The fine Ireland Ballinacourty, near to Dungarvan, County Waterford February 1861 Royal National Lifeboat Institution Medal in Silver awarded to a solicitors apprentice, Robert Netterville Barron Esq, a student in King’s Inns, Dublin and apprenticed to his father, the Dungarvan and Waterford solicitor Edward Netterville Barron. Early on Tuesday morning 19 February 1861, the Cork brigantine Susan went onto rocks near Ballinacourty during a violent south-easterly gale and heavy sea. The ship’s boat was smashed to pieces when the crew attempted to launch it. At 6.30 am the ship broke up and two of the crew were drowned. The four remaining crew were lashed to a floating portion of the wreck, some 150 yards from shore. Local coastguards and local solicitor Edward Barron sent messengers to Dungarvan for the lifeboat to assist. At 8 am two further crew were washed off the wreck and drowned. The remaining two clearly could not hang on much longer and Edward Barron and Mr Hannigan offered £10 to any men from the 100 who were now watching from the beach to crew a boat to go to their rescue. None however would brave the fierce sea. It was at this point that Robert Netterville Barron, the 19-year-old son of Edward Barron, appealed to some of the men to accompany him in a rescue attempt. He had already tried earlier that morning to swim with a line to the wreck but had been driven back by the conditions. With his appeal, Thomas Archill, Captain Augustine Dower, Thomas Hayes, and coastguards William Waugh and Thomas Walsh now volunteered to accompany him. Launching themselves in Edward Barron’s four-oared fishing boat, they rowed through the boiling surf, cross sea and now westerly gale and succeeded after a great struggle in getting alongside the wreck. Having got the only two survivors aboard the boat, a lot of water started coming in through a hole, which was plugged with Robert Barron’s scarf, and they the rowed safely back to the shore, being greeted by cheers from the large crowd. Barron and Dower were awarded the R.N.L.I Silver Medal. Barron additionally received a telescope from the Board of Trade. Barron qualified as a solicitor in 1862, and later practiced in Dungarvan and Dublin and later served as the County Count Registrar for the County Monaghan Civil Bill Court in the 1880s, and later in similar in Donegal.
Royal National Lifeboat Institution Medal in Silver, 1st type with George IV bust (1824-1862) bust, with the Dolphin suspension (therefore circa 1852-1862) with outer band correctly engraved; (R.N. BARRON ESQ. VOTED 7 MARCH 1861.)
Condition: Good Very Fine.
Robert Netterville Barron was born circa 1841, the eldest son of the Dungarvan and Waterford solicitor Edward Netterville Barron and his wife Kate (née Longan, the only daughter and heiress of Robert Longan, JP, of Ballynacourty). In his early years he and his six brothers and sisters lived at Ballynacourty House, Ballynacourty, Dungarvan. Educated at Carlow College, Barron followed his father into a career in law, being admitted as a student in King’s Inns, Dublin and was apprenticed to his father from 1857.
Early on Tuesday morning 19 February 1861, the Cork brigantine Susan went onto rocks near Ballinacourty, ten miles from Dungarvan, County Waterford, during a violent south-easterly gale and heavy sea. The ship’s boat was smashed to pieces when the crew attempted to launch it. At 6.30 am the ship broke up and two of the crew were drowned. The four remaining crew were lashed to a floating portion of the wreck, some 150 yards from shore. Local coastguards and local solicitor Edward Barron sent messengers to Dungarvan for the lifeboat to assist. At 8 am two further crew were washed off the wreck and drowned. The remaining two clearly could not hang on much longer and Edward Barron and Mr Hannigan offered £10 to any men from the 100 who were now watching from the beach to crew a boat to go to their rescue. None however would brave the fierce sea. It was at this point that Robert Netterville Barron, the 19-year-old son of Edward Barron, appealed to some of the men to accompany him in a rescue attempt. He had already tried earlier that morning to swim with a line to the wreck but had been driven back by the conditions. With his appeal, Thomas Archill, Captain Augustine Dower, Thomas Hayes, and coastguards William Waugh and Thomas Walsh now volunteered to accompany him. Launching themselves in Edward Barron’s four-oared fishing boat, they rowed through the boiling surf, cross sea and now westerly gale and succeeded after a great struggle in getting alongside the wreck. Having got the only two survivors (Mr Scoggins, Master, and Mr Baker, Mate) aboard the boat, a lot of water started coming in through a hole. Using Robert Barron’s scarf, Captain Dower managed to bung the hole, after which they rowed safely back to the shore. Greeted by cheers from the large crowd, the survivors were taken to Barron’s house where they were seen by Dr Battersby and nursed by Mrs Barron. The RNLI voted its silver medal to Barron and Dower on 7 March 1861 (along with £4 for the other four men), while the Board of Trade presented Robert Barron with a telescope and the other five men (Archill being known in their return as ‘Archall’) were granted £2 each.
Robert Barron was presented with his RNLI medal by Lord Stuart de Defies on 6 April 1861 in Dungarvan at a special meeting convened by the Dungarvan Lifeboat Committee at the Devonshire Arms. The Waterford Mail, in reporting the ceremony at length, noted ‘On the right of the noble chairman stood Mr R N Barron, a young gentleman of prepossessing appearance, whose modest deportment and gentlemanly bearing elicited the admiration of all present. Captain Dower was unavoidably absent, but was represented on the occasion by his wife. The noble lord, addressing Mr Barron in his usual graceful and impressive manner, spoke as follows: “I regret very much that your associate in peril (Captain Dower), has been prevented by his seafaring duties from attending today before this committee, but of course it is to be understood that the observations which I am about to address to you, should be considered as applying to him likewise. It is, I beg to add, with particular pride, that I find myself the organ for conveying on the part of the directors of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the assurance of their high appreciation of your gallant conduct in assisting to rescue two of your fellow creatures from a watery grave, on the occasion of the lamentable shipwreck which took place near Ballinacourty on the 19th of February last. On that eventful day, in a spirit of noble daring, neither of you hesitated to risk your own lives for the sake of saving those of others. It was a glorious deed, done in the cause of suffering humanity, which it pleased God to permit, should be crowned with signal success. The recollection of that event, of the happiness conferred upon the men, whom you snatched as it were from the jaws of death, and of the joy necessarily felt by their families, to whom you restored them, must always constitute a higher reward than any which it would be in the power of your fellow men to bestow upon you, but, nevertheless, I am commissioned to tender to your acceptance, by the chairman of the National Lifeboat Institution, as a slight token of the admiration felt by that body, and indeed by all classes of persons in this locality likewise, two medals which have been transmitted to me from London for the purpose. These medals possess indeed little intrinsic value, but they will prove, I trust, bright harbingers of that everlasting reward, which it has pleased the Almighty to promise shall be theirs, who in defiance of all obstacles, know how to discharge the calls of Christian duty at the sacrifice, if necessary, of even life itself.” During the delivery of his lordship’s address, which was listened to with breathless attention, many of those present appeared deeply affected. Mr Barron briefly returned thanks…’ (10 April 1861, p. 2).
Barron qualified as a solicitor in 1862, his father having died in June of that year. Barron had an office in Dungarvan from 1866 and a further office in Dublin (initially in Dame Street, then Upper Sackville Street, Lower Ormond Quay, and South Frederick Street) from 1868. Barron joined the Freemasons in 1873, becoming a member of Lodge No. 50 in Dublin on 30 June that year.
He served as the County Count Registrar for the Co Monaghan Civil Bill Court in the 1880s, resigning this post in 1888 when he was appointed to the similar post in Donegal. By 1892 he had ceased his practice in Dungravan and had instead opened an office in Newtownstewart, although by 1894 he had moved from there further north-west to Lifford, whilst continuing with his Dublin chambers. He was a member of the Law Club of Ireland from about 1870 and the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland from 1873. In March 1901 Barron was staying in a closed hotel at 23 West Street, Castleblayney, the proprietor having died a short time previously. Barron was working as the Irish agent of the Normal Powder Company, of Hendon, during this period and complaints he made to the Earl of Westmorland about one of the directors, Captain Charles Laprimandaye, led the latter to file a libel suit against him. The matter was heard in the Central Criminal Court in London in November 1901 and Barron was bound over, having agreed to refrain from publishing any further such libels. Around 1905 Barron appears to have ceased practising, his name disappearing from subsequent issues of Thom’s Directory.
In his final years, Barron suffered from increasing senility, from which he died at 34 Inchicore Road, Dublin, on 24 April 1917, aged 76. Administration of his estate was granted in Dublin on 19 May 1917 to Elizabeth Crosbie, a widow, Barron’s effects amounting to £173 3s 2d.
