Father James Dixon was one of the three convict priests transported from Ireland among the 560 Irishmen so punished after the 1798 Rebellion of the United Irishmen, a joint Protestant and Catholic uprising led by the Ulsterman Wolfe Tone and inspired by the French Revolution principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Father Dixon was described as a "kind and inoffensive man, rather wanting in energy and decision". A priest of Ferns diocese, he was not the stuff of rebels, and was friendly with the local Protestant gentry and clergy.
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