O’BEIRNE, James Lyster (1816-1895), of 36 Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London

O’Beirne was the son of a Catholic attorney in Dublin, to whom he was affiliated as a solicitor, and was involved in Liberal politics from the late 1830s.1Freeman’s Journal, 12 Jan. 1839, 1 Apr. 1839. A donor to Daniel O’Connell’s Precursor Society and a member of the Reform Registry Association, he attended the Connaught provincial meeting to protest against Lord Stanley’s registration bill in 1840, and joined the Irish Friends of Reform the following year.2Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1839, 19 Sept. 1839, 29 Apr. 1840, 8 Jan. 1841. In 1844 he became a committee member of the Irish Reform Club, and attended a meeting of the Catholics of Ireland to protest against the conduct of the crown at the state trial of Daniel O’Connell. He was appointed secretary of the City of Dublin Election Petition, which supported the claims of John Reynolds in 1847-8.3Freeman’s Journal, 12 Jan., 13 Mar. 1844, 1 Jan., 9 Feb. 1849.

After acting as legal representative to several Irish railway companies during 1845-6, O’Beirne relocated his business to London, where his first wife died in September 1850.4Freeman’s Journal, 18 Apr. 1846; Morning Chronicle, 20 Sept. 1850; Gent. Mag., (1850), ii. 558. There he developed a relationship with John Orrell Lever, a Manchester businessman, to whom he acted as private secretary. In 1851 he was appointed secretary of Lever’s General Screw Steam Shipping Company, established to provide the Royal Mail with steamers, for which he superintended the construction of a fleet of ships at the Millwall works of C.J. Mare during 1861-3.5Daily News, 8 Apr. 1851; Freeman’s Journal, 2 Feb. 1869, 7 Apr. 1871. The company held a valuable government contract for the construction of a new steam frigate, and O’Beirne engineered the buy-out of the business in 1863: Freeman’s Journal, 23 Sept. 1861; Standard, 12 Jan. 1863. He also served as honorary secretary of the Mercantile Marine Service Association, whose interests he represented to the board of trade in 1857, and in 1859 became associated with the Anglo-Luzo Brazilian Steamship Company, which conveyed Portuguese mail to Brazil.6Morning Chronicle, 2 July 1857; The Times, 30 July 1857; The Times, 5 Oct. 1859. He was closely involved in Lever’s ill-fated Galway Steampacket Company, which secured a government subsidy for the postal contract between Ireland and America in 1860,7See T. Collins, ‘The Galway Line in Context: A Contribution to Galway Maritime History’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, xlvi (1994), 1-42, xlvii (1995), 36-86. and that November submitted to Emperor Napoleon III an unsuccessful proposal for carrying the French mail to America, via Galway.8Glasgow Herald, 13 July 1860; Freeman’s Journal, 22 Nov. 1860, 28 Jan. 1861. His standing in London’s financial circles having been enhanced by his connection with Lever’s companies, he became a director of the Bristol and North Somerset Railway, established in 1862.9Bradshaw’s Railway Mannual (1867), 31. At the same time, he maintained a journalistic career, becoming editor of the Court Journal, where he was an intimate of Edmund Hodgson Yates, a protégé of Charles Dickens.10E. Hodgson Yates, Fifty Years of London Life (1885), 103, 152, 165. In May 1865 he attended the second annual festival of the Newspaper Press Fund which was presided over by Charles Dickens: The Era, 21 May 1865.

During the winter of 1864-5, O’Beirne and Lord Fermoy were forced to defend an action for breaching an agreement to establish a joint-stock bank in Vienna, for which the plaintiffs secured damages of £20,000.11The Times, 16 Nov. 1864; Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 26 Feb. 1865. O’Beirne, nevertheless, harboured political ambitions, and, in spite of having no connections with the town, had addressed the electors of Cashel in 1857 on an ‘independent’ platform of tenant-right, support for Catholic rights, and a promise to obtain a railway line to the town.12The Times, 27 Feb. 1869; Freeman’s Journal, 23 Mar. 1857. He did not go to the poll, however, after becoming better connected in Liberal circles, he offered again for the borough at the 1865 general election.13Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 84; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Apr. 1865, 27 Feb. 1869. In June 1865 he attended a dinner at Greenwich given by the Irish attorney-general, William Keogh, at which a large number of Irish Liberal MPs were also present: Morning Chronicle, 22 June 1865. Again representing himself as an ‘independent Liberal’, he issued a ‘decidedly anti-ministerial’ address in favour of greater privileges for Ireland regarding tenant-right, emigration, taxation and financial legislation.14The Times, 26 June 1865; Freeman’s Journal, 4 July 1865; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1869), 274. A purse of £3,000 helped to secure his return over a popular local Liberal and he thereafter provided employment for the townswomen making shirts for a London wholesaler.15Freeman’s Journal, 4 Aug. 1865.

O’Beirne made 120 contributions to debate between 1866 and 1868, speaking on landlord-tenant relations, the reform of the Irish Church establishment, and the introduction of commercial enterprises into Ireland.16Debrett’s Illustrated House of Commons, and the Judicial Bench (1867), 175. In March 1866 he served on a select committee on theatrical licences and regulations.17PP 1866 (373) (373-I) xvi. 1, 351; Hansard, 18 Feb. 1867, vol. 185, c. 468. That year he also represented the interests of the stockbrokers of Dublin with regard to the Irish Landed Estates Court, and addressed the House at length on the land question, returning to the topic in February 1867, when he opposed the government’s Irish land improvement bill.18Hansard, 27 July 1866, vol. 184, c. 1643; 2 Aug. 1866, vol. 184, cc. 1952-7; 18 Feb. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 552-3. That month he also advocated the removal of Catholic disabilities, and assisted with a bill to extend to Ireland the law of Great Britain respecting the presence of military at elections.19Hansard, 21 Feb. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 745-6; PP 1867 (23) iv. 315; Hansard, 30 June 1868, vol. 193, cc. 415-6. A meeting of Irish Liberal MPs was held at O’Beirne’s private lodgings in Saville Row in March 1867, after which he attended two meetings of parliamentary party called by William Gladstone to consider the government’s reform proposals, and subsequently attended a meeting of the National Reform Union in London to protest against the Lord’s amendments to the English reform bill.20Belfast News-letter, 13 Mar. 1867; Daily News, 22 Mar. 1867, 6 June 1867; Hansard, 24 May 1867, vol. 187, c. 1090; Freeman’s Journal, 19 June 1867; Birmingham Daily Post, 8 Aug. 1867.

In June 1867 O’Beirne introduced a bill to amend the Irish Dog Regulation Act, and warmly supported the subsequent Irish land tenure bill, arguing that ‘an almost total absence of all the means of subsistence except from land’ meant that the basis for fair contracts between owners and occupiers was absent in Ireland, and could not therefore ‘be left free … and untrammelled by special legislation’.21PP 1867 (184) ii. 575; Hansard, 26 June 1867, vol. 188, cc. 569-72. The following month he moved for a committee to consider the Irish land question, proposing a scheme for the purchase and resale of land, which was rejected ‘but with none of the acrimony usually apparent in Irish discussions’.22Hansard, 16 July 1867, vol. 188, c. 1628-33; Freeman’s Journal, 18, 21 July 1867; Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Aug. 1867. Commentating on the state of Ireland a few days later O’Beirne maintained that, ‘instead of improving, the condition of Ireland had deteriorated since its union with England’, and lamented that during that session, ‘not a single step has been taken in the way of good legislation for that country’. He was committed to support any party which proposed ‘measures for the benefit of Ireland’, viewing the promises of the Liberals as ‘fair, but their performances … nil’. Yet while conceding that the promises made by the Conservative government ‘were equally fair’, he concluded that it had failed ‘to meet the difficulties of the Irish question and heal old sores’.23Hansard, 26 July 1867, vol. 189, cc. 225-7.

O’Beirne was not, however, exclusively concerned with Irish issues, and took a close interest in the development of army ordnance.24Hansard, 19 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 550-1; 18 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 1426-34. His background in the shipping industry also induced him to speak a number of times on maritime affairs, and in 1867 he began to call for a revision of the merchant shipping laws. That year he was successful in doing away with the system of paying war office clerks on credit.25Hansard, 13 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1487-91; 3 Dec. 1867, vol. 190, c. 536; 19 May 1868 vol. 192 c. 513; 1 Apr. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 910, 912; Examiner, 16 Nov. 1867. During 1866-8 he spoke repeatedly on the design of warships and coastal defences, joining Lord Elcho in opposing the government’s proposals for the fortification of naval dockyards and arsenals, particularly the construction of the Malta and Gibraltar shields, describing the costly plans in May 1868 as ‘erroneous’ in principle.26Hansard, 15 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 348-9; 30 July 1866, vol. 184, c. 1679; 25 July 1867, vol. 188, c. 141; 9 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1285-9; 15 Aug. 1867, vol. 189, cc. 1566-8; 3 Dec. 1867, vol. 190, cc. 537-8, 540; Examiner, 28 Dec. 1867; Hansard, 14 Feb. 1868, vol. 190, c. 729; 20 Feb. 1868, vol. 190, c. 990-1; 8 May 1868, vol. 191, cc. 2021-9; 12 May, vol. 192, cc. 112-3; Examiner, 16 May 1868.

Having participated in the effort to have capital sentences on the leaders of the 1867 rising commuted, O’Beirne condemned the subsequent maltreatment of Fenian prisoners in March 1868.27Leeds Mercury, 20 May 1867; Daily News, 27 May 1867; Hansard, 3 May 1867, vol. 186, c. 1951; 27 Mar. 1868, vol. 191, cc. 447-8. That month he also supported a motion for a committee on the state of Ireland, criticising the mishandling of the Fenian crisis by a government, many of whose members, he claimed, had ‘never set foot on Irish soil’, and who knew ‘as little of her people and their habits as they do of Abyssinia’.28Hansard, 10 Mar. 1868, vol. 185, cc. 1342-53. By this time he was calling for ‘the creation of an independent proprietary of small freehold estates’, and was frustrated at what he considered the government’s unequal treatment of Ireland.29Hansard, 17 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 1411-6. He therefore pressed ministers for a timely introduction of an Irish reform bill, and then helped to save the measure from ‘serious mutilation’, successfully opposing plans to disenfranchise his own constituency in May 1868.30Hansard, 6 Mar. 1868, vol. 190, c. 1206; 19 Mar. 1868, vol. 190, cc. 1948-9; Daily News, 20 Mar. 1868; Hansard, 7 May 1868, vol. 191, cc. 1958-9; Belfast News-letter, 15 May 1868; Hansard, 22 June 1868, vol. 192, cc. 1893-5; Freeman’s Journal, 24 June 1868. Having taken much interest in the debates on Irish education in 1867, when he had complained of the absence of Irish representation on the commission on primary education in Ireland, he lobbied in March 1868 for the establishment in Dublin of a Royal Institute of Art.31Freeman’s Journal, 17 Aug. 1867, 27 Mar. 1868; Hansard, 9 July 1868, vol. 193, c. 913.

Having been judged to have laboured for three years in parliament ‘with a zeal, ability, and distinction displayed by few of [his] party’, O’Beirne was re-elected for Cashel in November 1868, and spoken of as a lord of the treasury, his experience in commercial and manufacturing affairs being regarded as sufficient qualification for service in any financial department of the administration.32Freeman’s Journal, 27 Oct. 1868; Examiner, 12 Dec. 1868. After the election he sued his opponent, Henry Munster, for slander, claiming £5,000 in damages and pursued a libel case against a newspaper.33The Times, 3 Dec. 1868. He was, however, unseated on petition, after being found personally guilty of bribery and the constituency was disenfranchised the following year.34Freeman’s Journal, 27 Feb. 1869; Belfast News-letter, 22 Feb. 1869; Solicitors’ Journal & Reporter, 27 Feb. 1869. For his evidence to the election commission, see Freeman’s Journal, 21 Oct. 1869.

In March 1869 O’Beirne and his partners were granted a concession by Count Bismarck for laying a new Atlantic cable between Germany and the United States.35New York Times, 26 Aug. 1869. He is said at this time to have ‘scuttled around the fringes of London’s financial underworld’, and was implicated in two major legal cases involving the failure of the Overend and Gurney Bank in 1871, and an alleged false prospectus for the exploitation of Canadian oil wells (Charlton v. Hay) in 1875.36G. Elliott, The Mystery of Overend and Gurney: A Financial Scandal in Victorian London (2006), 204; Freeman’s Journal, 7 Apr. 1871; Morning Post, 1 Mar. 1875; The Times, 2 Mar. 1875, Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, 14 Feb. 1875. Although he was spoken of as a Liberal candidate for County Tipperary in 1877, he did not re-enter politics, but continued to practice as a solicitor in London, remarrying in 1881.37The Times, 2 May 1877; Morning Post, 21 Oct. 1881. In 1888 he became vice-chairman of the Victoria Steamboat Association, whose passenger ships plied the River Thames before the company was liquidated in 1894.38Leeds Mercury, 23 Jan. 1885; Morning Post, 21 July 1888; Standard, 19 July 1889; The Times, 4 Sept. 1894.

O’Beirne died at his residence at Bryanston Square, Marylebone, London in 1895.39Standard, 5 Sept. 1895. Although his personal estate was valued at only £36 0s 1d, he left his only daughter, (his widow, who died in 1899, also had two sons and one daughter from her first marriage), a life annuity charged upon a trust fund of £50,000 which had been settled with Nawab Nazim, a Bengali prince, to whom he had acted as private secretary.40Morning Post, 25 Aug. 1899; Burke’s Landed Gentry (1937) i. 155; Morning Post, 29 Oct. 1895. By this time his financial relations with Nazim had already become the subject of litigation: The Times, 23 Jan. 1885, 5 Aug. 1885; Morning Post, 3 Mar. 1888; Standard, 3 Mar. 1888, and see A.A. Fyzee, Cases in the Muhammadan Law of India and Pakistan (1965), 125-6, 358; H. Mirza, From Plassy to Pakistan (1999), 109-10, 123-5.