Ring & Helvick View

I took these photos just before the downpour from Clonea Strand..


A young man picking potatoes at Ballinclamper, Clonea bay in the background

Election & Murder in Dungarvan

The Square

I have been interested for sometime now about the murder’s that took place on Dungarvan Quay back in 1886. It was the time of elections, and as was the habit or practice back then Voters were usually escorted to the polling stations by the Military. This was an obvious sign of rigged voting. As I discover more information on the subject, I will add it to the Blog. I have added photos from the Edmond Keohan collection to add a little atmosphere to the piece, they were taken some fifty years or more after the event, but not too much had changed during that time.The Quay

It was Friday December 28th, 1866 during the election of a member to represent County Waterford in the British House of Commons. The Candidates in the election at that time were the liberal candidate De La Poer, and the Tory candidate was Captain Talbot. Great crowds had gathered in the square prior to the elections and fever was running high. There was around two and a half thousand voters and for various reasons they were being coerced to vote for Talbot. Trouble quickly broke out and clashes with the military were inevitable. A mounted charge was ordered and the 12th lancers who were at that time stationed in Dungarvan charged the crowd driving them towards the quay. Reports of the incident went as follows. ‘At around one PM on the day in question a party of the 12th lancers and the 67thinfintary was attacked with stones in the square. The Lancers responded by charging a number of people who ran down the Quay. One man, William O’Brien was struck on the head by the butt of a lance and as he fell his attackers and others rode over him and he was killed. Captain Bartholomew Kiely, Harbour master who then lived in the old house - pictured here, you can also see the archway -having heard the noise and commotion on the quay went to investigate and as he opened the gate of the archway leading into the yard he was impaled on a lance and subsequently died of his wounds. An Inquest was subsequently held and a jury found that William O’Brien had been killed by the Lancers in an unlawful charge while in the case of Captain Kiely a verdict of wilful murder by the Lancers was returned.The Square

Mr Lawson said, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether he has taken any steps to investigate the two cases of Homicide which occurred at Dungarvan, and which formed the subject of the Coroner's Inquests held there; and, whether his attention has been called to the observations of Mr. Justice O'Hagan to the Grand Jury of Waterford upon that subject?

Mr. Morris, the attorney General for Ireland said, in reply, that two inquests were held at Dungarvan upon the bodies of two persons who mot their deaths at the county of Waterford election. Those inquests were returned to the Crown Office and through that office to the Crown solicitor of that circuit. On the 5th of February the depositions and the finding of the jury were laid before him, and on the 16th of February he gave instructions to the Crown Solicitor to the following purport:— Without coming to any conclusion as to the legal character of the homicides, I think every inquiry should be directed to ascertain by whom the homicides, or either of them, were caused, and of identifying the individuals. The Crown Solicitor should communicate with the county inspector of constabulary to ascertain if any faith worthy person can depose as to identity; he should also apply to the military authorities for the names of the soldiers engaged at Dungarvan, and if any faith worthy person comes forward, or can be found, who can identify the individual soldier or soldiers alleged to have caused the death of O'Brien or Keily, a communication should be made to the colonel of the regiment to have the soldiers who were at Dungarvan paraded for the purpose of identification. He had received various communications from the Crown Solicitor subsequent to those instructions, and he felt satisfied that the Crown Solicitor had used every possible exertion to identify the individuals in question. With regard to the second branch of the question, Mr. Justice O'Hagan was reported in The Freeman's Journal newspaper to have said, in charging the grand jury on the 5th of March— There were two cases of homicide arising out of the late election, in one of which the jury had found a verdict of 'manslaughter,' and in the other a verdict of 'willful murder.' Bills could not be sent up to them at the present assizes in either of those cases, the occurrence of which he deeply deplored, and trusted that the cause of them would be made the subject of searching investigation. He thought it right to say that he attributed very little importance to the finding of the jury in one of these cases, in which they found a verdict of willful murder. Although the counsel for the next of kin to the deceased closed an excited and exciting speech by demanding the highest verdict of the law, which was manslaughter, the jury, with a feeling of liberality which the learned Gentleman could not have imagined, actually found a verdict of willful murder. The R.I.C, target practice on the Cunnigar

Helvick & the Fenians

On the 12th of April, 1867, a party of Irish- American Fenians left New
York for Ireland to assist the insurrection. They sailed in the Jacknell,
which was laden with arms. The principal leaders were Warren and
Costello, who had served as officers on the Federal side in the American
Civil War. On Easter Sunday, the 29th of April, they renamed their vessel
the Erin's Hope. They reached Sligo Bay on the 20th of May, and soon were
informed of the failure of the insurrection, but were advised by their friends to
try to land the arms on the southern coast. After evading for a long time the
Government gunboats, the officers of which had heard of their arrival,
they were at length obliged to land in the middle of June at Helvick Head,
near Dungarvan, owing to want of food and water. A coastguard lookout
observed their landing, and they were arrested. The Government authori-
ties did not for a long time know with certainty what their object was, but
when they had been some weeks in Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, one of their
number named Buckley revealed all to the authorities, and they were tried
at the Dublin November Commission, 1867, along with some other prisoners
who had been engaged in the attempt in March. An important legal point
was raised on these trials. An American citizen, Nagle, was released.
Colonel John Warren, although a native of Cork, was a naturalized American
citizen. Captain Augustine Costello was in the same position. As citizens
of another country they demanded a mixed jury of British and American
citizens ; but this was refused to them, as the British law then maintained
that no British subject can divest himself of his allegiance. Although the
American Government refused to assist the prisoners, it was obliged to
maintain their contention, for the citizens of the United States are very
largely composed of former subjects of Great Britain and other European
countries. Ultimately Great Britain had to alter the law in this matter by
an Act passed in 1870, which provides that a subject may divest himself of
his allegiance. This "Warren and Costello Act" was passed owing to the
contention of these prisoners at their trial three years earlier. But the con-
tention did them little good at the time, for Colonel Warren and Captain
Costello were both convicted of treason felony and sentenced, the former to
fifteen and the latter to twelve years' penal servitude. At the same Com-
mission Halpin, who had been leader in the attempt at Tallaght, near
Dublin, was also sentenced for fifteen years. Corydon, when cross-examined
by Halpin, admitted that he expected a reward of two thousand pounds for
his treachery. But in these cases also the prisoners were released in a few
years owing to the exertions of the Amnesty Association. It was evidently
only just that some distinction should be drawn between the cases of men
of good character, whose only offence was that they had done the best, as
they believed, for their country, and that of men of bad character, whose
crimes admitted no such excuse.

Famine!

Cork Examiner, 1 January 1847.

Dungarvan Dec. 27: The resolve of the ladies to establish these depots [soup kitchens] is a noble one and their exertions to carry it out in the most useful and effective manner are decidedly unprecedented.

Woman, true to the instincts of her own beautiful—almost spiritual—nature, saw that there was one great necessity, which male relief committees, or the desultory employment afforded by public works, could not possibly remedy, and she immediately proceeds to supply it. She, by that more refined and subtle perception, that heart-touching sensibility so peculiarly her own, felt, and truly felt, that there was many a hapless creature who, in this awful passage in our calamitous history, was forced, at whether through the pride which belonged to better days, or by reason of decrepitude or old age, to shrink away, forgotten by the world, into squalid and miserable domiciles, located in dark and filthy lanes, there to die, with hunger, and not one friendly hand to extend relief. … many a poor widow and helpless female, with no person to earn a shilling for her sustenation—with the poor house here fill and she feeling this, put into execution, in these districts, a plan so comprehensive, that it will embrace, all the above cases of destitution within the sphere of its operation.

And what can be so delightful as to find these gentle beings leaving their drawing rooms, their perfumed chambers, their refined and elegant amusements, their lulling music, etc., to enter the house of poverty and wretchedness and rags and multiform misery, where every sight is almost loathsome; every scent pestiferous; every sound the moans of the creature stretched in a bedless dormitory, reduced to a skeleton by emaciating poverty and starvation; and bringing with them the nourishment afforded by these depots? To find them exploring these haunts of misery and hunger for the purpose of alleviating them is, indeed, a scene for angels to smile on— one performed by little less than themselves. There is in it a thousand times more of the heroine than in deeds which may sound far higher, but which could not affiliate with the wretched poor.

These benevolent ladies have thrown aside every distinction, which in ordinary times the conventionalities of society may, perhaps, act out from them. They feel fully the pressure of the times, the necessity for action, and since the formation of their plan, no exertion has been spared by them in carrying it out. Their only emulation is who can do the most good . …

Sunrise

Took these pictures on my way to work at 5.15 am during the week.I thought that I might capture the red sun sitting on the sea between Abbeyside and Ring. This can be quite spectacular,unfortunately,this did not happen but I snapped a few anyway.
As usual, don't forget to click on the image to fill your screen