On 5 July 1998, on a bright summer Sunday at Bonniconlon, the Taoiseach of Ireland — Bertie Ahern, fresh from the Good Friday negotiations — unveiled a memorial to Colonel Baron James O’Dowda, hanged at Killala in 1798. The clan’s Taoiseach-elect and members from five countries were present.

What Was Being Remembered

Baron James Vippler O’Dowda had inherited the title through an uncle in Germany, married Temperance Fitzgerald of Mount Tallant, and thrown himself into improving the Bonniconlon estate — roads, a coach service from Ballina to Castlerea, a shortened line from Ballina to Banada. When General Humbert landed at Killala in August 1798, Baron O’Dowda rallied to the Irish cause. He was among the garrison left to hold Killala when the French marched on Castlebar. A month later, after the rising collapsed at Ballinamuck, Major-General Trench’s forces took Killala. On 23 September 1798, in the park behind Killala Castle, the Baron was court-martialled and hanged.

A generation later the Bonniconlon branch of the O’Dowdas lost their estates entirely, having refused to collect rents from tenants starving in the famine of 1845–49. The Bonniconlon memorial honours both acts of conscience.

The Unveiling

An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD travelled directly from the Good Friday Agreement negotiations to preside. A party representing the O’Dubhda Clan came from Ireland, Scotland, the United States, Australia and Canada, led by the Taoiseach-elect, Thomas J Dowds, and his wife Cathie.

The stone was carved with an inscription taken from an older memorial at the site:

“Sacred to the memory of Temperance O’Dowda, alias Fitzgerald, who departed this life…” — joining Baron James and his wife Temperance, finally, to the land they had tried to keep alive.

Afterwards

Later in the year, clan members travelled to County Longford for the Battle of Ballinamuck re-enactment, where the General’s Franco-Irish army had finally surrendered, and where Baron O’Dowda had been condemned.