French Mayo: Lara Marlowe on Gen Humbert’s swashbuckling career

The strains of Páidín Ó Raifeartaigh echoed through a conference room at the Château de Vincennes one recent autumn evening, played on a tin whistle by 15-year-old Iarla Dunford from Killala. “The local Irish played this when Gen Humbert stepped ashore,” Dunford explained, referring to the landing on Cill Chuimin Strand, Co Mayo, by an 800-strong French expeditionary force in August 1798.

Henri Ortholan, a retired French army colonel and the author of General Humbert, Hero of Ireland, could not have hoped for a more appropriate start to his book launch than Dunford’s solo.

Revolutionary France was at war with just about everyone, including Britain. Based on a shared belief in republicanism, and the principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, Wolfe Tone’s United Irishmen had joined forces with the French.

A first invasion in December 1796 was aborted because of foul weather. Gen Jean Joseph Amable Humbert’s ship, Les Droits de l’homme, was sunk by the British off the coast of Brittany, but he survived.

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The second time, in August 1798, the French navy planned to converge on the west of Ireland from four points. But three other groups were not ready, so Gen Humbert set off alone from La Rochelle.

After skirmishes at Killala and Ballina, Gen Humbert decided to march on Castlebar. A 2,000-strong Franco-Irish force advanced through the night, stopping at midnight to feast on chicken prepared by the inhabitants of Lahardane. A cannon broke in the rain and a box of munitions fell into a bog. An early-rising yeoman raced to Castlebar to alert the British.

“Gen Humbert should have lost the battle,” Col Ortholan writes. “Inferior numbers, the lack of artillery, the lack of military experience among Irish volunteers, the exhaustion of his men after a night spent marching, soaked by the storm, the disadvantage of an assailant attacking an adversary who is dug in . . . should have led to defeat.”

A first onslaught by 500 pikemen was cut down by British musket and cannon fire. Two French columns were forced to retreat, also with heavy losses.

Humbert had kept in reserve 400 French foot soldiers and 40 horsemen. He strung them out in a line too thin for the British to mow down. “The British dreaded the French bayonets,” Ortholan says. “Their first line melted and the rest with them. The British ran away at great speed, hence the term the Races of Castlebar.”

Humbert’s reinforcements never arrived. The British regrouped and the Franco-Irish forces were defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck on September 8th. Gen Humbert surrendered to Gen Gerard Lake. “The French were well treated,” says Ortholan. “Not so the Irish.”

The victory at Castlebar was one of many episodes in Humbert’s swashbuckling career. Before invading Ireland, the hard-drinking, womanising son of peasants from Saint-Nabord, Lorraine, fought Prussians and put down a Catholic royalist rebellion in Vendée.

After Ireland, Humbert was dispatched to quash a rebellion of Haitian slaves, but was dismissed by Gen Charles Leclerc, who was married to Napoleon’s sister Pauline Bonaparte. Humbert may have had an affair with Pauline.

“Humbert didn’t like the British, so he put himself at the service of Gen Andrew Jackson to fight them in the war of 1812,” says Ortholan. “It was the last time he wore a uniform.”

In 1813, Humbert helped foment a Mexican rebellion against Spain. He became a pirate with the French Lafitte brothers, for which the US Navy briefly imprisoned him. He died in New Orleans at the age of 56.

Ortholan researched the book with the help of Cécile Déjardin, an ardently Hibernophile Frenchwoman. Déjardin is organising a commemoration at Saint-Nabord of the bicentennial of Humbert’s death on June 22nd to 24th, 2023.

Also next year, the Irish Embassy will mark the 225th anniversary of the Year of the French at the Centre Culturel Irlandais. “We want to look at how French political ideology of revolution inspired Irish republicanism,” says Micheál Tierney, the ambassador’s deputy.

Col Ortholan’s book is dedicated in part to Stephen Dunford, the Mayo historian who started re-enactments of the Battle of Castlebar, won the award for best event in Ireland during the 2013 Gathering, and was decorated by the French government.

Dunford died of cancer in September 2021, but five members of his family attended the book launch.

“Gen Humbert and 1798 were Stephen’s passion. He would have loved this,” his widow Bernie said.

“Thank you for keeping the memory of Gen Humbert alive,” Dunford’s brother Chuck said. “We will be delighted to welcome you to French Mayo.”