# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Byrne, Miles

​BYRNE, MILES (1780–1862), member of the Society of United Irishmen, and afterwards chef de bataillon in the service of France, was the son of a farmer, and was born at Monaseed, in the county of Wexford, Ireland, on 20 March 1780. In 1796 he agreed to join a corps of yeomanry cavalry on condition of obtaining the renewal of a lease of land for his mother; but his father, who was then ill, dying shortly afterwards, he was absolved ​from serving, and thus in his own words, 'never wore a red coat.' Having in the spring of 1797 joined the Society of United Irishmen, he entered into their plans with ardour, and took a leading part in organising the confederation in Wexford. On 3 June 1798 he united with the insurrectionists encamped at Corrigrua, and, after the defeat at Vinegar Hill on the 21st, rallied a number of pikemen with whom he took part in a variety of minor skirmishes. An attack was made on Castlecomer, but without success, and after the battle of Ballygullen on 4 July he joined Holt in the Wicklow mountains, where for some months he kept up a faint show of resistance in the vain hope of obtaining aid from France. On All Hallows eve Byrne paid a visit to his mother and sister, when, finding that he was in imminent danger of arrest, he made his escape to Dublin in the disguise of a car-driver. There for some years he was employed as clerk in a timber-yard. In the spring of 1803 he was introduced to Robert Emmet, who found him ready to devote himself with enthusiasm to his new enterprise for a rising, and who entrusted him with some of the most difficult of the arrangements connected with it. He supplied Emmet with a list of persons for the three counties of Carlow, Wicklow, and Wexford, 'who had acquired the reputation of being good patriots in 1798,' and he also made contracts with the gunmakers, arranged for the manufacture of pike-handles, and procured the necessary war material. In the scheme for the capture of Dublin Castle on 23 July he was entrusted with the command of the Wexford and Wicklow men, who were to seize on the entrance to the castle from the side of Ship Street, but as Emmet was prevented from keeping his agreement to attack the main entrance, the whole affair proved abortive. On returning from the Wicklow mountains, Byrne was commissioned by Emmet to go to Paris to communicate with Thomas Addis Emmet, the agent of the United Irishmen to the first consul, regarding help from France. Succeeding with some difficulty in reaching Bordeaux in an American vessel, he helped in composing a report on the state of Ireland, which was presented to Napoleon, who, in view of a contemplated expedition at no distant date, decreed in November 1803 the formation of the Irish legion in the service of France. In this legion Byrne obtained the commission of lieutenant of infantry, and served in the campaigns of Napoleon from 1804 to 1815. At an early period he was promoted captain, and in 1810 he was chosen to command a bataillon d'élite of the Irish troops. On 18 June 1813 he was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Shortly before the abdication of Napoleon he was named to be promoted chef de bataillon, but not soon enough to permit of the formality of signing the commission. After the revolution of 1830 he was appointed chef de bataillon in the 56th regiment of the line, then commanded by Bugeaud, afterwards marshal, and in 1832 he received the cross of the Legion of Honour from Louis-Philippe. In 1835 he resigned his commission, and took up his residence in Paris, where his tall and to the last straight figure, thin bronzed face, and mobile yet keen features were during the latter period of his life well known to frequenters of the avenue of the Champs-Elysées. He retained strong sympathies in behalf of freedom throughout the world, and his devoted attachment to Ireland was of course rendered only more intense by his enforced exile. He died on 24 Jan. 1862, and was interred in the cemetery at Montmartre, where there is a monument to his memory.
[The Memoirs of Miles Byrne, published at Paris in 1863 in 3 vols, edited by his widow, contain many interesting details regarding the conspiracies in Ireland, the campaigns of Napoleon, and the Irish officers in the service of France.]
T. F. H.