George Kelly

George Kelly (c.1680 – October 1762) was an Irish clergyman and Jacobite. A close associate of Charles Edward Stuart, he is notable as one of the Seven Men of Moidart who accompanied Prince Charles to Scotland in July 1745. Early life Kelly was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, the son of Edward Kelly. His family had longstanding connections with the Stuarts; Kelly's cousin and fellow Jacobite plotter, Captain Dennis Kelly, was the son of Charles Kelly of Screen, Galway, a veteran of the Williamite War in Ireland. He entered Trinity College Dublin in 1702 and graduated in 1706, before being ordained as a deacon in the Church of Ireland. As a nonjuring priest, in 1718 he delivered a sermon which expressed sympathy for the exiled Stuart claimant to the throne, James Francis Edward Stuart. Kelly was expelled from his position and moved to Paris, where he was briefly involved in the Mississippi Company. Jacobite agent He returned to London in 1721 and became chaplain to Francis Atterbury, a Jacobite bishop in the Church of England. Under the alias of 'James Johnson', Kelly became a messenger between Atterbury and the Stuart court. He was integrally involved in the Atterbury Plot, alongside his associate Christopher Layer, and was arrested by British authorities when the plot collapsed in spring 1722. Kelly spent the following fourteen years imprisoned in the Tower of London, during which time he published translations of Castlenau's Memoirs of the English Affairs (1724) and Morabin's History of Cicero's Banishment (1725).