KEANE, Sir Richard (1780-1855), of Belmont and Cappoquin House, Co. Waterford

Keane was a substantial landowner, whose holdings centred on a 9,000 acre estate at Cappoquin, County Waterford. His father, Sir John Keane (1757-1829) had sat in the Irish and United Kingdom parliaments for Bangor (1791-7) and for Youghal (1797-1800, 1801-6, 1808-18) as a client of the earl of Shannon.1E.M. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800, v, (2002), 4-5; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv, 327-8. In 1831 Keane gained local popularity by leasing 470 acres of mountain at Mount Melleray for 99 years at a nominal rent to a community of Cistercian (Trappist) monks, who had recently fled from France.2T.N. Frewer, Waterford People. A Biographical Dictionary (1998), 79. He was active in local politics, addressing the County Waterford reform meeting in May 1832, and attending a meeting in Dungarvan to petition against tithes that December.3Freeman’s Journal, 4 Apr., 22 May, 8 Dec. 1832. The liberal press believed that Keane, ‘as a landlord, a magistrate, and in all the other relationships of life’ deserved ‘well of his countrymen’, and in October 1832 a deputation headed by Philip Barron secured his candidature for County Waterford. There was, however, considerable speculation as to whether Keane would commit himself to repeal.4Ibid., 30 Oct., 10 Nov. 1832. At the hustings, he was proposed by Henry Villiers Stuart, then lord lieutenant of the county, who, as an ‘anti-repealer’ was disconcerted to hear his nominee give qualified support for the policy. ‘I will’, Keane declared, ‘hold it as an imposing weapon to get justice for Ireland. If justice be not amply and immediately done, you may set me down as an arrant repealer.’ Despite his refusal to give an outright pledge, Keane’s conditional declaration and his ready acceptance of the ballot were sufficient to secure him second place in the poll.5Ibid., 26 Dec. 1832.

After the election, Keane attended Daniel O’Connell’s National Council in Dublin, but soon began to chart his own course, as a staunch whig.6A. Macintyre, The Liberator: Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-47 (1965), 54, 57, 96; Morning Chronicle, 21 Jan. 1833. A zealous church reformer, Keane enthusiastically endorsed Lord Althorp’s proposals to reform the Church of Ireland, expressing his ‘unmixed delight and unfeigned gratitude for … a measure of a healing and wholesome nature, which would secure the confidence and gratitude of the Irish people, and serve as the keystone of peace and good order throughout Ireland’.7Hansard, 12 Feb. 1833, vol. xv, c.615. On other issues he openly clashed with O’Connell. When, during the debate on the suppression of disturbances Bill, Keane suggested an amendment that would allow for local magistrates to be consulted before any district was proclaimed, he was forced to defend the conduct of the Waterford magistrates against O’Connell’s assertion that the proposition ‘was calculated to make the Bill a great deal worse than it was’.8Ibid., 18 Mar. 1833, vol. xvi, c.751. Keane’s failure to oppose the coercion bill effectively ended his career with the popular party, and O’Connell described his conduct in parliament as ‘treacherous to the last degree’.9See divisions on 1, 12, 13, 15 22, 27, 29 Mar. 1833; O’Connell to P.V. Fitzpatrick, 11 Mar. 1833, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, v, 16; Macintyre, Liberator, 48. Keane also voted against the O’Connellites on the question of public distress, 21 Mar. 1833, and was absent from votes on the tithe arrears bill, 21 Aug. 1833, and O’Connell’s motion on the repeal of the Union, 29 Apr. 1834.

Although Keane sat on a handful of election committees and presented a number of minor petitions, questions began to be raised in Ireland about his lack of activity at Westminster.10The Times, 4 Jan. 1834. At a meeting of the Anti-Tory Association in November 1834, Keane was accused of violating his electoral pledges and voting against the wishes of his constituents, having been, it was claimed, ‘as false to himself as he was false to the country’. This criticism, along with ‘a family affliction’, meant that Keane did not stand for re-election at the 1835 general election.11Belfast News-letter, 2 Dec. 1834; The Times, 2 Dec. 1834. He was briefly spoken of for a vacancy at Dungarvan in 1836, but did not stand for parliament again, his record in the Commons, and his later ‘machinations’ to have the Waterford assize court removed to Dungarvan, having destroyed his political reputation amongst local Liberals.12The Times, 1 Aug. 1836. Rev. John Sheehan told O’Connell, ‘I am convinced that in heart a greater enemy to popular rights, a greater Orangeman than Sir Richard does not exist.’ Sheehan to O’Connell, 19 Dec. 1837, O’Connell Correspondence, vi, 109-12. Keane, however, maintained an interest in politics and, in April 1839, attended a meeting of the Friends of the Liberal Government in Ireland to express confidence in the Whig administration. In January 1840, he proposed a resolution to oppose ‘the destruction of the Liberal franchise of Ireland’ at a gathering in Dublin called to reorganise the registries of Ireland, and later chaired a meeting in Waterford in support of Lord Morpeth’s registration bill.13Morning Chronicle, 9 Apr. 1839; Freeman’s Journal, 13 Jan. 1840, 8 Mar. 1841; Belfast News-letter, 14 Jan. 1840. The Dublin meeting was attended by O’Connell, and Keane attended the subsequent dinner in his honour.

Keane faced criticism for his defence of landlord rights before the Devon Commission in 1843, yet he actively participated in famine relief work, as part of which he commissioned the construction of the Victoria Bridge at Cappoquin. He later joined a deputation on behalf of poor law guardians to request the remission of consolidated annuities incurred under the Labour-rate Act during the famine.14The Times, 29 Dec. 1843; Freeman’s Journal, 19 Sept. 1846; Frewer, Waterford People, 79; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Apr. 1853. As a magistrate, Keane helped to suppress an armed rising at Cappoquin in September 1849, with the result that an attempt was subsequently made on the life of his son Leopold in May 1851.15The Examiner, 22 Sept. 1849; Manchester Times, 26 Sept. 1849; A.M. Breen, The Cappoquin Rebellion 1849 (1998), 30, 40, 46-7; Morning Chronicle, 14 May 1851. His brother, Sir John Keane (1781-1844), 1^st baron Keane of Ghuznee, was a distinguished British Army officer and commander-in-chief in India, and Sir Richard was himself a lieutenant-colonel of the Waterford militia. Having once been spoken of as a prospective inspector-general of the Irish Constabulary, he was selected to organise a force of 2,000 Irish constables for duty in Australia in 1852.16Freeman’s Journal, 14 Apr. 1838; Morning Chronicle, 16 July 1852; Perth Gazette, 19 Nov. 1852. Around this time, Keane’s politics underwent a sea-change and at the general election of that year, Keane proposed the Conservative candidate, Richard Hely Hutchinson, for the County Waterford seat. Having ‘basely abandoned’ the Whigs in order ‘to curry favour with the Derby government’, Keane was further castigated by the liberal press when it became known that his son had instructed his tenants to vote accordingly. Nevertheless, ‘the renegade Whig’ was unrepentant and subsequently attended a banquet given for Isaac Butt, the newly-elected Conservative member for Youghal.17Belfast News-letter, 23 July 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 28 July, 8 Sept. 1852; K.T. Hoppen, ‘Society and Electoral Politics in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Ireland’, Past and Present, 75 (1977), 62-93 [86].

Keane died suddenly at the Waterford artillery barracks on 20 February 1855, while engaged in embodying his corps.18His corps was one of 12 artillery units established in 1854 to relieve the regular artillery in Ireland during the Crimean War. W.H. Clements, ‘Irish Militia Artillery, 1854-1909’, Irish Sword, 26:104 (2008), 171-89. Outlying portions of his estate were sold in the Incumbered Estates Court shortly after his death by his eldest son and heir, Sir John Henry Keane (1816-81).19Freeman’s Journal, 31 May, 6 Nov. 1855.