A CD-ROM containing the names of over 80,000 people who petitioned for clemency for rebel leader William Smith O'Brien has gone on sale.
O'Brien was sentenced to death for his part as a leader of the 1848 Young Ireland rebellion but the sentence was commuted after a national campaign culminating in the petition. He was transported to Australia, not to return home until 1856.
More than one modern-day politician might wish they could avail of either a petition for clemency or a free ticket to Australia but times have indeed changed and, unlike O'Brien, they would find it difficult to secure the signatures of an Orange lodge in Dublin.
As the CD-ROM shows, the petition comprised many smaller petitions. While some were unswerving in their support for the hero of what came to be known as the battle of Widow McCormack's cabbage patch, the Orangemen were not.
The petition from the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland in Dublin's Molesworth Street complained that "several Roman Catholic Priests and Bishops" had led the rising and escaped prosecution.
The lodge felt that O'Brien, a Protestant, had been singled out even though, it believed, he had simply allowed himself "in a moment of extreme excitement" to be urged on and encouraged by these leaders.
Eneclann, the makers of the CD, say it is a unique resource for historians as well as amateur and professional genealogists. All census records from before 1901 were destroyed during the battle for the Four Courts at the beginning of the Civil War, and what voting records survive only relate to property owners.
The value of the Smith O'Brien petition is that it gives the names, addresses and occupations of everyday people.