Background
He was the only son of Denis Cloney, a prosperous middleman, of Moneyhore, Wexford, and his wife, Mary Kavanagh (d 1782), a native of Ballybeg, County Carlow, both Roman Catholics.
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Thomas Cloney
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Thomas Cloney also had three sisters. A United Irishman, as a young man Cloney was appointed a Colonel in the United ranks shortly before the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion. During the Wexford lion he fought at the battles of Three Rocks, New Ross, Foulksmills/Goff"s Bridge and led the attack on Borris House.
He was often subsequently referred to as "General Cloney".
Following the failure of the rebellion, Cloney was imprisoned at Wexford and, briefly,at the notorious Geneva Barracks and was condemned to death. This sentence was later commuted to banishment for life to the Penal Colony of New South Wales.
Later, after spending twenty-one months in gaol, he was released on condition that he leave Ireland for two years. Most of that time he spent in Liverpool.
(T. Cloney, A narrative of those transactions in the county of Wexford in which the Aauthor was engaged in the awful year of 1798,(Dublin)1832).
On his return to Ireland in May 1803 Cloney immediately involved himself with Robert Emmet and his associates. In Byrnes"s Memoirs, he describes a meeting he arranged between Robert Emmet and Cloney at Harold"s Cross Green, Dublin shortly before Emmet"s uprising. Circumstantial evidence would suggest that Emmet had appointed Cloney to act as his General for County Wexford, had the anticipated success of the rising in Dublin come about.
Following the collapse of Emmett"s rising, Cloney was again arrested and lodged in Dublin Castle and later in Kilmainham Gaol from where he was released on health grounds in November 1804.
After his release, Cloney went to live at Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny, where his home was nicknamed "Whitehall". Of the principal leaders of the 1798 rebellion, he, along with Joseph Holt was only one of two rebel leaders to survive and remain in Ireland.
Cloney wrote a history of the 1798 lion which was one of the first written from the perspective of the defeated rebels. "A Personal Narrative of those Transactions in the County of Wexford, in which the author was engaged, during the awful period of 1798.".
lieutenant contains an Appendix which includes a report of Cloney"s trial by Court Martial which began on 5 July 1799.
He had wished to publish his book earlier but was advised against it by his attorney, Peter Burrowes.
