Life
1766-1800 [Thomas Whaley, or Whalley]; called ‘Buck’ or ‘Jerusalem’,
for a bet that he would travel to Jerusalem and return in two years for
£20,000, Sept. 1788-June 1789. MP Newcastle, Co. Down, and later Enniscorthy;
accepted bribes on both sides in the Union negotiations, and voted against;
d. Knutsford, Cheshire. His memoirs, written ‘in repentance,’
ed. Thomas Whaley (London 1906); his house at 86 St. Stephen’s Green
is part of University College Dublin, having been the Royal University
where James Joyce studied; associated with Daly’s Club, College Green,
and notably profligate; Port. included in engraving of House of Commons
of 1790, now preserved in Bank of Ireland (College Green) [as figure No.
78 in key]. DIB OCIL.
Notes
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984), Buck
Whaley was especially scathing of the Greeks, while travelling through
Greece to win his wager in 1788; sailing through the Peleponese, he recorded
that ‘the noble, generous, arduous and exalted spirit for which the
Spartan youths were famed’ was now extinct, and ‘we behold their
posterity sunk to the lowest pitch of human degradation, mean, cruel,
cowardly, ignorant, dishonest and embracing contentedly the fetters of
slavery ...’ (Buck Whaley’s Memoirs, first publ. 1797,
ed. Sir Edward O Sullivan, London 1906, 66, 264.)
Dictionary of National Biography, lists Thomas Whaley or Whalley,
1766-1800; Irish politician and eccentric; lived extravagantly in Paris,
1782; MP for Newcastle, Co. Down, 1785-90; Enniscorthy, 1797-1800; visited
Jerusalem on a wager, 1788-89; revisited Paris, 1790; left MS autobiography.
And SEE reference to Buck Whaley’s diary of Lausanne, in Hubert Butler, Escape from the Anthill.
Also the version of Whalley’s adventures is given in Patrick Kennedy, Modern Irish Anecdotes (n.d.) [laid a wager he would have
a game of ball against the walls of Jerusalem]; during the Viceroyalty
of the duke of Buckingham a vol. of poems was published c.1770 entitled Both Sides of the Gutter, and once piece was devoted to the triumphant
departure of the great man ... , ‘Buck Whalley lacking much of cash/And
being used to cut a dash/he wagered full ten thousand pound/He’d
visit soon the Holy Ground/In Loftus’s fine ship/He said he’d
take a trip/And Costello so famed/The Captain then was named.’ In
the ensuing stanzas are cited Lawler, Heydon in her vis-a-vis, Long Bob,
two French valets, Shetland hog, Watch the Newfoundland dog, Zara with
Fly [horses], Cuffe from the barrack board; Great Temple Lord; Jack Coffey
alias Paddy Whack; his Grace; Napper Tandy’s toe; Tom Fitzgerald
from Cork; Beau Whalley.of Whaley in M. J. Craig, Dublin 1660-1860 (1980), p.221f, regarding the journey of 1788, ‘the only instance
in all my life before, in which any of my projects turned out to my advantage’
(viz, an outlay of £8,000 and a net profit of £7,000). The information
is taken from the Preface to Sir E. Sullivan, Buck Whaley’s Memoirs (Lon. 1906). His father Richard Chapell Whaley (d.1769); known as Burn-chapel
Whaley and a notorious priesthunter, the Dublin tradition that he said
he would never allow a Papist to cross his door preserved if not created
by the circumstance that Cardinal Cullen bought his house at 86 St Stephen
Green in 1853, becoming first the Catholic University and then in 1908
the National University of Ireland.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)