[ Note added 2012 by Michael Purcell - coincidence or not ? James Lawler of Bagnelstown made his Statement on the 6th June 1820..-- the same day that the Waterford Newport Bank collapsed !. the following extract is from The Keep Military Museum ] In the south of Ireland the leading bank was the Waterford bank operated by the Newport family. By 1820 it had been in existence for at least sixty years, and the Newport name carried immense confidence. Its owner William Newport of Belmont was well known to all. The sad fact was, however, that for years William had been skating on very thin ice. In 1820 his bank’s credit stood at £64,000, its debt at four times that amount. When smaller banks in other Munster towns collapsed, William knew the game was up, and rather than face his creditors he took his own life. The failure of the Waterford Bank had a devastating effect on the community. We are told how “strong men lost their reason, and steady men drank themselves to death”. But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. That astute old businessman, Thomas Meagher senior, bought up the Newport assets, which included the freehold of the building now known as the Granville Hotel. This had been leased out to the Quan family, whose assets had been invested in Newport’s and who were now ruined – so Meagher bought their lease as well. He installed in the Granville his son Thomas and his wife Alicia Quan. And that’s how their son Thomas Francis Meagher came to be born in the Granville in 1823. The Waterford Bank failed in 1820 on the 6th June 1820.