James Napper Tandy was a celebrated radical in Dublin politics in the 1770s and 1780s and a prominent United Irishman in the 1790s.
A Dubliner, a Protestant ,and the son of an ironmonger, Tandy was baptised (as 'James Naper Tandy') in St. Audoen's Church on 16 February 1739.
He went to the famous Quaker boarding school in Ballitore, south Kildare, also attended by Edmund Burke, who was eight years older. He then started life as a small tradesman in Dublin's inner city. He was a churchwarden at St. Audoen's in 1765, and also at another local church (either St. Bride's or St. John's) where he commissioned a new church bell bearing his name, displayed since 1946 on the floor of St. Werburgh's Church
He entered municipal politics in the 1770s and quickly became known for his reformist views. He was outspoken in his support of the American revolutionaries beginning in 1775 and became very active in the Volunteer movement, a movement intended initially to mobilize the general population to defend the country in the event of a French invasion during the period 1778 to 1783.
He was among the founding members of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen in 1791 and its first secretary.
Tandy experienced exile, first in the United States and then in France, for his role in attempting to advance a republican insurrection in Ireland with French assistance.With several comrades, he made their way to Hamburg, where they were arrested; they were finally handed over to British authorities in September 1799 after a diplomatic standoff involving Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia. Tandy was tried and convicted of treason in Ireland but was released by British General Charles Cornwallis as a result of French pressure. He left Ireland and sailed to Bordeaux, where he died (of dysentery) on 24 August 1803.
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