Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  Evidently, the sawn timber was put to various uses, and there are still extant structures and items of furniture that popular tradition associates with the Julia – including the rafters of the new chapel on Lettermullen, which was built in the late 1880s.72 Within a few years of the Julia episode, there was a permanent police presence on the island, a change no doubt expedited by all the commentary and correspondence about the deplorable lawlessness in the district in the aftermath of the shipwreck.73

  If the events of 1873 precipitated an era of more intensive policing in Ceantar na nOileán, and consequently greater familiarity with legal processes, they did little to commend the ‘rule of law’ to the communities concerned. The most recent law on salvage was intended to encourage co-operation between coastal communities, insurers and local representatives of the state, but those responsible for its application on Lettermullen failed to reach the necessary accommodation with the local communities. From that initial failure flowed developments which widened the gulf of misunderstanding between the area’s population and the authorities.

  The approach of the Receiver of Wreck, Denis Duvally, indicates that he was alert to the potential difficulties. He displayed flexibility in permitting local people to remove inconsequential or smaller items, good judgement in seeking the assistance of the local Catholic priest and common sense in his willingness to engage with people through the medium of Irish (however haltingly). Taking the trouble to explain the law on salvage, he secured at least some co-operation from a part of the population. If anyone in authority had the capacity to make the compromises necessary to arrange a salvage operation in accordance with the law, while giving something of what they wanted to all those interested, it was he.

  However, when challenged by his coastguard colleagues, Duvally made other compromises, which were unfortunately incompatible with the delicate arrangements he had made with the islanders. In reducing the status of local people working with him, from salvors to day labourers, he not only broke a bargain – a serious matter in itself – but he also removed any incentive they had to assist him in protecting what had been salvaged. Moreover, in favouring an associate of his own, Duvally diminished his own standing in the eyes of all parties. At that point individuals who were less sensitive to local circumstances, and less disposed to seek an accommodation with local people, took charge and the salvage operation became a protracted battle of wit and stamina.

  It was a battle that took place in terrible conditions – which were much worse for the coastguard and police than for those they described as ‘the wreckers’. Quite how bad the conditions were was conveyed by a veteran policeman based in Carraroe, who, five months after spending more than twenty days on Lettermullen, stated: ‘I nearly lost my life ... the snow being knee-deep ... I have not yet recovered from the effects of what I suffered.’74 Even if we can understand why men who were driven to the edge of despair – by an obligation to carry out an impossible task in almost unendurable conditions for an indefinite period of time – should have lost all sense of self-discipline, as they did on the night of 8 February, it is obvious they would have been neither understood nor forgiven by the neighbours and relatives of Thomas King and Patrick Folan. Local feelings found expression at the subsequent coroner’s inquest at Carna, and if the people of the area were not aware of the extent of the behind-the-scenes efforts to discredit those proceedings, they were very soon enlightened about what happened to those offering evidence that reflected poorly on the officials sent to protect the wreck.

  When the case came to trial, care was taken to ensure that the jury was composed of peers of the defendants rather than peers of those they were accused of killing, and proceedings were duly aborted at a very early stage. The demand for the subsequent public inquiry did not emanate from any of the communities of Conamara – indeed, the parish priest of Carraroe advised the Board of Trade that ‘to ensure their attendance here as witnesses, it would be necessary to serve them with summonses’.75 That demand came, rather, from Mitchell Henry, the constituency MP, and it was a far more circumscribed affair than he had been led to expect.

  Apart from Mitchell Henry, the people of Ceantar na nOileán won remarkably little sympathy or public support. From the evidence available, it is my impression that the town of Galway identified with the cause of the accused coastguards rather than that of the fishermen. Few people made any effort to understand the perspective of the hapless ‘wreckers’ – but, of the two public officials who did, Receiver of Wreck Duvally and Resident Magistrate Scully, it is hardly coincidental that both understood Irish. Otherwise, notwithstanding the efforts of the anonymous letter-writer to the Galway Vindicator, and the sympathetic articles in the Tuam Herald and The Nation, there was nothing like a public campaign on their behalf.

  It is conceivable, but by no means likely, that similar events a decade later would have caused greater public controversy. In 1882, an injustice against very near neighbours of the Lettermullen people caused an outcry throughout Ireland, in the wake of the ‘battle of Carraroe’, an episode of the Land War. However, the militants of the ‘battle of Carraroe’ – despite being in economic circumstances almost identical to those of the people of Ceantar na nOileán – were perceived very differently. Faced with eviction from their few craggy acres, they were defended as persecuted tenant farmers, and in that capacity could be embraced by the national movement of Parnell and Davitt. There was already a proto-Parnellite political movement in County Galway in 1873, fashioned in the Nolan-Trench by-election campaign of the previous year, but there is no evidence that either its agrarian or clerical constituencies showed much interest in addressing the injustice inflicted on Thomas King, Patrick Folan and their families.76

  The author acknowledges the assistance of Siúbhan Comer, Páraic Breathnach, Owen MacCarthaigh and Seosamh Ó Cuaig.

  8

  RIOTS IN LIMERICK, 1820–1900

  JOHN McGRATH

  A number of large-scale riots occurred in Limerick city between 1820 and 1900. The first series of riots, in 1820, was perpetrated by a pan-trade combination of workmen known generally as ‘the United Trades’ or sometimes ‘The United Trades of Limerick’ or occasionally, perhaps in error, the ‘Union of Trades’.1 The rioters, up to 300 men at a time, were targeting non-union workers and any master tradesmen who hired them. In 1828–31, there were a number of large inter-community disturbances apparently sparked by trivial slights and small conflicts between individuals from different communities, these being paralleled by a plethora of smaller conflicts between groups from different areas of the city, in one case resulting in a fatality. A major food riot in the city in 1830 was part of the general subsistence crisis throughout Munster, which caused acute distress among the working-class urban population of Limerick resulting in the sudden widespread eruption of mass attacks on provision stores, mills and any food in transit. Ten years later, in 1840, what began as a protest against forestallers degenerated, despite the initially dignified behaviour of the massive crowd that was demanding work rather than charity, into a massive riot that spread through much of the city.2 As in 1830, provisions stores were targeted.

  Political issues also played their part in rioting in Limerick. In the later 1840s underlying political divisions between Young and Old Ireland were widened when John Mitchel penned an article in the United Irishman which was sharply critical of Daniel O’Connell. A highly influential local priest, Fr Richard Baptist O’Brien, had Mitchel’s article regarding O’Connell distributed around the city before a planned meeting of the local Irish Confederation leadership. On the day of the meeting a small crowd met in the city to protest against the presence of the Young Irelanders, the crowd swelling by evening time to include what was described as the ‘lowest order’ of men and women in the city, most of them intoxicated. The crowd quickly turned riotous and set about burning an effigy of John Mitchel before attacking the meeting room of the Confederation and injuring William Smith O’Brien.

  A decad
e later, politics again underlay disturbances. Three parliamentary elections took place in Limerick city in just two years, all hotly contested, if not at the polls then on the streets. The 1859 election culminated in a massive, violent parade through the city that clashed with the constabulary, resulting in two fatalities and a number of injuries. Divisions in nationalist circles led to further rioting in 1869 and 1876 when two major street battles were fought between physical force republicans, led by Fenian John Daly, and constitutionalists. Twenty years later, internal divisions within nationalism in the city again led to rioting when the local working classes were divided along Parnellite and anti-Parnellite lines. Political divisions generally coincided with parochial boundaries, different local communities aligning themselves with opposing political factions, while individuals who differed politically from the community in which they lived were also targeted. These riots started soon after the Parnellite split, and tailed off as the split was beginning to heal.

  One final type of riot was that between locals and the military. In 1877 a massive and brutal street battle, preceded by about a month of low-key clashes between a military regiment and civilians in the city and its rural hinterland, erupted in a short space of time in the city centre. Many soldiers were viciously assaulted and the intervention of the constabulary was described as crucial in averting loss of life. Five years later, a trivial incident involving an altercation between military and civilians at the railway station escalated into a massive disturbance in which locals fought the police; extremely violent confrontations between the RIC and the mob caused the constabulary to fire into the crowd, killing several people.

  Though riots were often premeditated, they could just as easily be sparked off by nothing more than a trivial slight or altercation. Such was the case in 1828 when the men of the Abbey and King’s Island areas clashed, the trigger in this instance being an argument in a public house, which developed into three days of rioting in the area. A few nights later, in an incident which perhaps demonstrates the contagious effect of riots, the Garryowen and Irishtown districts clashed and the resultant mêlée proved too much for the constabulary, who required help from the military.3 Unlike these riots sparked unexpectedly by individual disagreements, many riots seem to have been preceded by a period when a tense atmosphere prevailed. In these cases the parties were primed for action, monitoring closely the actions of their counterparts. The preamble for violence in such cases was often a perceived encroachment by one party on the other’s area. In most cases this was a deliberate tactic to initiate the violence: in the context of the political riot the processional route was all-important and opposing factions would attempt to interrupt each other’s routes so as to precipitate a riot. Such was the case in 1858, 1892, 1894 and 1895 when processions over Matthew Bridge and Baal’s Bridge were attacked by rioters from St Mary’s parish. In all these cases both sides could claim to be the defenders, the marchers claiming to be following a traditional route when attacked, while the parishioners of St Mary’s could describe any unwanted marchers entering their parish as interlopers.

  In 1876 John Daly’s advanced nationalists chose to utilise the strategic location and symbolism of the Daniel O’Connell statue and met the massive Home Rule procession there, a clear example of a premeditated riot.4 In the case of the 1830 and 1840 food riots the stressed and agitated working classes were monitoring the actions of those they deemed ‘forestallers’ and when the initial attack occurred in 1830 it took place on another bridge, Thomond Bridge, as a provisions cart was entering St Mary’s parish.5 It is no coincidence that yet another bridge crossing was the trigger of yet another riot, with the bridge effectively serving as a community boundary. The fact that the initial attack on the bridge was followed by an immediate confluence of riotous crowds from the lanes and tenements gives further evidence that the bridge confrontation acted as a trigger to ignite the whole community, which needed little encouragement to revolt en masse.

  Given the fact that so many riots occurred during this period and often involved hundreds of combatants, the overall death toll of six was perhaps lower than could be expected. All bar one of the fatalities resulted from firearms used by the constabulary, which raises the question of how intense the disturbances were. The principal type of violence was stone-throwing, though a minority wielded bludgeons of one form or another. There were many cases, such as the 1876 riot, where many combatants belonging to one faction were completely overwhelmed and at the mercy of their opponents, and they could have easily been killed if the intent was there. This is not to deny, however, that there was serious violence during that riot, with one Fenian said to have sustained life-threatening injuries, and in other riots many people were described as having jaws broken and teeth knocked out, mainly as a result of stones thrown.6 In the case of the 1877 riots, the press was unanimous in declaring that the civilian combatants were seeking to kill soldiers, whose lives were saved only by the intervention of the constabulary.7

  The non-lethal level of violence suggests the possibility that many of the rioters were engaging in a somewhat brutal form of recreation. Many studies have looked at the phenomenon of the urban riot, but few have conceded that many of the combatants were partaking in rough recreation, though this is acknowledged in the case of rural faction fighters.8 The newspaper reports give some support to the idea of street violence as ‘fun’ in many of the riots in question. In the twentieth century, mass participation in physical-contact sports, such as Gaelic football, rugby and hurling, may have reduced the amount of street fighting by channelling this energy, most often evident in young men, away from the streets and onto the field of play.9 Nineteenth-century Limerick was largely devoid of organised sport. Even the Parnellite riots of the 1890s occurred during a particular lull in GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) activity and before the proliferation of junior rugby clubs that later sprang up in the city.10

  The recreational aspect of urban rioting has been detailed in the phenomenon of rake rowdyism, particularly in the case of the students of Trinity College Dublin, who often allied themselves with working-class gangs during riots.11 In Limerick there are occasional instances of rioters who were of a higher social status than the ‘normal’. Indeed the food riots, usually taken as an example of purely working-class activism, were joined by many young men of substance who evidently felt thrilled by the excitement of the occasion.12 The presence of a gang known as the ‘Garryowen Boys’ during the 1828–31 riots suggests the possibility of rake violence, as they were led by a number of merchants’ sons, with one Johnny O’Connell prominent.13 The Parnellite riots show the greatest evidence of recreational violence. The riotous atmosphere persisted for many weeks at a time and towards the end of each period of rioting the (at least superficially) politically motivated rioters were often joined by the more indiscriminate sort of rioter. In one case the combatants were described as simply being drunken youths fighting for the sake of it and in another case a group of well-heeled revellers in the Ennis Road area tore down the railings of villa residences before ‘engaging in pugilistic sport’ with the night watch.14

  It is difficult to establish a definite link between class identity or perceived interclass tension and the origin of any of the riots; the effect of these factors seems to be indirect in most cases. The food riots do give the impression of a massive unified reaction to a subsistence crisis that threatened the lower classes. These classes, defined by their economic vulnerability, appear to have been in communication with each other, particularly in the 1830 riot which began with an extremely sudden eruption of disorder – crowds were described as pouring forth from every lane of the Old Town as soon the first assault on provisions in transit was made. The spate of intercommunal violence that had blighted the 1828–31 period was forgotten in this instance and the city’s poor appear to have been united by class – or at least by the desire for food.15 This exceptionally swift mobilisation of citizens was repeated in 1877 when forty to ninety off-duty members of the 90t
h Regiment (estimates varied) attacked a group of civilians. Their ability to quickly spread news of the attack to other members of the same class resulted in a rapidly swelling force of locals that quickly overwhelmed the soldiers.16

  Further details of these incidents demonstrate that the lower orders were often engaged in internal debate on pressing matters, though the authorities were either unaware or dismissive of the agitated state of the populace. Before the food riot of June 1830, there had been a subsistence crisis, high unemployment (especially among the city’s weavers, who resorted to emigration) and an inordinately high number of arrests for food theft from March onwards.17 In 1877 news of an altercation between the soldiers of the 90th and the Catholic clergy of Cratloe parish (11 km/7 miles outside Limerick) a few days before the main riot of 8 April, accompanied by the rumour that the soldiers had stolen a chalice from the church, had primed the lower classes. Tension between the two groups had escalated on Saturday 7 April, resulting in a severe beating of two soldiers. By Sunday news of the soldiers’ actions in Cratloe and the assault on them had spread through much of the city’s populace so, when the soldiers counter-acted on Sunday, they encountered a large crowd that quickly overcame them. In this case some sort of perceived Catholic identity, rather than class identity, was the unifying agent. In any case, the riots in question serve to show how concerns of the lower classes were not highlighted in the press.18

  The presence of women was noted in many riots, though in most cases they were not the prime combatants. In the inter-communal riots of 1828 it was noted that ‘several females such as did not mingle directly in the fray ... supplied the combatants with stones’. The report went on to note that several women, ‘with their aprons full of stones’, were taken into custody.19 Seventy years later, women were also noted as forming a major part of the riotous crowds in several Parnellite riots.20 Women were most conspicuous in the great food riots of 1830 and, more particularly, 1840. By eleven o’clock on 1 June 1840 the crowd of protestors had swelled to several thousand, two-thirds of whom were women. When the crowd started to attack bakeries and flour mills, women appear to have taken an active part. In the assault on the Catherine Street Public Bakery, the attackers were reported to be mostly women. In this riot, which exhibited clear signs of orchestration, women also seem to have formed part of the leadership, a situation by no means confined to Limerick.21 Bohstedt qualified this phenomenon, however, by dispelling the myth that women were ‘leaders par excellence of food riots’. It is more likely that women took a greater part in food riots than in other disturbances, probably matching male participation on average, and this gives the impression that women were deeply involved.22