MOST JURIES are anonymous, but the one that condemned Fr Nicholas Sheehy on March 12th, 1766, for the murder of John Bridge, is unique because the names and the alleged fates of most of its members are recorded.
Sheehy, the parish priest of Shanraghan (Clogheen) in south Tipperary, had angered the local gentry because of his opposition to tithes and his sympathies for the Whiteboys.
He was indicted on various charges from 1763 onwards but avoided arrest by going “on the run” and despite a reward of £300, he escaped capture with the help of protectors including a Protestant neighbour who hid him in a vault by day and gave him a bed at night. He was also offered £100 by Lord Lismore to leave the country, but he refused and eventually wrote to the chief secretary, offering to surrender, if he could be tried in Dublin. His proposal was accepted and a local magistrate, Cornelius O’Callaghan, who was a former Catholic or the son of conforming parents, gave him a horse and an escort for his journey to the city.
For his pains, O’Callaghan was forced to leave the county.
In February 1766, after a 14-hour trial, Sheehy was found not guilty of armed conspiracy and fomenting rebellion but was re-arrested immediately, charged with the murder of John Bridge, and sent back to Clonmel on horseback, with his feet pinnioned under the animal’s stomach.
The new trial took place in March. Bridge was said to have been killed by the Whiteboys because he was an informer. Fr Sheehy was alleged to have been present although he had an alibi. In any case, there was no proof that Bridge was dead. But Fr Sheehy was found guilty, and hanged, drawn and quartered, in Clonmel, on March 15th. His head was placed on a spike over the gate of the jail and his body was taken to Shanraghan graveyard by his sister, Catherine Burke.
The behaviour of Fr Sheehy’s fellow clergy is disputed. According to some accounts, he was not attended by any other priest, but it also claimed that the parish priest of Ardfinnan, a Fr Doyle, accompanied him to his execution. According to another story, Catherine splashed some of Fr Sheehy’s blood on the door of Fr William Egan, the parish priest of Clonmel, because he had failed to speak on her brother’s behalf.
The first suggestion in writing that the jurymen were ill-fated, appeared in a letter written in 1788 by Amyas Griffith, the chief inspector of taxes in Munster, to Daniel Toler MP, who had been the high sheriff of Tipperary at the time, after he had tried to justify Fr Sheehy’s execution, in the Irish House of Commons.
Most of the names of the jurymen and their alleged ends entered folklore.
Jonathan Wellington died of a fit while sitting in his “necessary”. Edward Dawson was killed by his horse. Humphry Mumskin became a beggar and died from a disease. Robert Shaw choked to death. Alexander (Sandy) Hoops drowned in a shallow stream.
John Ferns became insane. John Dunville became badly disfigured. Osbourne Tuthill cut his own throat. Robert Going and Joseph Tennison died suddenly. Another, whose name is not recorded, was thrown from his horse and dragged through the streets of Nenagh. Only one, Adam Duninead, died sane and from natural causes.
Fate is also alleged to have extracted vengeance more widely. Thomas Maude, Fr Sheehy’s most determined enemy, who had impanelled the jury, contracted a disease that caused his eyes to fall from their sockets and his body to give off a disgusting smell. After he died, screaming that the priest was dragging him down to hell, he was entombed in his room because nobody could bear go near his body. One witness, Toohey, a horse thief, was reputed to have contracted leprosy, depending on which version you believe, was hanged for felony.
Another, John Lonergan, died in Dublin from a loathsome ailment.
On the scaffold, Sheehy had wished long life to his main accuser, Moll Dunlea, a woman of loose morals, who was called Mrs Mary Brady at the trial. She survived until 1798 at least and supposedly grew old until she was as small as hen. Eventually, she was fatally injured when she fell into a ditch or into the cellar of a public house. The hangman, Darby Grahan (or Brehon) was said to have been stoned to death after carrying out another execution.
Others involved in the trial were said to have contracted “Herod’s Disease”, probably phthiriasis, an infestation of lice. (The Acts of the Apostles record, 12.23, that Herod was “eaten of worms and gave up the ghost“).
It was also believed that the people of Clonmel and their descendants were assigned collective punishment. In his novel Knocknagow (1879), Charles Kickham had a character, Billy Heffernan, tell that the town was “never wudout a cloud over id” since the priest was hanged.
This part of the story, at least, is untrue. I often visit Clonmel and once, in the 1970s, I saw the capital of south Tipperary basking in sunshine under an absolutely clear blue sky.