British forces occupying Ireland conducted the Gibbet Rath massacre on this date in 1798, slaying 300 to “500 rebels bleaching on the Curragh of Kildare — that Curragh over which my sweet innocent girls walked with me last Summer, that Curragh was strewed with the vile carcasses of popish rebels and the accursed town of Kildare has been reduced to a heap of ashes by our hands.”
Those are the words of Captain John Giffard, an officer of the force under Major-General James Duff, the Limerick commander who marched into neighboring County Kildare to quell the risings there related to the 1798 Irish Rebellion.
By the time Duff arrived, the Kildare rebels had already been defeated at the Battle of Kilcullen (May 23-24) and had come to a negotiated surrender. A less belligerent British generaal had taken a large rebel surrender on May 27 at Knockaulin Hill by granting an amnesty and showing the flexibility and personal courage to present himself bodily at the rebel redoubt to reassure the Irishmen of their safety.
Events would show that those popish rebels came by their fear honestly.
Duff was detailed to take in another body of rebels availing themselves of the same amnesty upon the Curragh, a broad open plain on the fringe of Kildare town.
Apparently angered past military discipline by the sight on their march of casualties from the rebellion — Captain Griffard’s bloodthirsty effusions above were occasioned by seeing his own son among the dead — Duff decided to subject the Curragh prisoners to a pompous harangue against treason, after which his infantry and cavalry suddenly attacked the disarmed rebels, killing hundreds. According to Duff’s letter to his superiors that same day, the slaughter was triggered when one or more of the rebels discharged their weapons during the stacking of arms.
Kildare, two o’clock, p.m. — We found the rebels retiring from the town on our arrival, armed; we followed them with the dragoons. I sent on some of the yeomen to tell them, on laying down their arms, they should not be hurt. Unfortunately, some of them fired on the troops; from that moment they were attacked on all sides — nothing could stop the rage of the troops. I believe from two to three hundred of the rebels were killed. We have three men killed and several wounded. I am too much fatigued to enlarge.
Duff received commendation, not condemnation, for this action, and Irish rebels still in the field understandably took warning that future surrenders courted summary death.
Just, Prudent, Pious, everything that’s Great
Lodg’d n his Breast, and form’d the Man complete,
His Body may consume, his Virtues shall
Recorded be, till the World’s Funeral.
On this date in 1720, Irish Catholic landlord James Cotter the Younger was hanged at Cork City. The charge was rape — but in the eyes of most it was his politics that were really on trial.
In a way it was the dexterity of his old man, James Cotter the Elder, for navigating the English Civil War that set up his offspring for this unfortunate fate. A second son of an ancient house, this man made a scintillating career as a royalist officer who went into exile during the Cromwellian interregnum.
Naturally Cotter-Elder made out like a Cotter-Bandit upon the monarchy’s restoration, proving his zeal by hunting down and slaying an absconded regicide.* Emoluments ensued, eventually raising the man to a colonial governor. With the resulting wealth he consolidated his family’s fragmented estates and became one of southwestern Ireland’s greatest landholders — yet his deft political touch enabled him to keep his station intact after the Glorious Revolution deposed the Stuart dynasty he had served so excellently. Still, Cotter’s survival in the anomalous position of a Catholic Jacobite lord under a regime which Jacobites thirsted to overthrow required some tradeoffs; according to this Carrigtwohill newsletter (scroll down to p. 62), he had to let his son be raised as a Protestant to insure his inheritance. The family apparently found a loophole by marrying him young to a Protestant, which provided the youth a legal foothold to secure his position whilst openly returning to the old faith.
Unfortunately the ample rents that the 16-year-old Master Cotter became entitled to upon his father’s death in 1705 did not come with dad’s diplomatic talent.
In the wake of the failed 1715 Jacobite rising, a Protestant rival accused Cotter of abducting and raping a Quaker woman named Elizabeth Squibb. In Catholic eyes, the whole proceeding was a naked assassination, with partisan judges and jurors ramrodding a dubious conviction to reduce a major Catholic family. If so, it was successful; Cork noblemen preferred the charge to Dublin. The conviction was enforced with speed — allegedly to preempt any possible pardon — despite the outrage of a good portion of the populace. On execution day, it was necessary to improvise a rope pegged to an obliging post, because angry Cotter supporters had destroyed the gallows which was to bear his body. Gnashing of teeth among the printed-word set ran to some 20 still-surviving poems and broadsheets lamenting
* The assassination target was parliamentarian John Lisle. In 1685, Lisle’s widow was targeted for a still-infamous judicial killing after the Whig rebellion of Monmouth failed.
“A well-bred gentleman, three years at court, as free and generous as could be desired, and very complaisant; stout in his person, but, not being bred anything of a soldier, wanted the main art, that is, policy in war and good conduct” by a contemporary assessment, O’Neill numbered among the leaders of the 1641 Irish Rebellion against English governance. He issued a noteworthy manifesto of the affair known as the Proclamation of Dungannon.
O’Neill officered troops in this conflict, to no stirring victories. Although far from Confederate Ireland’s most important player, he was significant enough to merit an exception to the 1652 Act for the Settlement of Ireland — which made him an outlaw with a price on his head. He was captured in February 1653 and tried for treason in Dublin, refusing the court’s blandishments to abate the horrible drawing-and-quartering sentence by shifting any blame for the rising to the lately beheaded King Charles I.
* Or for a somewhat broader periodization, the rebellion fit into the Britain-wide breakdown that delivered the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
On this date* in 1609, seventeen pirates hanged at Wapping’s “Execution Dock”. Though English, a large number of them had been taken in Ireland.
Elizabethan England had cultivated a reputation for the quantity and ferocity of her buccaneers, profitably plundering Spain’s New World treasure galleons and establishing themselves as a terror in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic — some, like Sir Francis Drake, with official blessing as privateers, and many others operating off-book knowing that a crown thirsty for specie would turn a blind eye to their business.
This sector was a rising tide that lifted many boats: commoners on the make and lords of the realm alike invested in pirating, and the proceeds washed over Britain’s wharfs to all the landlubbers who called pirates family, or who received their stolen plunder, or who sold ale to the conquering corsairs.
In 1603, the arrangement changed.
With Elizabeth’s death the crown passed to a man who disdained the profession and wanted to bring English hostilities with Spain to a close. James I had not yet even been crowned king in England when he published notice of a sea change in the piracy policy.
We are not ignorant that our late dear Sister, the late Queen of England, had of long time wars with the king of Spain, and during that time gave Licences and Commissions to divers of her, and our now Subjects, to let out and furnish to sea divers ships warlikely appointed, for the surprising and taking of the said King’s subjects’ goods, and for the enjoying of the same, being taken and brought home as lawful Prize.
We further will and command, that our men of war, as be now at sea having no sufficient commission as aforesaid, and have taken, or shall go to sea hereafter, and shall take any the ships or goods of any subject of any Prince in league or amity with us, shall be reputed and taken as pirates and both they and all their accessories, maintainers, comforters, and partakers shall suffer death as pirates and accessories to piracy, with confiscation of all their lands and goods, according to the ancient Laws of this Realm.
These are fine words for the diplomatic pouch but veteran raiders weren’t just going to throw over their only profession** and in practice James lacked the naval muscle to enforce his writ very far from English shores. Ireland, and in particular its most distant southwest province of Munster, had become a fine pirate haven jutting into Atlantic hunting-grounds, where the denizens of ports like Baltimore and Crookhaven merrily continued to welcome English sea rovers.
“Although these things happen more often in England than Ireland, by reason there is more plenty of Ports and Shipping, as also more abundance of Seamen,” wrote the English mariner Henry Mainwaring, who was alternately a pirate and a hunter of pirates.
yet in proportion Ireland doth much exceed it, for it may be well called the Nursery and Storehouse of Pirates, in regard of the general good entertainment they receive there; supply of victuals and men which continually repair thither out of England to meet with Pirates. As also, for that they have as good or rather better intelligence where your Majesty’s Ships are, than contrariwise they shall have of the Pirates. In regard of the benefit the Country receives by the one, and the prejudice, or incumber as they count it, of the other. Unto which must also be added the conveniency of the place, being that the South, the West, and the North Coasts, are so full of places and Harbours without command, that a Pirate being of any reasonable force, may do what he listeth. Besides that, many of that Nation are scarce so well reduced to any civil jurisdiction, as to make a conscience of trading with them.
And here we come to our post’s principal characters … who, it turns out, could not indeed do exactly what he listeth.
Bristol-born and ranging all the way to the Barbary Coast, Captain James Harris favored the port of Baltimore,† along Ireland’s southern coast, as a handy sanctuary where he “repaired and fresh victuald our ship” … but he should have favored it less. Having recently called there, Harris returned too soon, over the objections of his crew, who accurately warned that his name having been bandied about town was liable to attract some attention. He found an English warship waiting for his return but he was a game sport about the turn of fate that brought his end to show that he was no hypocrite since formerly, “making my felicity out of others mens miseries, while I thought prosperity at sea, as sure in my gripe, as the power to speak was free to my gontue, my actions were so imboldened, and my heart so hardned, that I held it a cowardise to dispaire to attempt, and effeminacy to pitie whosoever did perish.” Harris flung his hat to the crowd come to watch him die, and when someone shouted a question about a reprieve, he jauntily replied that he had “None, sir, but from the King of Kings.”
Preceding him at the Wapping gallows with a like prediction of eternal salvation, Captain John Jennings had a more operatic undoing when, likewise victualing at Baltimore, he insisted on taking his Irish lover aboard and triggered all the seamen’s superstitions when the pirates immediately ran into one of His Majesty’s warships, and soon thereafter barely survived a bloody scrap with two Spanish vessels that cost the pirates 10 crew members dead. The surviving crew huddled up and agreed that their rum luck “was a just judgement of God against them, in suffering their Captaine to bring his whore aboard.”
A mutiny overthrew his authority, and although it was eventually restored after the new guy proved himself a Queeg, the morale hit was obviously permanent, for much of his band deserted him the next time he put in at (again) Baltimore. With skeleton crew, he limped along the coast to the Earl of Thomond where he hoped for a hospitable reception; instead, his remaining mates betrayed him (and his last two loyal retainers) into English hands when the dissipated captain was blind drunk.
* The key source on this event is “The Lives, Apprehensions, Arraignments and Executions of the 19 late Pyrates, namely, Capt. Harris, Jennings, Longcastle, Downes, Haulsey, and their companions, as they were severally indited on St. Margret’s Hill, in Southwark, on the 22 of December last and executed the Friday following.” The title implies, wrongly, that the pirates were tried on Friday the 22nd and executed on Friday the 29th; in fact it is explicit right in the text that Captain Jennings “from a free and vnburthened heart, a patient mind and willing steps, I goe out of my chamber in the Marshalstes, the Friday morning being the two and twenty day of December to make my death-bed at Wapping.”
** Besides freebooting, English privateers were also keen to obtain new commissions from the Low Countries in the latter’s long-running revolt against Spain. But whether licensed or no, most regular sailors were scarcely in a position to hang up their cutlasses. “Those that were rich rested with what they had,” Captain John Smith wrote about the aftermath of James’s settlement with Spain. “Those that were poore and had nothing but from hand to mouth, turned Pirats; some, because became sleighted for those for whom they had got much wealth; some for that they could not get their due; some, all that lived bravely, would not abase themselves to poverty; some, vainly, only to get a name; others for revenge, covetousness, or as ill.” Plus ça change
.
† Baltimore figures in our story as a pirate-friendly landing; however, it’s most famous in buccaneering annals as the target for an infamous 1631 raid by Algiers corsairs, who carried off most of the villagers as slaves . See The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates.
On this date in 1740,* Ned “Darcy, one of the Kellymount gang, was tried at Carlow, on the Proclamation; and, being proved to be the man, in ten minutes he was taken from the dock and hanged, and his head fixed on the Court House.”
Numbering as many as 30 strong, this troop had the boldness even to lay siege to manors and the ferocity to put gentlemen in mortal terror; we find our same principal just weeks before his execution going the full monster:
August 30 — Yesterday morning, one Ned Darcy went to the house of one Doran, in the County of Carlow, took him out of his bed and, naked as he was, put him on horseback, and in that manner carried him through part of the Counties of Carlow and Kilkenny; and being met by several, were asked where they intended to take him, to which they replied they were going to hang him, he having been the occasion of hanging a brother and a father of Darcy’s; and we have been since informed that, having taken him into Kellymount Wood, they cut out his tongue, cut off his ears, and pulled out one of his eyes, then desired him to go to Sir John, in Capel Street, give in his examination to him of their proceedings, and tell him they would serve him in the same manner were he in their power, as also Mr. Bush.
Mr. Bush, who came from Carlow three days ago, had one hundred men armed to guard him, and Mr. Gore, the same from Waterford; so by this you may see in what fear we travel in this country.
The Kellymount Gang was mostly busted up in these months with no small number of executions, but its remnants survived to launch the career of one of Ireland’s most celebrated bandits, James Freney — for a few years later, Freney, a failed tavernkeeper mired in debt, chanced to find himself neighbor to “one John Reedy, who had formerly been one of the robbers, commonly known by the name of the Kellymount Gang, but who had been pardoned for making some discoveries.” Reedy advised Freney in a moment of financial desperation that “there was a fair at hand, and that there was a number of drovers to be there; who, he said would have a great deal of cash; and told me, that my only remedy to extricate myself from my creditors, was to make to the highway, and that he would get three or four men to assist me.”
The former publican took up the offer to good effect, and proceeded to make his name and fortune on the roads.
We hope our readers will recognize this famous criminal from the stickup he perpetrates upon the title character in Thackeray‘s 1844 serial The Luck of Barry Lyndon, and likewise in Stanley Kubrick‘s masterpiece 1975 adaptation, Barry Lyndon. (He’s called “Feeney” in the film.)
* Julian date: the quoted blurb comes from Reilly’s Dublin News-Letter of November 8th, 1740.
** Much to the disadvantage of Executed Today, Freney/Feeney was the rare outlaw who was able to retire with his earnings, emigrating abroad and eventually returning to work as a customs official in Inistioge. The account of his criminal origins we have from Freney’s own memoirs.
Who was executed near St. Stephen’s Green, on Saturday the 23d of August 1712.
Good Christians,
I Peter Dalton was born in the County of Meath, in the Parish of Kilkarn near Naven, Descended of Honest Parents out of the Country of West-Meath, and was but 12 Years of Age when my Father Dyed, and by the loss of my Father my Mother being a Widow, and having several more Children, she was reduced and the Children were Separated; whereupon I went to Dublin, and Bound my self to one Mr. Crowler a Brewer, where I did live in Splender [sic] and Request, until I thought fit to Marry, and being Married in a short time after, I came in Credit and took a House and Sold Ale, given to no Ill Vice during that time, and kept House Selling of Ale four Years, and got the Handling of other People’s Money, I took Frolicks of Drinking, and Spending in all Sorts of Company, till I run my self in Debt, and was forced to quit Selling of Drink, my Wife and I were forced to Separate out of this City, and found Friends in the Country very Cold. I got into a Gentleman’s Service in the Country to one Captain Netterfield, and out of his Service, became Servant to Captain Wade my Prosecutor, and lived with him about Three Months, and during that time I suffered great Hardships, which I complained to Alderman Quinn, who ordered me to quit his Service, the said Wade being displeased at my Parting, he threatened to put me in Bridewell, the Alderman fearing I should be sent to Bridewell, he ordered I should go Home and Serve my Time to Wade. I did accordingly, and while I was Serving him after, I had worse Usage then I had before, and I told, I wou’d not serve him any longer, and said I wou’d chuse to suffer his Displeasure than serve him, this happened a Year and a half ago, and I parted with him before my Time was Expir’d a Fortnight, this is well known by several in City and Country, then came to Serve Captain Warren of Corduff, lived with him Three quarters of a Year in Credit, being given to Drink I affronted my Master several times, his Honour seeing my failing, he has taken the Affronts with great Patience, very Honourably, I being always waiting of his Honour to Town, was troubled with so many Persons craving Debt of me, that I was asham’d, so that I quitted his Service by his Consent, and Honourably paid me, and more then my Wages, and gave me a favourable Discharge, and soon after Discharging me, I came to my last misfortunes, which brought me to this my shameful End, meeting on William Warren and one James Dalton, about Five Months ago the said Dalton lately came out of England,* I being glad to see him, being long out of this Kingdom, told he was bare of Money, he knowing the said Warren in London, the said Dalton demanded of me if I knew him, I told him I did, then we concluded to take a Pot of Ale, and we all complained the want of Money, Warren sends one abroad, and got as much Money as paid the Reckoning, and I said it was a pitty so many free Lads should want Money, and the rest said the same, but Warren said which way shall we come by it.
The said Warren knowing I lived with an able man meaning Wade, asked of me if any Money was to be got in his House, I told him I could not well tell, he said I know the House and no body dwels there, and let us attack it this Night and see what we can get, I think it is no Sin to take from him or from such Misers, then we did atack [sic] the House, and took several sorts of goods away, and divided them even, and then parted one from the other, where they Disposed of their shares.
I do not know, but what I had I [sic] Discovered it, and directed Wade to find them, which was the only Material Evidence he had against me on Tryal, and for the same was Convicted, that the said Warren took a Bed and two Looking Glasses to one Mulloy’s House in Thomas Court, and he borrowed Eight Shillings from the Landlady, being late he went out to find a Broker to buy them, he came in and brought one to buy the said Goods, but could not sell them, and told the Land lady that the said Goods belonged to me and came out of the Country, and I telling to the contrary, caused Suspicion that the Goods was unlawfully got, so that I was immediately Secured, and brought me before Alderman Page, and was Committed on Suspicion, and he ordered the Prosecutors to put the said Goods in the Gazette, Wade soon came to Town and heard the same and Straight came to me, and I directed him as aforesaid by his promising me before Witness he would not harm me, only to tell where the Goods were, after receiving Sentence, I have prevailed with Judge Nutley, that his Honour gave me a Favourable Report, whereby I got Order of Transportation which I have by me, and the said Wade has prevailed with the Government to revoke the said Order of Transportation and such Orders are given that I should Suffer the 23d Instant.
I was 30 Years of Age last June, this is my last and true Speech, the said Wade Informed the Government if I should Escape Death, I wou’d let the Inns on Fire for Spite to his House that is there, as I am a Dying Man I never thought of any such thing, I desire the Prayers of all good Christians. I Dye a Roman Catholick, and the Lord have Mercy on my Soul.
It was the morrow of the outbreak of Ireland’s 1798 rebellion against British rule. This rising commenced on May 24 and foundered within weeks leaving a harvest of patriotic martyrs in its wake but those in the moment had not the advantage of hindsight — so as news of the fighting reached County Wicklow, adjacent to the rebel epicenter of Wexford, loyalists there authored a couple of notable summary atrocities by way of pre-emption.
On May 25, the British garrison at Carnew took 28 United Irishmen prisoners already being held in Carnew Castle and had them shot out of hand in an alley.
A similar mass execution of 36 nationalist prisoners occurred on the following day, May 26, at Dunlavin Green.
This account from the London Chronicle, June 5, 1766 refers to the disappearance and alleged murder of the informer John Bridge. We’ve visited this case previously, in the form of Father Nicholas Sheehy, who had also been drawn and quartered a few months previous for the Bridge affair; collectively, these cases are pretext for state reprisal against the Irish Whiteboys movement, which opposed large landholders’ moves to consolidate estates, expel tenants, and let people starve while the land that once fed them was shifted towards commercial agriculture.
The Trials of Mr. Edmund Sheehy, Mr. James Buxton, and Mr. John Farrell, at Clonmel Assizes in Ireland, for the Murder of John Bridge, on the Night of the 18th of October, 1764
Mr. Edmund Sheehy being put to the bar, the lawyers for the crown first called upon John Toohy, who declared, that the prisoner was within two or three yards of John Bridge, when he received the fatal blow from John Mechan.
Mary Brady swore that she came up immediately after the murder, and that the prisoner was present, together with the Rev. Mr. Sheehy, and Edmund Mechan, and that the latter held in his hand a bill hook all bloody, and that the Priest commended the action.
Mr. James Herbert, Farmer, declared, that on Sunday Oct. 28, 1764, he was called upon by Roger Sheehy, then on horseback, behind whom he rode to a meeting of twenty or thirty persons, on the lands of Shanbally, near Clogheen, where they were sworn by Father Sheehy to murder John Bridge, John Bagwell, Esq; William Bagnell, Esq; the Rev. Dr. Hewetson, and every other person who should oppose them; that they would be faithful to the French King, and conquer Ireland.
After having thus sworn, they came to the house of one English, on the lands of Shanbatly, where Bridge was; they took him to a field, where was another party of about a hundred and thirty; here they accused him of giving information against the White Boys, and insisted that he should by oath contradict whatever he had given information of, which he refused to do; hereupon one Byrne made a stroke at him with a turf-slane, which he kept off with his arm; then Edmond Meehan took a bill hook from under his coat, with which he struck Bridge on the back part of his head, which so cleft his scull, that he instantly expired; that the Priest was then within the distance of two yards, with a hook in his hands. After this (being first sworn not to divulge what had been done) they put the body in a blanket, which they conveyed to a ploughed field, where they buried it; but in about eight days after, lest the plough should turn up the body, it was taken up and carried to a church-yard about two miles off.
John Lenorgan swore, that being sent by his uncle, Guynan, to the house of English, where the Bridge had been, between ten and twelve at night, he heard the noise of a number of people; that not caring to be seen, he concealed himself in a ditch, where he was discovered by Thomas McGrath, who put him on horseback behind the Priest, with whom he rode some time, and on the way discovered the body of a dead man, wrapt up in a blanket, before a person on horseback, and through a hole in the blanket, saw the head bloody, and that there was a number of persons attending it, both on foot and horseback, of whom he knew Father Sheehy, Edmond Meehan, Buck Sheehy, Thomas McGrath, Bartholomew Kenneley, and John Toohy; and that when they came to the turn of the road, the Priest let him down, directing him the shortest way home, and gave him three half crowns, charging him not to mention to any one what he had seen; and that he understood the dead body was that of John Bridge.
Here was closed the evidence for the crown. James Prendergast, Esq, attempted to prove an alibi, by swearing that, on the 28th of October, 1764, he and the prisoner, with their wives, dined at the house of Mr. Joseph Tennison, near Ardfinan, in the county of Tipperary; where they continued until after supper, and that it was about eleven o’clock when he and the prisoner left the house of Mr. Tennison, and rode a considerable way together on their return to their respective homes, and that the prisoner had his wife behind him; that when they parted, he (Mr. Prendergast) rode directly home, where, on his arrival, he looked at the clock, and found it to be the hour of twelve exactly, and as to the day he was positive, the 29th being the fair day of Clogheen; that he had desired the prisoner to sell some bullocks for him at the fair, not being able to give his attendance; and that Paul Webber, of Cork, Butcher, was in treaty for the said bullocks with the prisoner, on the 29th.
Mr. Tennison declared he remembered the prisoner and Mr. Prendergast dining with him some time in the month of October, 1764, but was inclined to believe it was earlier in the month than the 28th, for that on the 29th he dined with the Corporation of Clonmell; that on the Wednesday following he dined with the prisoner and Mr. Prendergast, at the prisoner’s house, and that day he invited the prisoner and his wife, with Mr. Prendergast and his wife, to dine with him the Sunday following, and was positive that company did not dine with him on any other day in October.
Paul Webber, of Cork, Butcher, swore, that he was at the fair of Clogheen on the 29th of October, 1764, where he saw the prisoner, but was not in treaty with him for any bullocks belonging to Mr. Prendergast, but the prisoner told him, that Mr. Prendergast had some bullocks on his hands to dispose of, on which he sent a person to Mr. Prendergast’s house, who bought them for him.
Thomas Mason, Shepherd to the prisoner, swore to the night and hour of the prisoner’s return abovementioned, and that he took him from his master his horse, and turned him out to the field. The following persons were also produced to discredit the testimony of John Toohy: viz. Bartholomew Griffith, Surgeon, Daniel Griffith, and John Day, servants to Brooke Brasier, Esq.
The purport of the evidence given by Bartholomew Griffith was to confront Toohy, who, being asked by the prisoner, who gave him the new cloaths he then had on, answered they were given him by his uncle Bartholomew Griffith, who being examined, denied it. Daniel Griffith declared, that Toohy was, on the 28th and 29th of October, 1764, at his house at Cullen.
John Day swore, that Toohy lived for six weeks with his master Brooke Brasier, Esq, when he behaved very ill, and was a person of bad characer; but Mr. Brasier declared he did not know the said Toohy, but that a person was in his family, for that time, of a very bad character, but that he did not know him.
The evidence of James Herbert, for the Crown, was not attempted to be invalidated. Mr. Herbert came to the Assizes, in order to give evidence in favour of Father Sheehy; the Grand Jury, who before had found bills of high treason against him, sent for Toohy, who said he knew him very well, and would assist to take him; upon this William Bagnell, Esq, attended Toohy, with some of the light-horse, went and took him; when being told on what occasion he was secured, he said he would discover the rise and meeting of the White Boys, and their intentions; and acknowledged himself guilty of what he was accused.
Mr. James Buxton, commonly called Capt. Buxton, on account of the power he had over the people he commanded, was the next person put to the bar to be tried. The testimony, which has been already related, was in every particular supported by the additional evidence of Mr. Thomas Bier, who was an accomplice, and acknowledged being present when they all swore allegiance to the French King, and to murder John Bridge, &c. and that too in consequence of a letter he received from Father Sheehy. Mr. Bier declared, that, at the time Bridge was murdered, the Priest was within two or three yards of the unfortunate man, holding the book, on which he a little before pressed and exhorted him to swear for the purpose, as has been mentioned.
Mr. James Farrell, commonly called Buck Farrell, a young man of a genteel appearance, was the last convicted, and on the joint evidence of the prosecutors.
Tuesday, the 15th of April, they received sentence to be executed the 3d of May, at Clogheen.
The general characters of the prisoners, until this unfortunate affair, were very respectable. Their influence must have been considerable, otherwise they could not have brought after them, and inlisted, the number of people they did, who were subject to martial law, by which they were tried on misbehaviour. It was in resentment of a whipping, which was inflicted on John Bridge with remarkable severity, to which he was sentenced by one of the Court-martials, that he was led to give evidence against them, by which he lost his life.
The Caledonian Mercury of Edinburgh reported on April 26, 1800 news from across the Inner Seas at Carrickfergus, north of Belfast. (Line breaks have been added to the trial report for readability.)
CARRICKFERGUS ASSIZES
At an Assizes held at Carrickfergus the 14th April inst. the following persons were tried: —
William M’Ilnea, for the murder of Alexander M’Kelvey at Ballygoland, to be hanged on Saturday the 19th April, inst. which sentence has been put in execution.
James Parks, gent. for sending a challenge to Edm. Alex. M’Naghten, Esq. to be imprisoned one year, and until he pays a fine of 50 marks, and gives security before the Mayor of Carrickfergus to be of the peace and good behaviour for seven years.
Henry Wray, Esq. for delivering the challenge wrote by Mr Parks, to Edm. A. M’Naghten, Esq. to be imprisoned a fortnight, and until he pays a fine of one mark and gives like security.
TRIAL OF WILLIAM M’ILNEA.
It appeared in evidence, that the prisoner was a blacksmith by trade, that a person of credit and respectability, walked in company with the deceased and M’Ilnea, a few perches along the road, as conveying him towards home; it was nine o’clock at night on the 29th of July last, of course nearly dark; the witness returned home, and left the deceased and M’Ilnea still walking together, but in a few minutes was alarmed with the hue and cry of Alex. M’Kelvey being killed; witness went immediately to the house where the deceased lay and found him languishing in extreme pain under his mortal wound.
A woman of credit deposed, that she was returning from milking, and near her own house saw the deceased and M’Ilnea as in a struggle together, and heard from the deceased a lamentable cry of “Oh Billy, Billy!”
Witness ran up to them, and laying her hands on M’Ilnea’s shoulders, exclaimed, “what the devil are you doing?”
On this she received no answer, but looking at the deceased, she found, “he had his bowels in his hands,” and he cried out to witness, “observe that man, Billy M’Ilnea, my murderer!”
Deceased then ran into witness’s house, where he languished in great torture till the next day, when he was visited by two surgeons and two magistrates, before whom he gave a clear and circumstantial account of the murder, by the hand of the prisoner, declaring upon his oath, that while M’Ilnea and he were walking in apparent friendship, and mutual confidence, the former, taking him by one hand under a friendly mask, with the other treacherously drew out a concealed instrument called a butridge, used by smiths in shoeing horses, and therewith ripped open his belly and stomach, so that his bowels instantly fell out:
The examinations of the deceased to this effect were produced in court, and verified by the magistrates who took them.
M’Kelvey died in 30 hours after he was wounded. It appeared there had been a former dispute between the parties, which probably might produce a wish in M’Ilnea to be the instrument of vengeance, but there arose strong grounds to believe that the deceased owed his fate to an ill-founded suspicion that he was an informer; but even this most honourable and religious pretence for massacring him in cold blood was unfounded.
The fact being thus fully proved home, upon M’Ilnea, to the most perfect satisfaction of the whole Court — the prisoner, vainly attempted a ridiculous defence, by producing some of his near relations, to traduce the character of the deceased, and to prove that the prisoner had no weapon in his custody at the time of the murder. It was treated with the contempt it deserved, and the Jury without hesitation, returned a verdict of Guilty — when the learned Judge, after a short, but most pointed and pathetic address, instantly pronounced the awful sentence of the law, viz. “Execution at the common gallows, on the next day but one (Saturday) and subsequent dissection at the county Infirmary.”
He was accordingly hanged on the day appointed.
Such was the delusion of this unhappy man: that after the most solemn and public appeals to God of his innocence, he was privately heard to say to a near relation, “do not on any account acknowledge that I killed the man, for I must die true to the cause.”
“A well-bred gentleman, three years at court, as free and generous as could be desired, and very complaisant; stout in his person, but, not being bred anything of a soldier, wanted the main art, that is, policy in war and good conduct” by 
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