1847 – “Perfect Pandemonium”

Tipperary Vindicator 21 April 1847

The Hon. William Edward FitzMaurice was the Conservative MP for Buckinghamshire during the 14th British Parliament. When, in April of 1847, he declared that the County of Tipperary was in a state of “perfect pandemonium” the Editor of the Tipperary Vindicator wasn’t having it. He wasn’t having it at all. His response in his newspaper to the Right Honourable Gentleman employed the age old and highly successful Irish tactic of genealogical assassination. He dragged up the misdeeds of his forebears from the dim and distant past, right back to Henrician times. Probably only the constraints of space prevented him from going back as far as Niall of the Nine Hostages.