napper Tandy these days, just like they forget that it was principally Protestants like him, who brought republican ideology and leadership to Ireland first. Certainly with the onset of opinion makers created by British a mainstream fascist media base in Ireland today, there are just a loyal few who remember now. This a result of the age old successful British propaganda, of divide and conquer, which they exported to all their colonies worldwide and then passed it on to their partners in the US war machine of today. It has left behind civil wars and millions upon millions of poor ordinary dead human beings in Ireland and worldwide.
The United Irishmen of Tandy's time, were on the verge of complete independence from Britain because Protestants and Catholics were united with proper leadership like Napper Tandy. The constant whispers, cultivated revisionism, propaganda and lies of the British were eventually successful in dividing ordinary people, just as they are dividing the Republican leadership with a surrender process commonly called a (peace process) today. This further fracturing of Ireland will cause more violence and is simply prolonging the process of re-uniting all Irish people again.
Napper Tandy was considered so dangerous in his time by the British, that they risked war with France just to have him arrested. Napper Tandy was similar in physical stature to that famous union workers man Jim Larkin a larger than life character, the man was reportedly seven foot tall and boasted a nose so big, that a political enemy once said it could stand for election in its own right.
A Dublin Corporation member in the 1770s, where he established a reputation for exposing corruption, he had a seat in the Irish Parliament within a very short time and as an Irish MP he came into his own. Tandy, who had identified English rule as the root cause of much of Ireland’s troubles, used his position to promote his Irish agenda, unlike the elected of today and it was this, that horrified and enraged the British.
When Irish MPs voted to congratulate to the US on its declaration of independence, it was Tandy with many enemies in high places who was identified as its leader, following which he became a target of ridicule and undisguised personal poison. This confirmed what Tandy had long believed about how the British political system operates and developed his republican ideology further, rather than silence him, it made him a real leader of his people.
His leadership in a boycott against English business in Ireland, increased their contempt.. He helped bring about the establishment of an Irish Parliament in 1782, which, for the first time in Irish history, had some real clout. Ireland was well on the way to independence and events in France helped this sense of optimism and lead it to became more republican in the real sense as developed in France and revolutionary in developmen,t unlike its revised insular form of today.
Tandy led the Dublin branch of Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen and despite a concerted effort to have him banned from public life by the British, his popularity in his native city became a countrywide phemomena. The British howver proscribed the United Irishmen in 1795. Tandy, along with its other leaders became wanted men. He fled to America, while Tone went on to France and began organizing French support for a revolution in Ireland. By 1798 Tandy was also in France and was given command of a fleet of French ships.
Events developed to wreck Tone and Tandy’s vision. General Hoche, the main sponsor, died and Napoleon Bonaparte chose to concentrate French foreign policy eastwards. The Irish rebellion was a military disaster with Tandy’s fleet, arriving in Donegal with the fight lost in Connacht, he was forced to go to Norway (capturing two English ships on the way). In the free city of Hamburg Tandy was controversially arrested and sent back to Dublin by the British on a charge of treason.
The British establishment's media or BBC of the day, now whipped up fanatical hatred of Tandy, his reputation in France however was revolutionary. The French, regarded his deportation from Hamburg such a serious matter, that they blockaded the port and threatened war. The British surrendered. Tandy was convicted, but allowed to go into exile, and he arrived in France as a republican hero. He died in France a hero to their " revolution" but history written by English hands and mercenary Irish Catholic revisionists even more than 200 years later, still treat Napper Tandy as dangerous and a threat to their selfish interests !.
The Catholic church still trying to maintain its monopoly on their brand of republicanism today, give token mention of him. Sectarian loyalist see his memory as a threat to their interests. His memory still evokes fear and hatred among monarchists. Catholic fascists also see his memory as a threat they cannot control.. Still he is remembered in song and story by a faithful few of the common people of Ireland on both sides of the sectarian divide and the song above is just one of those that memorize his time and place.
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