MAHER, Nicholas Valentine (1820-1871), of Turtulla House, Thurles, co. Tipperary; 25 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin and 31 Gordon Street, London

Maher was born in Cashel, the son of a local Catholic physician, and early in life assumed the management of some of the largest estates in the counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary. On inheriting the Turtulla estate of his cousin, Valentine Maher, he became a resident proprietor in Tipperary, where he was well-regarded as a landlord.1Hansard, 22 Mar. 1848, vol. 97, c. 882; Freeman’s Journal, 15 Nov. 1847, 19 Oct. 1871. His income was put at £7,000 per annum: Freeman’s Journal, 16 Aug. 1844. He gave evidence on the state of local agriculture to Lord Devon’s commission on Irish landholding in December 1843, when he pinpointed the exploitation of smallholders by middlemen as the source of the system’s malaise.2J. O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers: John Sadleir M.P., 1813-56 (1999), 92. For his evidence, see PP 1845 [615] [616] xix. 1, 57 [161-9].

A life-long admirer of Daniel O’Connell, Maher was selected by the independent electors of Tipperary in January 1844, to fill the vacancy caused by the death his cousin, Valentine Maher. His fervent support for repeal meant that he did not, therefore, receive the approval of the local Catholic gentry, but he secured influential backing from Charles Bianconi, the stage coach operator and former mayor of Clonmel.3Freeman’s Journal, 11. Jan 1844; Morning Post, 15 Jan. 1844; Standard, 31 Jan. 1844. His pledge to ‘struggle for the right of Ireland to a native parliament as long as he had voice, or pen, or pulsation’ also secured him the endorsement of O’Connell, and he was returned unopposed, 16 Feb. 1844. An ‘unflinching adherent’ of O’Connell, by whom he was said to have been ‘held in the highest esteem’, he regularly chaired meetings of the Repeal Association.4The Times, 23 Oct. 1871; Examiner, 27 Apr. 1844; The Times, 8 July, 16 Dec. 1846. In August 1844 he joined William Smith O’Brien in walking out of the grand banquet of the Royal Irish Agricultural Society during the anti-repeal speech of its vice-president, Lord Erne, and helped to fund both O’Connell’s defence at his state trial and the return of a second repealer for another Tipperary vacancy that December.5Morning Post, 5 June 1844; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Aug., 9, 23 Dec. 1844; The Times, 22 Jan. 1845. After being elected as a trustee of the Irish Reform Club that May, he joined the committee of the ’82 Club, a society dedicated to the commemoration of Ireland’s ‘patriot parliament’, in January 1845, and entertained the Liberator at his home after the repeal meeting at Knockroe, 27 Sept. 1845.6Morning Post, 19 Aug. 1844; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Jan. 1845; W. O’Donnell to Daniel O’Connell, 9 Sept. 1845, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vii. 338.

In the Commons, Maher supported Lord John Russell’s motion for a committee to consider the state of Ireland, 23 Feb. 1844, but, convinced that ‘an Irish member of parliament can’t do the shadow of service to Ireland’ at Westminster, where his opinions were ‘treated if not with contempt, at least with total disregard’, his contributions to debate were rare.7Freeman’s Journal, 19 Aug. 1845. After the Tipperary Free Press criticised those repeal members ‘who make the rule not to attend at St. Stephen’s a pretext for attending nowhere’, Maher offered to retire if his constituents found fault with his conduct: Freeman’s Journal, 7 Aug. 1845. In 1846 and 1847 he discussed the measures taken to prevent crime in his constituency and, as chairman of the Thurles and Moycarty relief committees, he defended the actions taken by local clergymen in administering relief during the famine.8Hansard, 2 Apr. 1846, vol. 85, cc. 484-5; 23 Nov. 1847, vol. 95, cc. 128-9; 25 Nov. 1847, vol. 95, cc. 215-6. In August 1848, he laid serious charges against the conduct of the officer commanding crown forces in Tipperary, a detachment of whom had camped on his property, and for which he was lampooned by The Times.9Morning Chronicle, 18 Aug. 1848; The Times, 19 Aug. 1848. He appears neither to have introduced any bills nor served on any committees during his time in parliament.

He was, however, active in local politics, and despite rumours that he was to retire, he was returned again as a repealer for Tipperary in 1847. At the hustings he expressed a preference for the return of Sir Robert Peel to the premiership and, in seeking to protect the legitimate rights of resident Irish landlords, advocated an absentee tax on those residing outside the country.10B. Walker, ‘Politicians, Elections and Catastrophe: The General Election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22:1 (2007), 1-34 [17], 17; M. Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 256. He chaired a tenant-right meeting organised by Tipperary’s Catholic gentry at Cashel, 14 Nov. 1847, and, having attended the National Council to consider the famine crisis, joined a deputation to the prime minister on the issue.11Freeman’s Journal, 3, 15, 27 Nov. 1847. He adhered to the leadership of John O’Connell following the secession of Young Ireland, actively defending the election of John Reynolds for Dublin in December 1847, and opposing the proposed reunion of the repeal factions in 1848.12Daily News, 7, 11 June 1847, The Times, 11 June 1847; Examiner, 12 June 1847; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 102; Freeman’s Journal, 15 Nov., 4, 11 Dec. 1847, 17 June 1848; Standard, 19 June 1848. He also promoted the removal of Jewish disabilities.13Freeman’s Journal, 12 Jan. 1848.

Early in 1850 Maher refused to comply with an address from a delegation of Tipperary landholders ‘to advocate protection or resign’, but did advocate a revision of the poor laws that might alleviate the financial burden on landowners.14Standard, 24 Jan. 1850; Freeman’s Journal, 25 Jan. 1850. In the controversy over ‘Papal Aggression’, Maher, having long been critical of ‘the base, the bloody, and the brutal Whigs’, instantly joined the ‘Irish Brigade’.15Freeman’s Journal, 24 Sept. 1851. Though he had been unable to attend the Tenant League conference in 1850, and was absent from that organisation’s Tipperary meeting in October, he nevertheless expressed support for the reform of tenurial rights and helped arrange an accommodation between the Tenant League and the Irish Independent party on the terms of William Sharman Crawford’s tenant-right bill, 20 Aug. 1851.16Standard, 10 Oct. 1850; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Oct. 1850, 21 Aug. 1851; J.H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850-9 (1958), 32-3. An early backer of the Catholic Defence Association, he spoke at its inaugural meeting, 17 Oct. 1851, and, as a member of its general committee, publicly withdrew his subsequent objection to the appointment of an Englishman as its secretary.17Freeman’s Journal, 6 June, 18, 21 Oct., 19 Dec. 1851; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 200-2, 214, 222-3. He duly voted against the second reading of the ecclesiastical titles bill, 23 Mar. 1851 and joined the other ‘Brigadiers’ in dividing against the Whig ministry in three of the four confidence motions in the session of 1851. He did not, however, attend the meetings of the party in February and May 1852. He supported the ballot, 30 Mar. 1852, and voted for the tenant-right bill, but continued to be criticised in Ireland for his poor attendance at Westminster.18Whyte, Independent Irish Party, 178-9; Daily News, 1 Apr. 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 8 May 1852. Having participated in just 2 of the 219 divisions in 1849, he was initially omitted by the Liberal Club from the invitation list for the banquet honouring the Tipperary MPs at Cashel in September 1851.19Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849; Freeman’s Journal, 24 Sept. 1851; J. O’Shea, Priest, Politics and Society in Post-famine Ireland. A study of County Tipperary 1850-1891 (1983), 178-9; idem., Prince of Swindlers, 197. In March 1852, amidst further rumours that he intended to retire, he was called upon by the local election club to lodge a substantial amount of election expenses at short notice, and decided to resign at that year’s general election.20Standard, 17 Mar., 29 June 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 2 July 1852; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 260-1.

Thereafter Maher remained an active and influential figure in the ‘independent’ politics of county Tipperary.21He was related to the Scully family and had supported Francis Scully for a county seat at the 1847 general election: O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 39, 61. On his retirement he nominated James Sadleir as his successor with a powerful speech in defence of Catholic interests, in which he denounced ‘the renegade Russell’ and ‘Scorpion Stanley’ in equal measure.22The Times, 22 July 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 24 July 1852; O’Shea, Prince of Swindlers, 272. He supported the election of Daniel O’Donoghue in 1865 and was elected first president of the Tipperary County Liberal Club in October 1868. As such, he was credited with responsibility for the defeat of the Conservatives in Tipperary at that year’s general election.23The Times, 21 Apr. 1862, 27, 28 Oct. 1868; Freeman’s Journal, 19, 23 Oct. 1871.

Having been forced by failing health to retire from public life, he died at his residence in October 1871, and was buried at St. Mary’s churchyard, Thurles. He was remembered as one of Ireland’s ‘most fearless champions … always to be found in the front, fighting the good old cause’.24Freeman’s Journal, 19, 23 Oct. 1871. He was succeeded by his son Valentine Herbert Maher (b. 1846), a military officer with the Connaught Rangers. His other son, Walter, was a naval officer.25Freeman’s Journal, 20 May 1879; The Times, 19 Feb. 1887.