“The Sham Squire;” and The Informers of 1798. With a View of Their Contemporaries To Which are Added, in the Form of an Appendix, Jottings about Ireland Seventy Years Ago. Third Edition. Completely Re-cast, with New Matter, Valuable Documents Hitherto Unpublished, and Illustrations from Contemporary Prints. “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction”. Dublin: W.B. Kelly, 1866. Pp xvi, 329. With Supplemental Note & advertising at end. Recent cloth over original pictorial boards. Boards scuffed & worn along edges, contents pages in good condition.

Presentation Copy, Inscribed by the Author on the title page.

Fitzpatrick delves into the betrayal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the 1798 Irish Rebellion, revealing the story of Francis Higgins, the “Sham Squire.” Though Higgins was long thought to be the actual betrayer, Fitzpatrick argues he was the employer of the traitor who received the blood-money. His primary focus is to expose the truth behind the informers who betrayed the United Irishmen, particularly the role of Francis Higgins, a Dublin adventurer and proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal.

William John Fitzpatrick (1830–1895) was a Dublin-born historian who devoted his life to uncovering Ireland’s hidden history. His work on this book emerged from a period when he was determined to set the historical record straight on the events of 1798 and the Act of Union