BY-WAYS OF IRISH HISTORY. CHAPTER XVIIL-WHITEBOYISM IN MUNSTER-CATHOLIC COMMITTEE IN DUBLIN HEARTS OF OAK IN THE NORTH. THE triumvirate to which Mr. Wyse ascribes the origin of the Catholic Association, appears to have made a judicious division and assignment of labour. Mr. Curry undertook the task of disabusing Protestant prejudice by his writings. Mr. O'Connor negociated so as to procure Protestant collaborateurs for his learned associate. Mr. Wise occupied himself chiefly in the endeavour to arouse and combine the energies of the Catholic population. The parts were well cast. Mr. Curry had given to a genius for falsehood of the first order, the advantages derivable from learned labour and research. Mr. O'Connor graced the doctrines of his church, and the designs of his party, by the bearing, and so far as natural disposition prevailed, the principles and habits, of a gentleman. Mr. Wyse appears to have possessed that excitability of temper, and that consciousness or conviction of unacknowledged merit, which are often found eminently successful in awakening and exasperating a spirit of discontent and faction. The triumvirate entered upon its systematic and avowed labours, as well as we can collect, sometime in or about the year seventeen hundred and fifty-seven. At the same time the first manifestations of agrarian disorder (as the chouannerie of the Roman Catholic districts in Ireland has, delicately, been called) broke out in Waterford or Tipperary, or perhaps in both these counties. Mr. Wyse was a resident in Waterford; and although we unaffectedly declare that we have no intention of ascribing to him the system of outrage which speedily arrived at a diabolical perfection in his neighbourhood, we think it due to our subject to extract the character which his descendant has given of this adventurous and discontented gentleman, and to leave it to the judgment of the reader, how far the words and actions of such a leader may have contributed to promote disorder among the people. "The third co-operator in this national work, was Mr. Wyse, of the manor of St. John, the descendant of an English family, which had accompanied the Earl Strongbow to Waterford, and had continued settled in that country since :: the period of the first invasion. The small portion of the originally extensive estates, which had been rescued from three successive confiscations, still pointed him out to the persecution of local and personal enemies he came to this struggle with feelings not less roused by the home experience of injury and wrong, than Mr. O'Connor; but he wanted somewhat of the cool discretion and judicious temperance, which distinguished his fellow-labourer. The early portion of his life had been spent abroad, and his sons were employed in the service of foreign powers. On his return to his own country, indignant at the daily contumelies which were heaped upon the gentry, he abstained altogether from intercourse with his persecutors. He lived in seclusion, and turned his attention to the improvement of his estates. Manufactories, for which he obtained with difficulty even the connivance of government, were attempted to be introduced. His speculative and ardent spirit, impatient of repose, miscalculated the times in which he lived, and the men with whom he had to deal. The antipopery spirit came between the country and every improvement; every exertion for the advancement of its civilization, in which a Papist could be concerned, failed. Galled and disappointed, in a moment of despondency and disgust, a correspondence, at first casual, afterwards frequent and sustained, with Mr. O'Connor, opened to him new and ampler views. He seized them with avidity-he saw there were still hopes for Ireland—he girt himself up to give every assistance to the sacred cause, which an oppressed man had still in his power. But far more impetuous than his associates, he disdained to conciliate: he roused-he enkindledbut was little fitted, or little inclined to calm. His habits were not literary, but active; little content with oblite-. rating Protestant prejudice, he thought a more important task still remained behind-the compressing into shape and system the scattered energies of his Catholic countrymen. To that purpose, with the firmness of a will not easily to be swayed from its object, he bent the energics of a bold and earnest spirit. To him and to Dr. Curry, the Catholic body owe the first seeds of that great confederacy, which in after times was destined, through the labours of mightier men, to embrace the entire island. But his fate was not so tranquil as that of either of his companions. He had rendered himself a far more conspicuous mark to the hostility of the persecutor. His days were embittered and endangered by every ingenious application of the penal code which his enemies could devise; and after successively proving in his own person, the inflictions of the gavel act, and of the disarming act, the ingenious malignity of the discoverer, the secret conspiracy of the Protestant minister, the treacherous calumny of the informer, he sunk broken-hearted into the grave, leaving it as an injunction in his last will to his children, that they should, with all convenient speed, sell the remainder of their hereditary property, (a portion of which had already been disposed of for that purpose,) and seek out some other country, where they might worship God, like other men, in peace, and should not be persecuted for manfully observing, in the open day, the religion of their hearts, and the dictates of an honest conscience." Such was Mr. Wyse, according to the representation of his descendant and admirer. Enterprising, impatient, irritated, inflamed by contention with a "minister," harassed by the "informer," and exasperated by the besetting presence of an aggressive Protestant ascendancy, or what he esteemed such, he united himself in an angry hour with his veteran colleagues; but still bent his energies on his own peculiar task, the overcoming Protestant opposition, not by disarming it of prejudice, but by combining the force of Roman Catholics, whether physical or moral we are not clearly told, against it. The physical force was, certainly, soon aroused, organised, and arrayed in the district where Mr. Wyse had most influence. He did not retard the movement, it would seem, or allay the violence of those who sought to obtain their ends by lawlessness and crime. His associates in the work of regenerating "Catholic Ireland" admitted him to their councils, without endeavouring to moderate his temper, at least without requiring him to forego his ambitious and daring purposes. The disturbances which broke out in Munster in the year 1757 or 1759, and which were, at first, occasioned by the impatience of the people at the erection of enclosures of which they complained as unjust and illegal, increased in violence, and were rendered subservient to more important objects during their progress through some years following. In a former number we showed how formidable the organization of the disturbers had become before the year 1762, and how much the public mind had been alarmed by their excesses. The prevailing opinion upon the subject of the disturbances was, that they had a political origin and object-that they were proofs, in short, of a Roman Catholic rebellion. This was an opinion which, it may well be imagined, was unacceptable to the government. It created disquietude at home, and encouraged hostile purposes abroad. The commission appointed to inquire into the tumults in Munster, reported, as very probably the Irish government desired, that they were not political. At least, such was the impression which the report appears intended to produce. Strong measures, however, had been adopted to repress disorder, and expectations were confidently expressed in the report, that quiet would speedily be restored. The temporary and insecure tranquillity in the south, on which Lord Halifax congratulated parliament,* was more than compensated by the disturbances which broke out in Ulster. The year 1763 was unhappily memorable for the outrages of the "Hearts of Oak," (so called from the oak branches with which they decorated their hats,) who arose in opposition to the law or custom which imposed the burden of making and repairing roads exclusively on the poor. The rising of the discontented northerns was highly formidable. to baronies, from baronies to counties, "From parishes the contagion flew till at length the greater part of Ulster was engaged. Besides the overseers of roads, they attacked the clergy, whom they resolved to curtail of their tithes, and their landlords, the price of whose lands (particularly the turf bogs) they set about regulating. The army was collected from the other provinces, for till then the province of Ulster was deemed so peaceful, that scarcely any troops were * At the close of the session, 1762. quartered in it. With the loss of some It has been the habit of writers on as the disorders advanced towards ma turity, an identity of purpose became developed in Ulster and in the south, it is still contended that this does not argue unity of design-that the agree accidental, ments or resemblances were -that the differences were marked and distinguishing. This is a subject upon which it would be inexcusable to jump to a conclusion, and upon which we regret to say history is very parsimonious in supplying the materials upon which a right conclusion can be formed. We learn, however, some particulars by which our speculations may be aided and directed. We know something of the character of France, and of the recklessness and craft with which that country has laboured to excite disaffection where she could not hope for conquest. We know that when Thurot made his descent at Carrickfergus, he came with an arma ment far too inconsiderable to be employed if it were designed to effect a settlement in the country. We know how resolutely that sagacious and en spite of all the opposition he experienced from the season, from the wants and even disposition of his troops,) in his determination to effect something for his country. We have reason to believe, from the justice and even generosity with which he conducted himself towards the inhabitants of Isla, where he might have made force do the office of coin, that he was not, whatever his other wants may have been, destitute of money. We know that, as if his work was done, after a few days occupation of Carrickfergus, he embarked his troops, and made the attempt, in which he met his death, to escape. We turn then to the south of Ireland, and find that insurgents there had received French money as their pay, had sworn, in their oath of association, to be true to a general in Ulster, had adopted as their favourite music a tune of which the name indicated a French origin, and bad assumed, in an advanced stage of their insurrection, a name said to be derived from a peculiarity in their costume, but which may, with perhaps at least equal propriety, be ascribed to their being enrolled under the white standard of France-is it altogether unreasonable to imagine that these characteristics of southern insurrection denote some species of connection or correspondence with an influence in the north? and that that power, whatever it was, to which the whiteboys swore obedience under the personification of the Ulster general, was insidiously employed in endeavouring to create the discontent which manifested itself in the risings of the oak-boys and the hearts of steel? We are not solitary in the conjecture that the movements in Ulster and in the south, had their origin and impulse in the same system. We are countenanced by at least one writer, and that a writer of no ordinary authority, the historian of Captain Rock. The testimony (even though merely matter of opinion) of one to whom so many secret sources of intelligence were likely to spring open, is of too much moment to be disregarded. "It has been supposed that, in adterprising commander persevered, (indition to his organization and command * Plowden's History of Ireland, vol. ii. 142. + See By-Ways, November, 1837, and January, 1838. The costume itself may be of French extraction. "Villains dressed in the Whiteboy uniform, with bunches of white ribbons in their hats," &c. may be read of in various notices of predial disorder. We have copied from a notice in the Freeman's Journal of April 19, 1766. The white cockade seems sufficiently unequivocal. of the whiteboys, my father also lent his powerful aid to the oak-boys and hearts of steel," &c. "As the two latter insurrections were composed chiefly of northern Protestants, some over-strict Catholics have doubted whether my father would condescend to meddle with them. But the Rocks are no bigots in fighting matters, nor, indeed, at all particular as to whom they fight with, so it be but against the common enemy-i. e. generally speaking, the constituted authorities for the time being. I can easily, therefore, believe that my venerable parent belonged not only to the whiteboys, oak-boys, heart-of-steel boys, but to all other fraternities of boys then existing, whose sports were at all likely to end in the attitude thus described by Virgil, ludere pendentes pueros." Such is Mr. Moore's opinion respecting the disturbances in Ulster. We may confidently affirm, that the Protestants engaged in them had no knowledge of any ulterior objects which they were intended to promote; but treason can work out its ends by unconscious instruments; and emissaries of sedition may have wrought upon the passions of loyal men, by inveighing against some local annoyance or oppression-and, by engaging them in lawless enterprises, may have hoped to embarrass and weaken the government, to divert attention from themselves, and to gain opportunities of which they might profit, so as to widen the separation between the crown and its most faithful subjects, and by magnifying a grievance, irritating rather than severe, to confirm a passing discontent into disaffection. In a word, the traitors and conspirators against the throne would not disclose their purposes to the loyal Protestants of Ulster, but much would be gained to their cause if they could deprive the government of their cordial and ready support, if they could place them and the government mutually in the wrong, by lawless proceedings on the one side, and excessive severity on the other. But whatever may have been the tumult, whether there was a "general" moving principle in the northern stationed in Ulster, directing thence the enterprises of the whiteboys, who swore obedience to him in the south, and when they had been reduced for a time to inaction, who succeeded in diversifing the temporary tranquillity which followed, with the excesses of the Hearts-of-oak; or if insurrection arose naturally in the southern provinces, and the shock which convulsed Ulster was merely sympathetic, if not independent ;-whether the north dictated its course of action to the south, or the south propagated its insurrectionary movement to the north, or both were comprehended in the ramifications of an all-embracing conspiracythis much is certain-the descent of the French fleet on the northern coast, the manifestation of whiteboyism in Munster, and the entrance of the Catholic Association upon its duties in Dublin, took place in the same year-the disorders in the north, on the interruption given to Whiteboyism, a few years after. Since then, every province in Ireland has been disturbed, almost without intermission, by faction or by insurrection. CHAP. XIX. HOW TO "STIFLE A PLOT."-TRIAL OF FATHER SHEEHY, While the Roman Catholic committee laboured to remove what they denominated the prejudices of Protestants, and thus to win a favourable hearing to their demands, it is obvious that the whiteboy insurrection would very seriously obstruct their efforts, unless it should be made to appear rather of that character which some of the flippant politicians of modern times ascribe to it, than what it was believed to be by well-informed Protestants. Accordingly it was represented as an "agrarian" tumult. The arrangements made to give effect to such a representation were well contrived. Every body familiar with Old Bayley strategies in Ireland, in those days when Irish was often the language in which testimony was borne, has heard of the culprit who, while his accomplices in crime were discussing the provision they had respectively made for ensuring an acquittal-one demanding congratulations on the able “counsellor" which his share of the spoil had produced him, and another on his phalanx of undaunted witnesses-listened to them in silence, and when it came to his turn to say what he had done with his guilty gain, declared that he had not feed a lawyer or bribed a witness, and yet had as good hope as his fellows. What have you, then, to * Memoirs of Captain Rock. depend on? was the natural question; The case of a very remarkable person and the answer silenced further inquiry "I have the intherpratur." A similar policy was adopted by the apologists of insurrection. They could not deny the crime, but they could procure a misinterpretation of the causes. They gained the interpreters. Some they misled by false intelligence --some they bribed by money. Those whom they could not gain they defamed. Över all who wrote or spoke on the disorders of the country they acquired influence, or, failing to mislead, they misrepresented them; and thus they contrived that materials should be ready at hand for all who would advocate their views, while the testimonies by which truth could be ascertained should be inaccessible or disparaged. Their efforts were too cautious and too obscure to alarm Protestants to a sense of duty. A little book was published in London in the year 1682, entitled, "A History of Popish Sham Plots, especially of the present Popish Plot, being an account of the several methods employed by them to stifle it." Whatever may now be the opinion entertained respecting the mixture of truth and falsehood in testimonies which are defended in this little volume, incidents and frauds notorious in our own time offer strong corroboration to some of its leading statements. The "methods used to stifle" the plot it declares to be these: "1. By disheartening the witnesses from making a discovery of it. 2. By discouraging and taking off those that were too forward to search into it. 3. By frequent attempts to corrupt the King's evidence. "4. By designs to blast their credit. 5. By endeavours to cast it on the Protestants, by forging Presbyterian plots." Such were the contrivances ascribed to Romanism conspiring against Protestant England in the days of Charles II. The evidence of them in the "History" may or may not be conclusive; but the incidents of Irish disorder would cause us almost to forget that they have been assigned to the contrivers of the Popish plot, and to think of them as constituting part of the tactique of our own Whiteboy insurrection. We do not require a more complete enumeration of the arts and practices by which that conspiracy was covered and disguised. who suffered capital punishment at a time when insurrection was at its height, will furnish examples of almost all the methods of suppression enumerated by the English historian. The case to which we allude is that of the well known Father Nicholas Sheehy. We shall prefix to our account of his trial and death the representation of it given by Mr. Lewis : "The person who, in these disturbances, was the chief object of the enmity of the local authorities, on the alleged ground that he had incited the rioters, or assisted them with French money, was Nicholas Sheehy, parish priest of Clogheen, in the county of Tipperary. This man (says Dr. Curry) was giddy and officious, but not ill-meaning, with somewhat of a Quixotish cast of mind towards relieving all those within his district whom he fancied to be injured or oppressed; and setting aside his unavoidable connexion with those rioters, several hundred of whom were his parishioners, he was a clergyman of an unimpeached character in all other respects. During the disturbances, he had more than once been indicted and tried as a popish priest, but acquitted for want of evidence. At last, in 1765, the government were prevailed on to issue a proclamation offering a reward of £300 for his apprehension, as guilty of high treason. As soon as Sheehy heard of this proclamation, he wrote to the government, offering to surrender himself on condition that he might be tried, not at Clonmel, but at Dublin. This proposal having been accepted, he was tried by the Court of King's Bench, in Dublin, for rebellion, and (says Dr. Curry) after a severe scrutiny of fourteen hours, he was honourably acquitted; no evidence having appeared against him but a blackguard boy, a common prostitute, and an impeached thief, all brought out of Clonmel gaol, and bribed for the purpose of witnessing against him. Sheehy's enemies, however, were not daunted by this failure. Bridge, who had given evidence for the crown, in some former trials against the Whiteboys, and who had recently disappeared, (having probably left the country for security,) was said to have been murdered in revenge by the associates of those against whom he had informed, and Sheehy was accused of his murder. Sheehy was accordingly sent to Clonmel, and was there tried, One |