Irish
Connections at
America
’s Birthplace
By Brian McGinn
Just
how Francis Magnel came to be numbered among
Virginia
’s earliest settlers
is still something of a mystery. But there is no doubt that the Irish sailor was
a crew member of one of the ships—the Discovery,
the Godspeed or the Susan
Constant—that landed the original colony at the site of Jamestown on May
13th, 1607. And Magnel’s residence and survival in
Virginia
through the first
sweltering summer and hungry winter qualify this hardy Irishman as a true
American pioneer—a historically verified founding member of the first
permanent English settlement in
North America
.
Magnel’s
Irish roots have not been documented. His relatively rare surname strongly
suggests that they lay in Co. Cork, where the Magnels were a family of Norse
origin established since the 13th Century. By the 17th
Century, the form of the surname was already evolving into its modern version of
Magner. This change is reflected in the variant spellings, and misspellings,
found in contemporary references to the Irish sailor, and has led some
historians to mistakenly conclude that he was a Maguire. Co. Cork placenames
associated with the family have undergone a parallel process. The townland of
Magnelstown, not far from Kanturk, is nowadays known as Castlemagner.
Lessons from
Ulster
Modern
visitors to
Jamestown
can find Francis
Magnel’s name among the colony’s identified Earliest Settlers, on a sign
listing 262 of the 334 who arrived during the years 1607-1608. One other
obviously Irish surname appears there. Dionis Oconor was a tradesman who reached
Jamestown
in October 1608, six
months after Francis Magnel left by ship for
England
. Nothing further is
known of Oconor’s work or fate. But there is a strong possibility that he died
at
Jamestown
during the “Starving
Time”, the terrible famine that devastated the colony during the winter of
1609-10. If so, his remains may lie underfoot not far from the sign that honors
him as one of
America
’s earliest settlers.
At
Jamestown
, both Oconor and
Magnel would have worked under men who were intimately familiar with
Ireland
. The colony, organized
along military lines, had among its earliest leaders several hardened veterans
of England’s protracted campaign—the Nine Years War--to smash the power of
the rebellious Gaelic chieftains, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Red Hugh
O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell. Edward Maria Wingfield, the first president of
Jamestown
’s governing Council,
had seen service in
Ireland
under Elizabeth I, as
had his subordinates George Percy, Richard Crofts and Edward Morris. There were
also rumors, never confirmed, that Captain John Smith had been in
Ireland
.
Not
surprisingly, these men carried attitudes towards the Native Americans that were
strongly colored by their experience with the native Irish. Both Irish and
Indians refused to fight in the open, substituting the hit and run tactics of
guerrilla warfare for the massed battle formations favored by English soldiers.
It was little wonder that George Percy likened the first Indian trail he saw in
Virginia
to an Irish “pace” or forest path, from which
lightly armed natives might suddenly appear to harry the occupation forces.
The shape of the original fort at
Jamestown
has puzzled some
historians, who noted that 17th Century English military engineers
almost never built triangular defensive works. Again, the answer may lie in the
mindset of men schooled in an Irish theater of military operations. The plan of
a triangle-like fort that bears an uncanny resemblance to James Fort has been
found among the English records of the Nine Years War. The Fort of the Mullin
was erected six years earlier on the banks of the River Blackwater in
Ulster
, as Lord Deputy
Mountjoy attempted to encircle the elusive armies of the Earl of Tyrone.
Startling Discoveries
As
part of
Jamestown
’s preparations to mark the 400th
anniversary of its founding, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia
Antiquities (APVA) is conducting an ambitious archaeological investigation.
Begun in 1994, the Jamestown Rediscovery project has already yielded a rich
historical harvest. The archaeological outlines of the triangular fort, long
thought to have eroded into the
James River
, were identified in
1996.
Within the original fort, not far from the surviving 17th
Century
tower
of
America
’s first Anglican
church, the grave of an original settler was found. The well-preserved remains,
combined with the manner of burial, indicate a young gentleman in his early 20s.
The skeleton also held evidence of the cause of death: a .60 caliber lead ball
embedded in the right leg just below the knee. In addition to breaking bones,
the bullet used in this 17th C kneecapping would have severed an
artery, leading to death from massive blood loss.
There is no suggestion that the victim, known to the scientists as JR
102C, was Irish. But the brutality of JR’s death, almost certainly at the
hands of a fellow settler, suggests the deadly nature of the intrigues that
swirled around Francis Magnel and Dionis Oconor. Apart from attack by Native
Americas, the English also feared a surprise raid by
Spain
’s still-formidable
fleet. And they harbored an intense paranoia about the possibility that Spanish
spies might already be in their midst. Magnel later reported that George
Kendall, an English officer and a Catholic, was executed at
Jamestown
on suspicion of
espionage.
Considering the risks involved in any outward profession of a proscribed
religion, the nature of some recent
Jamestown
finds is all the more
puzzling. They include a long stemmed lead crucifix with an image of a praying
woman—probably Mary—beneath the body of Christ; faceted jet beads
characteristic of 17th Century Catholic rosaries; and a copper alloy
medallion showing Mary’s crowned head surrounded by seven stars, as found in
later images of the Immaculate Conception. Some of these religious icons, which
were then generally shunned by the reformed Anglican Church, may have belonged
to Francis Magnel, Dionis Oconor or other as yet unidentified
co-religionists.
Irish Coppers
One
of the most eye-catching discoveries in the
Jamestown
Museum
is a display of copper
coins found scattered throughout the 17th Century Fort. The crowned
harps on the pennies and halfpenny, still visible under four centuries of
verdigris, clearly identify them as Irish. And their dates—1601 and
1602—mark the end of the Nine Years War and the devastating defeat of Gaelic
Irish hopes at the Battle of Kinsale.
At
a time when all English coins were still minted in silver, the use of copper in
Ireland
was revealing. For
Matthew Tully, secretary to the Earl of Tyrconnell, the change to a cheaper
metal suggested the severe financial burdens imposed by the Nine Years War. In a
letter to King Philip III of
Spain
in 1606, Tully wrote
that the English “were brought to such straits that they were forced to coin
money in copper instead of silver.”
Although
the switch to copper saved the English Treasury in the short run, the debased
coins may not have proved popular in
Ireland
. The scheme was
discontinued in 1603, which explains why the dates of only the two prior years
appear on the coins recovered at
Jamestown
. Early
Virginia
, explains
Jamestown
curator Beverly
Straube, was also something of a dumping ground for surplus and outmoded English
goods. By 1607, the practically-worthless Irish coppers still stored at the
London
mint were perhaps
deemed good enough for the
New World
, where they might still have value as small change among coin-short
colonists or as exotic trinkets to trade with the Indians.
Back
to the bibliography
See Also:
Jamestown,
Virginia
From the beginning, the venture in Virginia had close associations with
Ireland, where England was concurrently engaged in the Plantation of Ulster.