RORKE, James Halpin (?c.1795-1849), of Johnstown House, Enfield, co. Meath of 3 Jermyn Street, London, Mdx.

Upon reaching the age of twenty-three Rorke became the tenant for life of the estate of his grandfather, James Rorke, at Johnstown, co. Meath, and inherited property consisting of about 50 houses at Enfield, along with land at Coldblow in that county.1Irish Jurist, xvi (1864), 409-14; S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (2nd edn., 1840), i. 600. A supporter of Catholic emancipation, he subscribed to the testimonial fund for John Lawless in January 1830, and attended the great reform meeting in Dublin in June 1831.2Freeman’s Journal, 20 Jan. 1830; Freeman’s Journal, 18 June 1831. Although a stranger to the county, he was requisitioned to stand for Longford upon the ‘independent interest’ at the 1832 general election. He made an unsolicited pledge in favour of ‘the unqualified repeal of the legislative Union’, judging it to have ‘been the cause of impoverishing’ Ireland, and advocated the ‘total extinction’ of tithes, church rates, ‘and all other ecclesiastico-temporal abuses which oppress the people’. He also wished to see the revenues of the Irish Church more evenly distributed amongst its clergy, and condemned ‘a system under which a few pampered ecclesiastics enjoy princely incomes of some thousands per annum, while the poor hard-working clergy are obliged to live upon a miserable pittance of about 70l. a year’. Furthermore, he pledged himself to the radical reform of Irish grand and petit juries. After his brother, the Liberal legal agent, brought the registry session ‘to a happy conclusion’, Rorke’s active canvass enabled him to overturn the Conservative interest of Lord George Forbes.3Freeman’s Journal, 4, 5, 11, 21, 24, 26 Dec. 1832.

Having attended Daniel O’Connell’s National Council meeting in January 1833, Rorke voted against the address, 8 Feb. 1833. Speaking ‘forcibly, though briefly’ in support of O’Connell’s amendment calling for a committee of the whole House to consider the state of Ireland, he pointed to discrepancies between the government’s ‘anti-union’ policy respecting Belgium, and its Irish policy, and criticised the apparent inconsistency of those members of the ministry who in England ‘were Reformers’ and ‘in Ireland coercionists’.4Hansard, 8 Feb. 1833, vol. 15, cc. 404-5; Freeman’s Journal, 12 Mar. 1833. He divided in favour of Hume’s motion on military and naval sinecures, 14 Feb. 1833, voted against the first reading of the Irish coercion bill, 1 Mar. 1833, and supported the first reading of the Irish Church temporalities bill, 11 Mar. He was, however, absent from that day’s division on the second reading of the coercion bill, it being rumoured that with a petition pending against him, he considered it ‘injudicious to vote against ministers’.5Freeman’s Journal, 15 Mar. 1833. He was in any case unseated over the question of undue registry, 2 Apr. 1833, when tribute was nevertheless paid by the Freeman’s Journal to the ‘zealous, able, and efficient manner’ in which he had discharged his duty.6Freeman’s Journal, 25, 26 Mar., 5 Apr. 1833.

The costs of defending the petition, which amounted to almost £5,000, fell entirely on Rorke, who did not contest the subsequent by-election and retired from parliamentary life.7Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 13 Apr. 1833. He did, however, join the Repeal Association in 1840, and on 15 June 1843 resigned his commission of the peace in protest at what he regarded as the Irish lord chancellor’s ‘unconstitutional attack on the liberty of the subject’ following his dismissal of the ‘repeal’ magistrates.8PP 1843 (403), li. 3 [23]. At this time he referred to himself as O’Rorke. He appeared on the platform with O’Connell at the monster repeal meeting at Tara, co. Dublin, 15 Aug. 1843, and, as a supporter of the Irish temperance campaign, attended a testimonial meeting for Father Theobald Mathew in Dublin that year.9Freeman’s Journal, 28 July, 16 Aug., 27 Jan. 1843. He died at Pau in France in May 1849 leaving no heir. After a legal contest over his will, which had favoured his brother Edmund, his Meath estate passed to his brother John, the barrister who had acted as his election agent in 1832.10Irish Jurist, xvi (1864), 409-14; Freeman’s Journal, 22 Dec. 1832. Johnstown House passed to John Rorke’s son and is now a hotel and spa: NA, CHAR 1/13.250; Freeman’s Journal, 13 Apr. 1861.