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Restoring Tranquillity
Kevin Francis Morland Reed
其他書名
The Westmeath Outrages and Trials of Seery, Martin, Kiernan, O'Neil, Duffy, Egan, Delamour, Keenan and Cahill - Mullingar 1846
出版Reed, K & R, 2022-02-22
主題History / Europe / Great Britain / GeneralSocial Science / Criminology
ISBN099535975X9780995359758
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=vqNmzQEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋What were the 'Westmeath Outrages'? Agrarian outrages increased in Ireland in 1845 as oppressed, illiterate peasants came together in small local groups, labelled Ribbonmen or Terryalts etc., to resist and redress their situation. Coordination of their activity was restricted by fragile communication. They employed occasional violence but, more often, threats of violence - much to the alarm of the 'County Families'. County Westmeath landlords initiated a call to the Lord Lieutenant Governor, Sir William Holmes ? Court, to hold a Special Commission to try eleven alleged offenders. For a week in winter, a grand assembly of legal power transfixed Mullingar. Rather than rely on the regular assizes, this display would "restore tranquillity" - according to "the well disposed". In 1846, an infamous year that saw the population of Ireland decimated by starvation, the Crown outlaid £10,000 for what became the most notable court case in Mullingar's history - the 'Westmeath Special Commission'. Bryan Seery was hung and eight men were transported to Van Diemens Land on Lord Auckland; two men were acquitted. Doubt surrounds the guilty verdicts of some - especially Seery, and the three Duffy brothers from Co. Meath. Notable critics of the Commission's conduct included Bishop John Cantwell, Daniel O'Connell MP and the author, Charles Dickens. Over the following decades, resistance steadily increased. The author interviewed grandchildren, later descendants and relatives of three of the convicts who were exiled from Ireland - one of whom eventually returned to Ireland - and assembled relevant, official documents, detailed press reports and biographies of Judges and Grand Jurymen. He outlines the experiences of the exiled convicts, four of whom survived to found proud, pioneering families, grounded in the faith their forefathers had clung to throughout their difficult lives. Putting aside historic grievances, many of their grandsons loyally served the British Empire with the Australian Imperial Force during World War 1. One son served in the Boer War. Of the members of the Grand Jury, it was not uncommon to read that their families had eventually abandoned Ireland.