The activities of the ‘Whiteboys’ were famous throughout Ireland in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Denis J. Hickey remembers a legal case that came about because of ‘The Doneraile Conspiracy’ which saw Daniel O’Connell take on old adversary, Solicitor-Gerneral Doherty, in a courtroom showdown …
The ‘Whiteboy’ movement that had its genesis in Clogheen, Co. Tipperary, in 1761 was particularly active in North Cork in the 1820s.
Known also by their Gaelic name Buachaillí Bána, members wore white shirts for ease of recognition.
On 31st January, 1822, the police barracks in Churchtown Village (between Charleville and Buttevant) was set afire and three policemen killed. Three Whiteboys were hanged locally for their involvement.
On January 20th, 1829, Dr. John Norcott and Michael Creagh were fired upon near Doneraile. The unpopular Creagh, High Sherrif of Cork County, escaped injury, but his coachman and footman were injured. There were several other incidents in the general area including a shooting at Magistrate’s George Bond Lowe’s Shanballymore house.
On 2nd March, 1829, Bond Lowe was fired upon on as he returned from Mallow Fair. Bond Lowe captured one of his attackers, Patrick McGrath, who was hanged in Cork on April 11th, 1829.
Such incidents alarmed influential Protestants and at a meeting of magistrates of the area a reward of £732 was offered for information on the perpetrators.
Owen ‘Cloumper’ Daly, his cousin, Patrick Daly, William Nowlan and Thomas Murphy came forward to offer ‘evidence’ against twenty-one men they alleged were members of the illicit Whiteboy organisation – membership of which was a capital offence.
The execution of McGrath resulted in widespread reprisals by Whiteboys and set in motion a chain of events that became known as the ‘Doneraile Conspiracy. Rathclare Fair on Monday 27th April, 1829, was attended by several members of the Whiteboy movement. Present also was the aforementioned Patrick ‘Cloumper’ Daly. He was in the pay of Col. Richard Hill who lived near Doneraile. Daly later provided two sworn statements to Hill and Michael Creagh.
The first alleged that at a meeting at Duane’s public house in Doneraile, the shooting of Bond Low was discussed. The second described a meeting in a tent during the fair at Rathclare where Daly alleged, a paper was signed by those willing to shoot Michael Creagh, Admiral Evans and George Bond Lowe.
George, 3rd Earl Kingston who held extensive lands in Connacht and some 14,000 acres in Munster, expressed his anxiety to Dublin Castle on the turbulent state of “the country about Doneraile”.
He added that if stronger measures were not taken “many would be assassinated in the neighbourhood”.
The authorities sprang into action and in early summer 1829, twenty-one ‘conspirators’ were arrested, four of whom, Timothy Barrett, Charles Daly John Magner and Michael Wallace managed to escape.
Magner was later shot dead by George Bond Low while Barrett and Wallace were re-captured.
The authorities agreed to the request of the Protestant gentry that the accused be tried by a Special Commission in Cork commencing on 22nd October, 1829. Solicitor-General Doherty led for the State aided by Crown Prosecutors, Sergeant Gould, Mr. Bennet K.C. Baron Pennefather and Judge Torrens headed the prosecution.
The nineteen-member Grand Jury with Sir Augustus Warren as Foreman consisted of the leading Protestant Ascendancy of Cork County. Twenty-two men were charged. A further man was arrested during the trial.
Under the Grand Jury system while prosecution was allowed witnesses – defence was not.
The prosecution ‘witnesses’ in addition to Daly were: Daly’s cousin, Patrick Daly, William Nowlan, David Sheehan and Thomas Murphy.
The jury returned a “Guilty” verdict against the first four accused: John Leary, James, McGrath and Wiliam Shine, and all were sentenced to death.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own
