WICKLOW COUNTY
WICKLOW COUNT Y
– Chris Lawlor
Robert Barton: Wicklow revolutionary and statesman This article was first published in The Little Book of Wicklow (The History Press, Cheltenham, 2014)
Robert Barton was the son of Protestant and Unionist parents, born in 1881 to Charles and Agnes Barton of Glendalough House, Robert Barton (1881-1975). Annamoe, County Wicklow. The family Photo: Courtesy of owned a large estate of over one thousand five dail100.ie hundred acres in Wicklow and their wealth was further enhanced by their interest in the famous French wineries of Barton and Guestier. Barton received a classic English public-school education at Rugby school before graduating from Oxford and, later, the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, England.1 He introduced many agricultural improvements on his estate in Wicklow, and his tenants benefited from the new agricultural methods he employed. He also worked for the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society and was deeply involved in the cooperative movement. In 1908, while on a tour of co-operatives in the west of Ireland, the Unionist Barton became convinced that Home Rule was the way forward for Ireland. However, in October 1915 during World War One, Barton joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a commissioned officer.2 Although two of his brothers were killed in the First World War, Barton resigned his commission in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.3 Robert Barton was in Dublin that week and was deeply impressed by the attitude of the captured rebels in the aftermath of the rising.4 His own understanding and charitable attitude to the rebels and their families caught the attention
203
