In the Irish Brigade | Page 2

in the Rue des Fosses, on the 20th of June, 1701, when the
door opened, and their colonel entered with a young officer in the
uniform of the regiment.
"I have asked you here, gentlemen all," he said, "to present to you a

new comrade, Desmond Kennedy, who, through the good offices of the
Marshal de Noailles, has been appointed, by His Gracious Majesty, to a
cornetcy in our regiment.
"Now, gentlemen, I have known, and doubtless you can all of you
recall, instances where the harmony of a regiment has been grievously
disturbed, and bad blood caused, owing to the want of a clear
understanding upon matters connected with a family; which might have
been avoided, had proper explanations been given at the
commencement. I have spoken frankly to Mr. Kennedy, and he has
stated to me certain particulars, and has not only authorized me, but
requested me to repeat them to you, feeling that you had a right to
know who it was that had come among you, and so to avoid
questioning on matters that are, of all others, prone to lead to trouble
among gentlemen.
"Beyond the fact that he is a Kennedy, and that his father had to fly
from Ireland, two years after the siege of Limerick, owing to a
participation in some plot to bring about a fresh rising in favour of
King James, he is unacquainted with his family history. He has never
heard from his father, and only knows that he made for France after
throwing the usurper's spies off his track, and there can be little doubt
that it was his intention to take service in this brigade. There have been
several Kennedys in the service, and I have little doubt that this young
gentleman's father was the Murroch Kennedy who joined the third
regiment, about that time, and was killed a few months afterwards at
the battle of Breda. His death would account for the fact that his son
never received a letter from him. At the time when he left Ireland, the
child was some two years old, and, as communication was difficult, and
the boy so young, Murroch might very well have put off writing until
the boy grew older, not thinking that death might intervene, as it did, to
prevent his doing so.
"This is all simple and straightforward enough, and you will, I am sure,
have no hesitation in extending the hand of friendship to the son of a
gallant Irishman, who died fighting in the ranks of the Irish Brigade,
exiled, like the rest of us, for loyalty to our king.

"Still, gentlemen, you might, perhaps, wonder how it is that he knows
no more of his family, and it was that this question might be disposed
of, once for all, that I am making this statement to you on his behalf.
He was not brought up, as you might expect, with some of his father's
connections. Whether the family were so scattered that there was no
one to whom he could safely entrust the child, I know not, but, in point
of fact, he sent him to one of the last houses where a loyal gentleman
would wish his son to be brought up. We all know by name and
reputation--I and your majors knew him personally--the gallant James
O'Carroll, who died, fighting bravely, at the siege of Limerick. He was
succeeded in his estate by his brother John, one of the few Irishmen of
good family who turned traitor to his king, and who secured the
succession to his brother's possessions by becoming an ardent supporter
of the usurper, and by changing his religion.
"Why Murroch Kennedy should have chosen such a man as the
guardian of his son is a mystery. Whether they had been great friends in
earlier times, when John O'Carroll professed as warm an attachment to
the Stuart cause as did his brother James, or whether Kennedy
possessed such knowledge of O'Carroll's traitorous dealings with the
Dutchman as would, if generally known, have rendered him so hateful
to all loyal men that he could no longer have remained in the country,
and so had a hold over him, Mr. Kennedy can tell us nothing. He was
brought by his nurse to Castle Kilkargan, and was left with John
O'Carroll. It is clear that the latter accepted the charge unwillingly, for
he sent the child to a farm, where he remained until he was eight years
old, and then placed him with the parish priest, who educated him. The
lad visited at the houses of the neighbouring gentry, shot and rowed
and fished with their sons. O'Carroll, however, beyond paying for his
maintenance, all but ignored his existence, showing no interest
whatever in him, up to the time when he furnished