The tithe war began in November 1830 when a parish priest, Fr Martin Doyle, refused to pay tithes on a second farm of 40 acres that he had rented in Graiguenamanagh, on the Kilkenny–Carlow border. The union [group of parishes] had been compounded for £1,000, a figure set by the Anglican Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, who considered the original agreed amount of £720 to be too low.26 Long-established custom dictated that priests did not pay tithe on holdings surrounding their parochial houses, and Doyle believed this courtesy should extend to his second farm. Therefore he refused to pay tithe composition to the heartily disliked Anglican curate, Rev. Luke McDonald, who was running the union since the rector, Rev. Alcock, was old and in poor health.27 Doyle organised a number of parish meetings in Graig courthouse in October and November 1830 to discuss ‘measures to prevent the further payment of tithe rent in the parish’.28 As a result, the parishioners demanded a reduction in the tithe composition and sent petitions outlining their demands to the Anglican Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns29 and to Rev. Alcock.30
When further meetings in Graig were prohibited, Fr Doyle held meetings under the guise of hurling matches. He advised his parishioners to avoid open, possibly violent confrontation with the authorities on the issue, advocating tithe evasion instead.31 A common parish fund, based on a levy of a penny per acre, was set up to relieve financial suffering incurred by tithe distraint and legal costs.32
In December and January assemblies of tenant farmers and labourers met, again under the guise of hurling matches, at various places in County Kilkenny, including Ballyhale (27 December), Gowran (28 December), Inistioge (31 December and 7 January), Bennettsbridge (30 December and 3 January), Dysart Bridge, near Castlecomer (1 January), and Graig itself (2 and 7 January). The practice of cutting down ash plants from some landlords’ plantations to make hurleys, despite the penalty of transportation, caused these assemblies to be nicknamed ‘the hurlers’. They sent deputations to a number of rectors to demand a reduction in their tithes, and notices were posted throughout the county threatening violence on those who continued to pay tithe. Similar meetings took place in the neighbouring counties at Old Leighlin, County Carlow (26 December), Ballywilliam, near New Ross, County Wexford (26 December) and in Queen’s County.33 Over 2,000 people attended the Old Leighlin meeting, where an orange-and-green flag was unfurled.34
On 27 December 1830 the hurlers visited Rev. Hans Hamilton of Knocktopher union. On seeing the mob gathered on his front lawn outside the vicarage, Hamilton’s initial reaction was to believe that his end had come. He refused to talk to their spokesman, a Carmelite friar from Knocktopher village, but he agreed to meet a deputation on 3 January 1831. When he received the twelve ‘very respectable farmers’ in the hall of his vicarage, also present were the inspector-general of police for Leinster, Sir John Harvey, Major Browne and other magistrates. While acknowledging that Hamilton had been one of the better resident gentry during his thirty-five years in the union, the deputation still demanded a reduction – even as little as 5 per cent of the £1,750 tithe composition would satisfy them – but Hamilton refused on the grounds that the tithe amount was as low as he could make it. He suggested a 10 per cent reduction if he were spared the expense of collection. The deputation, knowing Hamilton would gain by this, since his agent received a 12 per cent fee, rejected his offer. They also rejected his comment that they would soon be objecting to rent, answering that they got value for their rent but none for tithe.35
On the same day, another meeting of 3,000 hurlers took place at Bennettsbridge, Burnchurch union, County Kilkenny. While the people waited behind in the village, Patrick Blanchfield of Clara and his neighbour Anthony Byrne led a deputation of six farmers to the local rectory to ask Rev. Dr Butler to reduce his £2,000 tithes.36 After forty-five minutes, half of the crowd went to the rectory.37 Fearing for his life, the rector addressed the mob from an upstairs window alongside his two sons, William and John, as the mob made threatening remarks in Irish.38 Butler’s declaration that the law prevented him from reducing his tithe composition was received with derision. Blanchfield then proposed that the mob pass a resolution not to pay tithes to any rector unless compelled by law, which was received with great cheering before the people departed en masse.39
On 6 January 1831, another deputation went to Rev. Stephenson of Callan. On 18 January the hurlers visited three more rectors, Rev. Kearney of Kilkenny city, Rev. Park of Inistioge and Rev. Darley of Kells. All refused to lower tithes, pointing out that the Composition Acts only allowed revisions every seven years. As frustration grew, notices were posted up across the county advising a general refusal to pay tithes.40 As the hurlers’ meetings breached the peace under the 1787 Riot Act, the chief secretary, Lord Edward Stanley, circularised the local magistrates to suppress the meetings early in January 1831.41 This was followed by Daniel O’Connell’s open letter of 3 January 1831 to the Kilkenny hurlers in The Kilkenny Journal and the Freeman’s Journal, advising them to refrain from holding meetings that breached the law.42 As the hurlers’ movement faded away, Bishop Doyle of Leighlin warned the newly appointed lord lieutenant, the Marquis of Anglesey, that ‘the strength of feeling in the country’ on the tithe issue would not be easily extinguished.43
Within weeks, tithe agitation mutated into passive resistance, which did not breach the law but effectively disabled the tithe system. Such tactics were pioneered in Graig union to prevent the tithe bailiffs distraining their cattle for their tithe arrears between March and May 1831.44 Another variation on passive resistance against tithes was initiated by O’Connellite supporter Patrick Lalor (1781–1856) of Tenakill, Queen’s County.45 Though he allowed his twenty-five sheep to be distrained for tithe arrears, he ensured that there were no bidders at the subsequent Mountrath tithe sale on 10 March 1831, except for the rector’s agent, Mr Brough.46 These tactics borrowed heavily from the example of the Quakers, who did not pay tithe or any ecclesiastical dues as a matter of conscience,47 allowing their property to be distrained without offering resistance.48 As passive resistance spread like wildfire through Munster and south Leinster in 1831–2, tithe collection became ‘utterly impossible’.49 Although local O’Connellites and the Catholic clergy succeeded in channelling much tithe anger into political agitation, there was continuing violence and intimidation against all those involved in the tithe system, culminating in a number of fatal confrontations between the peasantry and the military and police escorting tithe agents.
Although isolated tithe riots had occurred in County Antrim with the loss of four or five lives in 1819 and at Skibbereen, County Cork with the loss of thirteen lives in July 1823, such affrays were more numerous during the 1830s tithe war.50 This was due to the common practice of assigning a police or military party to escort tithe agents on tithe duties from 1831 onwards.51 Although the police were forbidden under the 1827 Petty Sessions Act to assist in serving tithe processes or distraining property for tithe arrears except in cases of forcible resistance, the public considered them to be ‘virtually collectors’.52 Moreover, the succession of tithe affrays in that decade destroyed any goodwill between police and people, reinforcing popular determination to resist tithe payment and increased political pressure to find a solution.53
The first tithe riot was at Newtownbarry (now Bunclody), County Wexford on 18 June 1831. It was notable for being the first and only time when the yeomanry (a predominantly Protestant force) were used to quell tithe agitation. Three heifers, distrained for tithes due to Rev. McClintock of Newtownbarry, strayed from the main market area before the tithe sale.54 Although they were rounded up and placed in the pound by the police, as the cattle were being brought back to the market place, a menacing mob began stoning the police and the yeomanry.55 The yeomanry retaliated by shooting dead fourteen people, including a pregnant woman named Mary Mahony, and wounding between twenty-five and forty others. One yeoman, William Rogan from Kilbride, was shot dead by the mob.56 The subsequent inquest failed to arrive at any verdict owing to ‘the bitterness of
party spirit’ between Catholics and Protestants.57 However, the incident put an end to use of the yeomanry to quell tithe agitation and led to their eventual demise as a force.
The Leugh tithe affray, near Thurles, County Tipperary, set the pattern for later tithe affrays. The process-server Billy Fleming and his twenty-nine-strong police escort were surrounded by a mob in Leugh townland on 5 October 1831.58 The crowd began stoning the police, demanding that Fleming be handed over to them so they could destroy the tithe decrees. The police opened fire and shot one local girl, Catherine Maher, dead and wounded two or three more. The process-server was also wounded in the affray. Although attempts were made to charge the police with wilful murder at Catherine Maher’s inquest, the police were absolved from all blame because they were deemed to have fired in self-defence, since two shots had previously been fired from within the mob.59 Similar tithe riots occurred at Athbo, County Tyrone on 7 August 1832,60 Carrigeen in the south of County Kilkenny on 8 October 1832,61 Dunmaine parish, near Carrickmacross, County Cavan in early December 1832,62 Knucknaglass, Desert parish, County Cork on 12 March 183363 and Keady, County Armagh, on 1 December 1834.64 In each case, large mobs of people vainly attempted to prevent tithe evaluation or the serving of tithe processes or distraining for tithe arrears. In every case the accompanying magistrate attempted to coax the mob to disperse. Failing that measure, he then read the Riot Act to disperse them while ordering the armed escort to prime their guns. Sometimes warning shots were fired over the heads of the crowd in a last effort to disperse them before the guns were turned on them. Invariably, the subsequent inquests justified the police or military action on the grounds of self-defence.
The Doneraile area of County Cork had the most tithe affrays during the tithe war. On 5 September 1832, four local men and fifteen others were wounded in a tithe riot in Wallstown parish during an attempted tithe valuation.65 The tithe affray at Knucknaglass, Desert parish, County Cork on 12 March 1833 ended in a man named Quinlan being shot dead, and fifteen to twenty people injured, four or five of them very seriously. Four others were arrested.66 Two country people were killed and five or six were wounded at another tithe riot near Dunmanway as a tithe party attempted to distrain for arrears due to Rev. Kennyin in late November 1832.67 The Thernagree affray, six miles from Kanturk, on the night of 6 January 1833, resulted in the deaths of three local men, Saville, Meade and Leary.68 On 30 April 1834, three men were shot dead and several injured at Feohanagh, Monegea parish, Newcastlewest, County Limerick, where a crowd of men and women had stoned the police and their military escort in a vain attempt to rescue their cattle and other property distrained for arrears due to Rev. Locke of Newcastle.69 Chief police magistrate Thomas Vokes was also struck several times with stones.70 After this affray, the Freeman’s Journal commented ‘there is only one way of tranquillising the country in this respect, and that way is by an honest and utter abolition of tithes – no half-measures will do’.71
There were two exceptions to this general pattern – of more country people than police or soldiers dying in tithe affrays – and both were popularly seen as significant victories in the tithe war.72 The first was the infamous ‘battle of Carrickshock’, near Knocktopher, County Kilkenny on 14 December 1831.73 Chief Constable Gibbons and thirty-eight mounted policemen had accompanied the agent, Butler, as he served tithe processes for arrears due to Rev. Hamilton of Knocktopher. Tithe resistance had continued in the union despite the failed attempt by the Kilkenny hurlers to compel Hamilton to reduce his tithes nearly a year earlier. After Butler had pushed a latitat (writ) under the door of the house of Dick Walsh (known as Dick Waterford), Gibbons and his men found the road blocked by a mob of 1,000 to 2,000, armed with sticks, mallets, scythes and billhooks, shouting ‘the process-server or blood’.74 Although told to give up Butler to ensure his own safety, Gibbons’ refusal meant that he and his men paid with their lives.75 The affray lasted forty minutes and left sixteen men dead: twelve policemen, the process-server and three local men, Treacy, Power and Phelan. The Hamiltons left that night for Kilkenny city and travelled on to London, never returning to Knocktopher. The rector died eight years later in England.76 The Freeman’s Journal commented that Carrickshock added ‘to the many melancholy proofs already afforded of the incompatibility of the tithe system in Ireland with order and good government’.77 A comparable incident occurred at Bealnavallen, near Doolin, County Clare on 4 April 1831, when five policemen were killed by the Terry Alts,78 who were attempting to rescue one of their men named McInerney.79
The impact of Carrickshock was considerable. Whereas twelve constables had been killed in the four years between 1826 and 1830, the same number had been killed at Carrickshock in one day. The ‘victory’ was celebrated in many ballads in both Irish and English, especially as the government failed to get any convictions for the killing of the policemen, despite holding four trials in Kilkenny city in 1832. Ultra-Protestants blamed the acquittals on intimidation of the jury.80 The following year Kilkenny was the first county proclaimed under the Coercion Act, which effectively imposed martial law.81 Not surprisingly, many felt that Carrickshock was a big factor in the county being proclaimed.82
The Dublin Castle executive changed its policy on tithe collection after the huge public outcry that followed the Rathcormac and Keady tithe affrays in December 1834. Rev. J. S. Blacker of Keady, County Armagh, was granted a police force of twenty-nine men to protect his tithe drivers distraining for £25 tithe arrears on 1 December 1834. He accompanied the distraining party in his role as magistrate.83 Only four townlands in the parish owed two years’ tithe arrears to Blacker; in the other townlands the local landlords had undertaken to pay tithes under the 1832 Tithe Composition Act.84 About sixty people gathered with pitchforks, bludgeons and a gun as one cow was seized and four or five processes delivered. As the police attempted to seize the gun and arrest its owner, a shower of stones fell on them and two police were knocked to the ground. Almost immediately, their colleagues opened fire despite the absence of any order to do so, and it was later noted that Blacker made no attempt to stop the police firing.85 Ultimately, three peasants were shot dead and five police badly wounded.86 Chief Constable Hill told the subsequent investigation at Armagh that another group of 300 to 500 persons had been converging on the nearby hills to join the mob.87
The infamous Rathcormac tithe affray in County Cork on 18 December 1834 resulted in twelve deaths of the peasantry and forty-five wounded. Major Walter Tithe, with two companies of the 29th Regiment and a dozen 4th Royal Irish Dragoons had met up with the distraining party at Bartlemy Cross, outside Rathcormac.88 With them were three local magistrates, Captain Bagley, Archdeacon Ryder and Captain Collis. The latter two gentlemen were owed tithe arrears that had become due on 1 November.89 A crowd of 200 to 250 people armed with sticks, stones and spades attacked the distraining party with a hail of stones at Bartlemy Cross, before retreating up a bótharín to the Widow Ryan’s haggard, which had been barricaded with rocks, logs and carts.90 The distraining party and military escort followed them.
Archdeacon Ryder stopped on the way to the Widow Ryan’s house to make her neighbour, William McAuliffe, swear on the Bible that he would pay his tithe arrears of £4. Meanwhile, the mob prevented the soldiers entering the haggard for forty-five minutes as they ‘fought eagerly with spades, sticks and stones’. Repeated calls were made to the Widow Ryan ‘to pay the demand and put an end to the strife’ and they were followed by readings of the Riot Act.91 Despite repeated attempts, the soldiers failed to charge through the barricade as the mob drove them back. Some soldiers were severely wounded by the swinging sticks and the stone missiles, and some had their bayonets bent.92 Seeing that the soldiers could not break through and the people refused to disperse, Major Walter gave the fatal order to fire. Nine men were killed instantly and forty-five others were wounded, three of whom died later. After the firing had stopped, the Widow Ryan came out of her house and paid her tithe, and all resistance ceased.93
The events at Rathcormac sparked much interest in Britain and a sermon on the affray by a Unitarian minister, Mr Harris of Glasgow, was printed eleven times in five months.94 Daniel O’Connell lamented the loss of life at Rathcormac, ‘committed in the name, and for the support, of religion’.95 O’Connell also held that the deaths at Rathcormac ‘did in point of Law amount to murder’ as the distraining party were ‘guilty of a double trespass’: firstly, they had forced open the gate on the private bótharín leading to the Widow Ryan’s house, which meant that she, with her servants and assistants, was within her legal rights to resist the trespassers, and secondly, her haggard conformed to the description of an enclosure that under the law could not be forced open for the purpose of distraining.96 As O’Connell’s legal opinion was published two days before the inquest verdict, it was not surprising that it charged Ryder, Bagley and Collis with wilful murder for their part in the affray.97 The Rathcormac inquest did indeed find against the three magistrates, but all legal proceedings against them were dropped in May 1835.98
The ministers in Peel’s minority Tory government were just as appalled as the previous Whig government had been by the presence of Anglican clergy at the above tithe riots. The new Irish secretary, Sir Henry Hardinge, regretted ‘the extreme impropriety of any magistrate, and more particularly a clergyman’ distraining for his own tithe arrears, though he noted the Rev. Blacker’s plea that he had been forced to attend the distraining party at Keady because two other magistrates had declined to come. Hardinge wrote to Henry Goulburn, the home secretary, about the Keady affray:
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