09/04/2026
Violet Gibson: Part 2. How I joined the dots: From The Anglo Celt 19 Feb 1998.
In an article by Ciaran Parker he refers to the fact that the 1720s were a time of relative peace in County Cavan. In fact, tree-planting is usually an indication of consolidation and confidence in settled future.
It is unfortunate that one of the greatest experts on the events of 1798 in East Cavan, Tom Barron, is no longer with us. He had his own theory regarding the non-availability of official documents for the critical months of July and August in Cavan, and if it were true it represented a fairly dramatic, though no doubt understandable attempt to rewrite history. Jack Gibson was one of the leaders of the United Irishmen at the Rebel Hill, but he was pardoned, probably through the influence of Edward
Saunderson. The latter may have helped him to get a job in the Four Courts in Dublin, where many of the governments papers were kept, and from where it would have been easy to remove documents exposing his rebellious past. In his later life, Jack Gibson had forgotten his youthful excesses and hoped
others would as well, and he may have decided to give the amnesia of the passing years a helping hand. His son, William, became a taxing master of the Irish Court of Chancery while his grandson Edward Gibson (later Lord Ashbourne) rose to the position of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the apex of the
Irish legal establishment. Neither mans career would have been helped by references to an ancestors disloyalty.
Carmel O'Callaghan
Image Dickinson - Cassell's universal portrait gallery: https://archive.org/stream/cassellsuniversa00londiala /476/mode/2up, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31269926
