Biography

James Freeney was a native of County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny

County Kilkenny is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Kilkenny. The territory of the county was the core part of the ancient Irish Kingdom of Osraige which in turn was the core of the Diocese of...

, and from a respectable family who had been wealthy and powerful in the region since the 13th century, having their seat at Ballyreddy Castle. But during the 1650s they lost their lands and were reduced in status. His father, John Freeney, was a servant working at the home of one Joseph Robbins at Ballyduff, Thomastown. In 1718 he married Robbins's housemaid, Alice Phelan, and their son James was born the following year at Alice's father's home at Inistioge.

He received a good education locally—including tuition in the Robbins household—and in 1742 moved to Waterford where he opened a pub with his wife Anne. But unable to pay the exorbitant fees charged by the town corporation, the couple closed up and moved back to Thomastown. Here, Freeney fell in with the Kellymount highway gang, led by fellow Thomastown man John Reddy. Their colleagues would in time number Richard Dooling, John Anderson, Felix Donnelly, James Bolger, Michael Millea, John Reddy, George Roberts, Edmond Kenny, James Larrassy and a man called Hackett.

Proclaimed an outlaw in January 1748 (old calendar), Freeney surrendered in April 1749. Joseph Robbins's brother, a lawyer, and Lord Carrick helped Freeney work out a deal with the chief justices in which Freeney would be allowed to emigrate. It is believed this deal was procured because the authorities feared executing him would make him a folk hero and lead to further disturbances.

The rest of the Kellymount were not so lucky. Bolger, Kenny, Larrassy, Millea, Reddy, Hackett, Dooling and Roberts all went to the gallows. Reddy was imprisoned while Donnelly escaped to England but was eventually hanged in Kilkenny.

His autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

, The Life and Adventures of Mr James Freeney, was a huge success upon its publication in 1754. Thackeray, in reading the book, delighted in Freeney's "noble naïveté and simplicity of the hero as he recounts his own adventures". Thackeray includes Freney in the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon

The Luck of Barry Lyndon

The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy...

, where he has Barry encounter Freney on the highway. The incident appears also in the film Barry Lyndon

Barry Lyndon

Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...

 (in the film, Barry refers to the man about to rob him as "Feeney"). Local landmarks named after him include Freney's Rock and Freeney's Well, and he was the hero of The Ballad of the Bold Captain.

It is not known where or how long he was abroad—if at all—but by 1776 he had settled at the port of New Ross where he was worked as a customs official, a post he held till his death in on 20 December, 1788. He was buried in Inistioge graveyard.

Works

• The Life and Adventures of James Freney, commonly called Captain Freney (Dublin: S. Powell 1754), 146pp.; Do., (Dublin: C.M. Warren 1861); reprinted as The Life and Adventures of James Freney, Together with an Account of the Actions of Several other Highwaymen ([n. pub]: 1900; 1981), 130pp.[Reproduction of original published in 1861 by C. M. Warren, Dublin ; from microfilm of original in National Library of Ireland. Label on title page reads : "This autobiography of James Freney, the legendary "Robinhood of Ireland", ...]; Frank McEvoy, ed., Life and Adventures of James Freney (Kilkenny: Hebron 1988), 84pp. ill. by David Holohan.

Sources

• W. M. Thackeray [as ‘M. A. Titmarsh’], The Irish Sketch Book [first edn. 1842], ed. John A. Gamble (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985), pp.163-79.
• Samuel Carter Hall
  Samuel Carter Hall
  Samuel Carter Hall was an Irish-born Victorian journalist who is best known for his editorship of The Art Journal and for his much-satirised personality.-Early years:Hall was born at the Geneva Barracks in Waterford...
  
   & Anna Maria Hall
  Anna Maria Hall
  Anna Maria Hall was an Irish novelist who often published as "Mrs. S.C. Hall".She was born Anna Maria Fielding in Dublin, but left Ireland at the age of 15...
  
  , Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, etc. 3 vols. (London: Hall, Virtue & Co. 1841-43), 8o.; reprinted as Hall's Ireland: Mr & Mrs Hall's Tour of 1840, ed. Michael Scott, 2 vols., London: Sphere 1984), 1984 edn. Vol. 2, p.426.
• Mary Campbell, review of Life and Adventures of James Freney, ed. Frank McEvoy (Kilkenny: Hebron 1988), in Books Ireland, No.159 (May 1992), pp.96-97.
• Oxford Companion to Irish History, edited S.J. Connolly, Oxford
  Oxford
  The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
  
  , 1999.
• Niall Ó Ciosáin, ‘Freney, James (d. 1788)’, first published Sept 2004, 320 words, Oxford University Press.
• http://www.kilkennyadvertiser.ie/index.php?aid=8149