Six Degrees Of Segregation

Sudan protests June 2022 Mohamed Nurelden Abdallah Reuters

reystones ex-pat Jago Hayden recently shared his take on the fighting currently raging through Khartoum with members of his own family.

And having written some fine historical pieces for the Guide, he asked us to pass on his explorations of the Greystones connection to Sudan’s current troubles.

History has a habit of bringing seemingly disparate parts of the world together.

The words are, of course, all the author’s own…

Given the outbreak of internal fighting in Khartoum by opposing factions in the Sudan, and the suggestion on British TV by some of their politicians that the British government would for historical reasons be the most influential party to help resolve the issues involved. I wonder.

Let’s look at it from a Greystones point of view.

Blight, said Fred

Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, soldier of fortune, man about town, adventurer, spy, author, explorer and guards officer, wangled his way into accompanying an overland expedition led by a fellow officer to relieve General Gordon, who was besieged by the forces of Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi, in Omdurman.

This was in the sixth year of his marriage (in 1879) to Elizabeth Hawkins Whitshed, who grew up in Killincarrig House.

The expedition survived an attack at Al Teb, but as they approached Omdurman, were forced to adopt a defensive position, using the British land forces tactic of massing together in a square formation. As the pressure grew, some one, thought to be Burnaby himself, got the square to partially open to bring a machine gun to bear on the dervishes. But some of them broke through, and a spear caught Frederick Burnaby in the neck and throat.

General Gordon died in a later attack that overwhelmed the British garrison. A fictional 1939 film directed by Zoltan Korda, titled The Four Feathers, about that event was a great favourite of Billy Kinsella. The scenes of the dervish army running across open desert interspersed with hundreds on camels and in Technicolour, was one of the most exciting scenes I have ever seen in the cinema.

The revenge for General Gordon’s death came in September1898 with the Anglo Egyptian conquest of the Sudan. General Kitchener recaptured Omdurman from a Sudanese army led by Abdullah al Tashi, the self-acclaimed successor to the Mahdi. Winston Churchill was the war correspondent who got in on the action that time.

Omdurman and Khartoum face each other across the Nile.

Expanding the Greystones connection, it would be remiss not to check out Admiral Sir James Hawkins Whitshed, great grandfather, if I have reckoned the generations correctly, of the same Elizabeth Hawkins Whitshed, who inherited the lands and properties that included Killincarrick (sic) House and townland.

Rosermary Raughter, in her excellent article in Greystones: Its Buildings And History, published by The La Touche Legacy Committee in 2012, delivers chapter and verse, including that the future Admiral was born in Carlingford in County Louth, where his father was Rector, with numerous children.

Patrick Reilly

Other sources give Raphoe in County Donegal as his place of birth, mistakenly, I believe.

What other irons had the British government reddening in the fire of Empire in Africa at the time?

Our Reilly Grand Uncle Patrick, brother to our paternal Grandmother Anne (nee Reilly) Hayden, had been packed off to Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, c1876 when he was only 17, at the time of the 9th Xhosa war (its thought it was to keep him from getting involved with the Fenians at home). Not that he got involved with anything out there of that nature, only fell on his feet, working for a Scotsman, and lodging in a farmers hotel owned. by a man from Kiltimon near Newtownmountkennedy at home. But the 9th Xhosa war segued into the Zulu
war. The British Empire was indeed a fractious place.

Young Patrick never came home, but died young and while we know which graveyard he was buried in, the records of individual graves were unfortunately lost in a fire. We have only his photograph, taken in London on his way to the Cape, and a couple of letters he wrote home in 1877 and 1878.

I’ve strayed a bit from British government ministers believing they can sort out whats going on at the moment. Or have I?

You can explore more Jago Hayden history essays here. Cover pic: Marwan Ali.