John Moore of Ashbrook near Straide in Co. Mayo belonged to a family of English Protestant origin that had converted to Catholicism on inheriting a fortune through marriage to a Spanish heiress.

When in August 1798 a French force under General Humbert landed at Killala and called upon the Irish to rise against their Saxon oppressors Moore was one of the few gentry to join him. With his gentry status, legal knowledge and Catholic religion, he was just the kind of person Humbert needed, and when he marched east he left Moore behind to administer the liberated areas, giving him the impressive title “President of the government of the province of Connaught”.

When the French evacuated Castlebar, Moore was captured by the British. He could have expected the death sentence, but his family exerted influence in high places and he was sentenced instead to deportation. He set off under military escort for Duncannon Fort to await a vessel to take him away, but on the long march his health – never very strong – broke down. When he arrived at Waterford he was lodged at the Royal Oak tavern in George’s Street. A plaque marks the spot today. There he died, and his family had him buried privately in the lonely hillside graveyard of Ballygunner Temple.

There he rested in peace until 1959, when the accidental rediscovery of his gravestone caused great excitement. Two years later his body was exhumed, taken back to Castlebar, and reburied there with full military honours. “Citizen Moore” was removed from his resting-place in the Decies in 1961.