Miles Byrne

Miles Byrne's grave in Montmartre cemetery

Miles Byrne (Monaseed, Co. Wexford, 1780 - Paris, 1862) was an extraordinary man who fought from Vinegar Hill in his native Wexford and the Wicklow Mountains under Michael Dwyer to Greece under the French flag in the late 1820s. In between, Byrne had spells fighting for Napoleon in Spain, the Low Countries and Germany. He was also one of Robert Emmet’s most trusted lieutenants during the failed 1803 rebellion in Dublin, after which Byrne escaped back to Paris, bringing news of Emmet’s execution to his brother, Thomas Addis Emmet. Together with Arthur O’Connor, Doctor MacNevin, Thomas Addis Emmet and others, he presented a petition for help to Napoleon, which led to the establishment of the Irish Legion as a unit of the French army. Byrne was commissioned as a captain in the said Legion. Although Byrne never achieved the aim of seeing the Legion fight in Ireland, in 1810, he was chosen to command an elite battalion of Irish troops fighting for the French during the Peninsular War in Spain and in 1813 was awarded the Legion of Honour. He survived Napoleon’s demise in 1814, and was promoted commander in chief of the 56th regiment of the line in 1830. He retired from the army in 1835, but remained an icon around which other Irish exiles in Paris gravitated until his death in his apartment in the rue Montaigne (now rue Jean Mermoz, 8th arrondissement) on January 24, 1862. His wife, Fanny, seems to have moved out of rue Montaigne very quickly after his death, for in May 1862 her address was just around the corner in 45, rue Ponthieu (8th arrondissement).

Site of the Galerie du Bois

During his long retirement, Byrne wrote his Memoirs, a valuable source of information on the somewhat precarious existence of Irish conspirators and rebels in the French capital during the early 1800s. Having escaped back to Paris from the botched Emmet rebellion in August 1803, Byrne says that Robert’s brother, Thomas Addis, rented a miserable room for him in the petite Rue du Bac. After that, Bryne lodged with a Monsieur Moreau in the rue de la Harpe (5th arrondissement) where, for all his impecuniousness, he seems to have been happier. One of his frequent ports of call at this time was the London Coffee House in the rue Jacob (6th arrondissement), “then much frequented by the Irish”, he writes, “on account of the Argus newspaper being taken there…It was in that newspaper that I read all the sad tidings of my dear friends in Ireland”.

He also trotted over to rue de la Loi (now rue de Richelieu, 2nd arrondissement), where two other Irish rebels – John Sweeny and William Lawless - were lodged. (Though Byrne does not say so, these gentlemen were probably staying in the famous Hôtel des Patriotes Etrangers on this street). “We generally met and walked in the Galerie du Bois in the Palais Royal, where we met other exiles and heard all the news of the day,” writes Byrne – suggesting that until receiving a commission in the Irish Legion, Byrne had little to do but hang around.

After his funeral in Saint-Philippe-du-Roule church near his home in the 8th arrondissement, he was laid to rest in Montmartre cemetery (18th arrondissement), where the original tombstone inscription seems to be have replaced by a more recent one, partially in Irish.

Back to home page