Bond, Oliver Cromwell

Bond, Oliver Cromwell (c.1761–1798), United Irish leader, was born in Co. Donegal, son of a presbyterian minister, and was apprenticed as a youth to a Derry haberdasher. Moving to Dublin in the early 1780s to trade in woollen goods at 54 Pill Lane, he took up residence (1786) at 9 Lower Bridge St., where his business prospered. Bond and his father-in-law Henry Jackson (qv) were early and prominent adherents of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen (founded November 1791). An enthusiastic supporter of the French revolution, Bond was one of those who organised the Volunteer-style National Battalion (December 1791). On 24 February 1793 he was the secretary of a meeting chaired by Simon Butler (qv), which issued a document accusing the secret committee of the house of lords of having acted illegally. Bond's role in this affair resulted in a £500 fine and his imprisonment (1 March–August 1793) in Newgate, Dublin, for seditious libel. For him, prison was comparatively comfortable as he was not closely confined, was allowed to entertain guests extravagantly, and his expenses were paid by the United Irishmen. Imprisonment did not temper his political outlook, and he distributed copies of the radical Northern Star newspaper shortly after release. His stature in the movement increased as it entered its avowedly revolutionary phase: he became an honorary member of the Leinster directory from 1796 and was numbered among the national leadership. He and fourteen Leinster delegates were arrested (12 March 1798) during a meeting at his home, after a tip-off from Thomas Reynolds (qv). Bond was one of five men brought before the commission of oyer and terminer (4 July 1798) on charges of high treason, primarily on the evidence of Reynolds. His trial commenced 24 July 1798 but was halted four days later when a pact was negotiated between the state prisoners and government. This undoubtedly saved his life, as the four men arraigned with him, Henry (qv) and John Sheares (qv), John McCann (qv), and William Michael Byrne (qv), were all executed. He died suddenly in Newgate in unexplained circumstances on 6 September 1798 and was buried in St Michan's churchyard. He married (1791) Eleanor Jackson; they had several children, who emigrated with their mother to Baltimore, USA, in the early 1800s.