Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  25. Events at the Franciscan Chapel in Dublin, 4 January 1629[/30], Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 330; Anonymous letter, 4 January 1629[/30], Historical Manuscripts Commission, Franciscan MSS, p. 17.

  26. Archbold, ‘Evangelic Fruict’; BL, Harleian MS 3888, p. 213.

  27. Events at the Franciscan Chapel in Dublin, 4 January 1629[/30], Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 330; Anonymous letter, 4 January 1629[/30], HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 17.

  28. Archbold, ‘Evangelic Fruict’; BL, Harleian MS 3888, p. 213.

  29. Dutton to Dorchester, 30 December 1629, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp. 500–1.

  30. Wilmot to Dorchester, 6 January 1630, ibid., p. 504.

  31. Anonymous letter, 4 January 1629[/30], HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 17. Alderman Mapas was put under house arrest on account of his illness.

  32. Cork to Dorchester, 9 January 1630, HMC, Cowper MSS, i, p. 399.

  33. Wilmot to [Dorchester], 17 December 1629, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 498; Cork to Dorchester, 22 December 1629, ibid., p. 499; Wilmot to Dorchester, 23 December 1629, ibid., p. 500.

  34. B. Fitzpatrick, Seventeenth-century Ireland: the war of religions (Dublin, 1988), pp. 39–41.

  35. Anonymous letter, 4 January 1629[/30], HMC, Franciscan MSS, pp. 17–18.

  36. It is worth comparing Cork's recommendations for suppressing friaries and convents in his letter to Dorchester with Charles’ orders to clamp down on the houses in the city confines. See Cork to Dorchester, 9 January 1630, HMC, Cowper MSS, i, p. 399; Minute of the king to Lord Justices and Council of Ireland, 25 January 1630, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 508.

  37. T. Ranger, ‘The career of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, in Ireland, 1588–1643’, DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1959, chapter 8.

  38. Catholics were particularly fearful of Cork as deputy: ‘the inauguration of Lord Boyle as viceroy, who being hitherto associated with another only as justiciary, will now no longer have the check of rival authority, but may freely execute his plans against the Church and Catholic faith’, Francis Matthews OFM to Wadding, 20 December 1630, Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 455.

  39. Cork to Dorchester, 9 January 1630, HMC, Cowper MSS, i, p. 399; Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fol. 197; Archbold, ‘Evangelic Fruict’, BL, Harleian MS 3888, p. 211.

  40. Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fol. 198.

  41. English privy council to the lords justices and council of Ireland, 31 January 1630; J. Rushworth, Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, Weighty Matters in Law, Remarkable Proceedings in Five Parliaments: Beginning the Sixteenth Year of King James, anno 1618, and ending … [with the death of King Charles the First, 1648], 6 vols, printed by J.A. for Robert Boulter (London, 1680), ii, p. 33.

  42. Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fol. 199; [The Earl of Cork to Lord Dorchester], 2 March 1630, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 521; Archbold, ‘Evangelic Fruict’, BL, Harleian MS 3888, p. 211.

  43. Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fo. 203; Provost Ussher of Trinity College, Dublin, to the Bishop of London [William Laud], 27 July 1630, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 560; see also R. Loeber and M. Stouthamer-Loeber, ‘Kildare Hall, the countess of Kildare's patronage of the Jesuits, and the liturgical setting of Catholic worship in early seventeenth-century Dublin’, in E. Fitzpatrick and R. Gillespie (eds), The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, FCP (Dublin, 2006), pp. 242–65.

  44. W. Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland, 1634–5, ed. Edward Hawkins (Chetham Society, vol. i, 1844), pp. 141–2.

  45. St Leger [to the lords justices], 15 January 1630, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 510.

  46. Roche to Wadding, 7 February 1629[/30], Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 337; see also Roche to Francesco Ingoli, 9 February 1630, in B. Millett OFM (ed.), ‘Catalogue of Irish material in vols 132–139 of the Scritture originali riferite nelle congregazioni generali in Propaganda Archives’, Collectanae Hibernica, xii (1969), pp. 14–15.

  47. William Farrily to Hugh de Burgo OFM, 15 February 1629[/30]; Millet (ed.), ‘Catalogue of Irish material in vols 132–139 of the Scritture originali’, p. 341; equally grim reports from Cork were still being made nearly two months later by Eugene Field: ‘the persecution begun in Dublin on St Stephen's Day grows in extent and degree’; Owen [Eugene] Field to [anonymous recipient], 10 April 1630, HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 22.

  48. Valentine Browne to Wadding, 28 April 1630, Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 360.

  49. Rev. Joseph Mead to Sir Martin Stuteville, 20 March 1629[/30], in T. Birch (ed.), The Court and Times of Charles the First, 2 vols, London: Henry Colburn, 1848, ii, p. 69; a week later Mead claimed: ‘five hundred priests and friars were said to be fled out of Ireland for Spain, and more following them’. Ibid., ii, p. 69.

  50. Thomas Strange OFM, to Wadding, 3 August 1630, HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 29; Francis Matthews to Wadding, 4 September 1630, Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 408.

  51. Strange to Wadding, 10 May 1630, HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 23; see also similar concerns expressed by Thomas Messingham, rector of the Irish college in Paris, Messingham to Wadding, 15 July 1630, ibid., p. 28

  52. See, for example, Dutton to King Charles, 4 April 1630, Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 528.

  53. J. R. Turner (alias Bishop Roche) to Wadding, 26 May 1630, HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 25.

  54. Ibid.

  55. Francis Matthews claimed in September 1630 ‘the confiscation of religious houses proceeds apace throughout Ireland’, but Matthews lived in the Irish College at Louvain (Leuven) and his reports were usually outdated by the time he sent them on to Luke Wadding in Rome. Matthews to Wadding, 4 September 1630, Wadding Papers, 1614–38, ed. Jennings, p. 408; Matthews to Wadding, 28 September 1630, HMC, Franciscan MSS, p. 30; except for threats, I have found no evidence that friaries or chapels were still being confiscated.

  56. Father Barnabas [Barnewall], superior of the Irish Capuchins, to [Francis Nugent, OFM Cap?], 3 April 1631, Millett (ed.), ‘Catalogue of Irish material in fourteen volumes of the Scritture originali’, p. 37.

  57. M. Empey, ‘Paving the way to prerogative: the politics of Sir Thomas Wentworth, c. 1614–1635’, PhD thesis, University College Dublin, 2009, chapter 7; J. McCafferty, The Reconstruction of the Church of Ireland (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 170–4.

  58. B. Mansfield ODC, ‘Fr Paul Browne, ODC, 1598–1671’, Dublin Historical Record, xxxvii (1984), pp. 54–8.

  59. Browne provided an account of the riot in his Brevis Relatio which he completed in 1670; see M. Glynn ODC and F. X. Martin OSA (eds), ‘The “Brevis Relatio” of the Irish Discalced Carmelites, 1625–1670 by Father Paul Browne, ODC’, in Archivium Hibernicum, xxv (1962), pp. 149–50.

  60. Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fos. 200, 203, 206.

  61. Wentworth to Archbishop Laud of Canterbury, 28 August 1633, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments (WWM), Sheffield City Library, Strafford MS, vol. 8, fo. 13; though Wentworth's appointment was announced in January 1632, it took him another eighteen months to arrive in Ireland. I wish to acknowledge the trustees of the Fitzwilliam Settled Estates and the head of Leisure Services for permission to quote from the Strafford papers in their custody.

  62. Wentworth even thought the offence was punishable by hanging, Wentworth to Coke, 2 March 1634[/5], WWM, Sheffield City Library, Strafford MS, vol. 5, fo. 190; Sir James Ware's diary of events and occurrences, 1623–47, Dublin City Library, Gilbert MS 169, fo. 214; Glynn and Martin (eds), ‘The “Brevis Relatio” of the Irish Discalced Carmelites, 1625–1670 by Father Paul Browne, ODC’, p. 138.

  63. Sir Thomas Wentworth to Secretary John Coke, 2 M
arch 1634[/5], WWM, Sheffield City Library, Strafford MS, vol. 5, fo. 190.

  64. J. T. Gilbert, A History of the City of Dublin (Dublin, 1861), p. 304.

  65. Ibid., p. 254.

  Chapter 4

  1. Book of Numbers, 18, verses 23–4.

  2. J. S. Fry, A Concise History of Tithes, with an inquiry how far a forced maintenance for the ministers of religion is warranted by the example and precepts of Jesus Christ and His apostles (London, 1820), p. 13.

  3. D. Ó Corráin, L. Breatnach and A. Breen, ‘The laws of the Irish’, Perditia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, vol. 3, 1984, p. 409.

  4. C. Twinch, Tithe War, 1918–1939: the countryside in revolt (Norfolk, 2001), p. 263.

  5. M. Bric, ‘The tithe system in the eighteenth century’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 86, 1986, p. 272.

  6. Select Committee on Tithes in Ireland [hereafter: Tithe Inquiry], HC 1831–2 (663), vol. XXII, 181, 1835 (179), p. 110.

  7. Ibid., p. 117.

  8. A. J. Coughlan, ‘The Whiteboy origins’, Mallow Field Club Journal, 17, 1999, pp. 65–6.

  9. M. Beames, Peasants and Power: the Whiteboy movement and their control in pre-Famine Ireland (New York, 1983), p. 52.

  10. S. Katsuta, ‘The Rockite movement in County Cork in the early 1820s’, Irish Historical Studies, XXXIII, no. 131, 2003, p. 286.

  11. P. O'Donoghue, ‘Causes of the opposition to tithes, 1830–1838’, Studia Hibernica, no. 5, 1965, p. 9.

  12. State of Ireland. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the disturbances in Ireland; HC 1825 (20), vol. VII, 1 [hereafter: Disturbances in Ireland], p. 58.

  13. G. Curtin, ‘Religion and social conflict during the Protestant crusade in West Limerick, 1822–1849’, Old Limerick Journal, 2003, pp. 48–9.

  14. Katsuta, ‘The Rockite movement in County Cork’, pp. 283–5.

  15. Freeman's Journal, 7 July 1823.

  16. Disturbances in Ireland, pp. 375–77, 396.

  17. Katsuta, ‘The Rockite movement in County Cork’, p. 278.

  18. An Act to provide for the establishing of Compositions for Tithes in Ireland for a limited time, 19 July 1823, 4 Geo. IV, c. 99, p. 843.

  19. A. McIntyre, The Liberator: Daniel O'Connell and the Irish Party, 1830–1847 (London, 1965), p. 170.

  20. An Act to amend an Act of the last Session of Parliament, for the providing for the establishing of Compositions for Tithes in Ireland, 17 June 1824, 5 Geo. IV, c. 63, pp. 290–7.

  21. An Act to amend the Acts for the establishing of Compositions for Tithes in Ireland, 2 July 1827, 7 & 8 Geo. I, c. 60, p. 325.

  22. Tithe Inquiry (508), vol. XXXI, 245, p. 484.

  23. Tithe Inquiry (177), vol. XXI, 1, p. 9.

  24. Tithe Inquiry (663), vol. XXII, p. 79.

  25. Tithe Inquiry (177) vol. XXI, 1, p. 154.

  26. M. O'Hanrahan, ‘The tithe war in County Kilkenny 1830–34’, in W. Nolan (ed.), Kilkenny: history and society (Dublin, 1990), p. 485.

  27. M. O'Brien, ‘The Lalors of Tenakill, 1767–1893’, unpublished MA dissertation, NUI Maynooth, 1987, pp. 5–6.

  28. NAI, CSO, OP 1830, Affidavit of A. Williams of Barnavidawn sworn before Rev. L. McDonnell, 11 November 1830.

  29. Kilkenny Journal, 17 November 1830.

  30. O'Hanrahan, ‘The tithe war in County Kilkenny’, p. 487.

  31. Tithe Inquiry (663), vol. XXII, 181, pp. 73, 96.

  32. P. O'Donoghue, ‘Opposition to tithe payment in 1830–31’, Studia Hibernica, no. 6, 1966, p. 69.

  33. O'Hanrahan, ‘The tithe war in County Kilkenny’, pp. 489–90.

  34. Tithe Inquiry (177), vol. XXI, 1, p. 184.

  35. Tithe Inquiry (271), vol. XXII, 1, pp. 82–4.

  36. O'Hanrahan, ‘The tithe war in County Kilkenny’, p. 490.

  37. Tithe Inquiry (663), vol. XXI, 181, p. 38.

  38. Ibid., p. 9.

  39. Freeman's Journal, 1 August 1831.

  40. Tithe Inquiry (271), vol. XXII, 1, pp. 8–9.

  41. O'Donoghue, ‘Opposition’, p. 70.

  42. Freeman's Journal, 4 January 1831.

  43. W. J. Fitzpatrick, The life, times and correspondence of the Rt Rev. Dr Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin (Dublin, 1880) vol. 2, p. 239.

  44. Tithe Inquiry (177), vol. XXI, 1, p. 190.

  45. Tithe Inquiry (508), vol. XXI, 245, p. 378.

  46. O'Brien, ‘The Lalors of Tenakill’, pp. 28–30.

  47. J. Gough, Some Brief and Serious Reasons why the people called the Quakers do not pay tithes and other ecclesiastical demands (Dublin, 1818), pp. 3–6.

  48. Ibid., p. 12.

  49. Tithe Inquiry (271), vol. XXII, 1.1, p. 27.

  50. Tithe Inquiry (508), vol. XX, 245, p. 441; Freeman's Journal, 18 July 1823.

  51. Tithe Inquiry (271), vol. XXII, 1, p. 14.

  52. An Act for the better Administration of Justice at the holding of Petty Sessions by Justices of the Peace in Ireland, 7th & 8th George IV (1827), c.67, s.24.

  53. Tithe Inquiry (271), vol. XXII, 1, p. 127.

  54. Connacht Journal, 23 June 1831.

  55. Séamus S. de Vál, ‘The battle of the pound’, The Past: The Journal of the Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society, no. 9, 1972, p. 43.

  56. T. Coldwell, A Full Report of the Evidence produced at a coroner's inquest held at Newtownbarry in the county of Wexford on the 20th, and continued till the 30th of June 1831 (Dublin, 1831), pp. iii–vi.

  57. Connacht Journal, 13 July 1831.

  58. Tithe Inquiry (177), vol. XXI, 1, p. 187.

  59. Ibid., p. 21.

  60. Kilkenny Moderator, 5 September 1832.

  61. Ibid., 10, 17 October 1832.

  62. Freeman's Journal, 4 December 1832.

  63. Ibid., 16, 26 March 1833.

  64. Ibid., 4 December 1834.

  65. Kilkenny Moderator, 12 September 1832.

  66. Freeman's Journal, 16, 26 March 1833.

  67. Ibid., 24 November 1832.

  68. Ibid., 10 January 1833.

  69. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, 5 May 1834; Freeman's Journal, 1 May 1834.

  70. Cork Mercantile Chronicle, 5 May 1834.

  71. Freeman's Journal, 2 May 1834.

  72. Carrickshock was celebrated in ballads and local folklore. In 1926, a Celtic cross was erected to mark the famous victory. It was dedicated to the memory of the three local men, Treacy, Phelan and Power; it did not mention the twelve policemen. In August 2006, the Battle of Carrickshock was re-enacted to commemorate the 175th anniversary, complete with souvenir book and DVD. See also Gary Owens, ‘The Carrickshock incident, 1831: social memory and an Irish cause célèbre’, Cultural and Social History, 2004, 1, pp. 36–64.

  73. J. Mongon, Report of the Trial of John Delany for the shooting of Mr Bailey tried before the Right Honourable The Lord Chief Justice and the Hon. Baron Sir Wm. C. Smith at the Special Commission at Maryborough, on Thursday 24 May to which is prefixed, the Chief Justice's charge to the Grand Jury (Maryborough, 1832), pp. 10–13.

  74. E. W. Drea, Carrickshock: a history of the tithe times (Waterford, 1924), pp. 22–4.

  75. Mongon, Report of the Trial, pp. 10–13.

  76. Drea, Carrickshock, p. 25.

  77. Freeman's Journal, 23, 27 December 1831.

  78. The Terry Alts were a militant secret society that grew out of agrarian unrest in County Clare.

  79. G. Broeker, Rural Disorder and Police Reform, 1812–1836 (London, 1970), p. 195; Return of Persons Killed or Wounded in Affrays with the Constabulary Force in Ireland, HC 1830–1 (67), vol. VIII, p. 403.

  80. C. E. Tonna, Irish Recollections (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1841; Dublin, 2004), p. 172.

  81. Ibid.

  82. E. Larkin (ed.), Alexis de Tocqueville's Journey in Ireland, July–August 1835 (Dublin, 1990), p. 76.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Proceedings of an Investigation held at Armagh of the Transactions which took place in the neighbou
rhood of Keady, between the Police and Country People, December 1834, on collecting an arrear of tithe due to Reverend James Blacker, wherein one man was killed and several wounded; with a copy of the inquest, and all other documents connected with that transaction [hereafter: Keady Inquiry], HC 1835 (179), XLVII, 99, pp. 101, 121.

  85. Freeman's Journal, 12 May 1835.

  86. Ibid., 4 December 1834.

  87. Keady Inquiry, p. 111.

  88. Freeman's Journal, 23 December 1834.

  89. O'Brien, Tithe War, p. 10.

  90. Freeman's Journal, 23 December 1834.

  91. Ibid.

  92. E. Garner, Massacre at Rathcormac (Midleton, 1984), pp. 26–7.

  93. Freeman's Journal, 23 December 1834.

  94. Ibid., 12 May 1835.

  95. M. O'Connell (ed.), The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, 1833–36, vol. V (Shannon/Dublin, 1972–80), pp. 317–18.

  96. Freeman's Journal, 1 January 1835.

  97. Garner, Massacre at Rathcormac, pp. 49–57.

  98. Ibid.

  99. Keady Inquiry, pp. 133–4. Goulburn was chief secretary for Ireland 1821–7, and home secretary December 1834 to April 1835, when Peel's minority Tory government fell because the Irish secretary Hardinge's Tithe Bill did not include the principle of appropriation – that is, using some of the Irish tithe revenue to pay for general education in Ireland.

  100. Ibid.

  101. G. Locker Lampson, A Consideration of the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1907), p. 170.

  102. Return of Number of Bills filed in the Court of the Exchequer in Ireland for the recovery of tithe composition, HC 1835–36 (420), vol. XL, 101, pp. 7–8.

  103. R. B. O'Brien, Thomas Drummond: Under-Secretary in Ireland, his life and letters (London), pp. 203–4.

  104. Ibid., p. 228.

  105. Freeman's Journal, 11, 14 January 1836.

  106. Ibid., 19 July 1837.

  Chapter 5

  1. M. Cronin, ‘Of one mind? O'Connellite crowds in the 1830s and 1840s’, in P. Jupp and E. Magennis (eds), Crowds in Ireland, c. 1720–1920 (London, 2000), pp. 139–72.

  2. J. Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1992), p. 254.