Many of you will have heard of Freney the Highwayman, but Freney the river pirate?  That’s certainly a new one for me.

Freney the Highwayman, Freney the Robber, James Freney the noblest highwayman in Ireland. These are just three of the titles I have encountered that relate to the 18th-century blackguard from Kilkenny, reputed to have robbed from the rich and given to the poor.

An AI-generated image of a highwayman

Born, apparently near Inistiogue in Kilkenny in 1719, he was of good, hard-working parents and a sympathetic employer who would have steered him right.  However, James married, moved to Waterford and opened an unsuccessful public house.  Returning to Thomastown in his native county, he fell under the influence of a criminal element and turned to crime to pay his debts.  Although his career was shortlived – about five years- he managed to escape the normal fate of his calling – He shopped his accomplices to avoid the hangman. He later took a job at New Ross as a revenue man, in a Tide Wayter role. You can read a full account of his exploits here.

Now what may you ask was a Tyde (tide) Wayter (waiter). This was a junior role within the revenue service, and these men were employed to go aboard incoming vessels at Passage and Ballyhack.  They were expected to remain with the ship until they reached New Ross or Waterford ports.  While aboard they had to stay vigilant to pilfering or the movement of contraband.  Freney must have been a specialist – the poacher turned gamekeeper.

Anyway, his piratical escapade occurred before he turned legit.A story from a newspaper (to which I am indebted to Kevin Ryan) in 1906 tells of an incident on the Campile Pill many years before.  An ageing gentleman named Palliser was alone one summer evening at home at Portobello House, close to Campile. The house was located on a small tidelet of the pill.  As the sun set, our protagonist rowed a small vessel, perhaps a prong, up the pill.  At Portobello Bridge he ran out of water.  Going ashore he went to the house where he found the elderly gentleman alone.  Presenting himself and a blunderbuss gun he demanded money with menaces.  His victim fainted with the shock, allowing Freney time to make good his escape, with a boat full of loot.

English Flintlock Blunderbuss Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123013

Was the boat trip fact or fiction? I cannot say, but it’s just another event attributed to the man in the chronicle of incidents.  It suggests his career as a tide waiter may not have been as steep a learning curve as we might assume of a highwayman. Of course, we have met him before on the blog. He was no stranger to the Ballinlaw – Great Island Ferry. The placename Whitehorse is claimed to have originated with one of his exploits too.

White Horse

Following a grant from the The Heritage Council a new website has now been completed by the project. This follows a long process of consultation, discussion, drafts and redraft, but the site is now up and running. The crucial elements were to keep the content free to access, try raise some funds to sustain the project and to ensure the long term access to the research and stories. Our thanks to Ronan Cleary at Eagle Dreams for all his teams assistance. Hope you will enjoy the new look and features. A launch will be arranged at a later date 😀 Andrew