Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
having been run from Newcastle to Limerick to enable people to attend
a Unionist meeting in the latter city, the Nationalists took steps to
mark their sense of the railway company's indiscretion, and a train
soon afterwards leaving Newcastle for Tralee, they hurled a great
stone from the Garryduff Bridge, smashing the window of the guard's
van and doing other injury. At Gurtnaclochy, to deter a witness in a
legal case, a threatening letter was sent, sixty yards of a sod fence
thrown down, and a coffin and gun neatly cut on the field. On the
Roman Catholic Chapel wall at Ashford a notice was posted threatening
with death anyone who bought hay or turnips from a boycotted man, and
the same day a man named Herlihy received a threatening letter. On
April 15 a party of armed, disguised men with blackened faces, called
on a poor man at Inniskeen, and having smashed the windows, tried to
force the door, but stopped to parley. They called on "Young Patrick"
to hand out the father's gun, and the young man complied. Being
twitted with this he said, "I want to live. If I had refused the gun
my life would not be worth twopence. I would be 'covered' from a bush
or a fence when I walked out, or shot dead in the door as I looked
down the lane, as was done in another case. I know the parties well,
but I would not give evidence. Neither will I give the police any more
information. It would not hurt the criminals, but it would hurt me.
For while the jury would not convict, the secret tribunal that sat on
me would not be so merciful, and many a man would like the distinction
of being singled out to execute the secret decrees of the Moonlight
fraternity." Another person standing by said, "What happened at
Galbally, near Tipperary? A priest denounced a Protestant named Allen
from the altar, and a week after the man was shot dead in his tracks.
Everybody knew perfectly well who did the deed. All knew the man who
wanted Allen's land, and it was thought that there was evidence enough
to hang him twenty times. He is alive and well, and if you go any
Saturday to the Tipperary market Father Humphreys will introduce you
to him. He was discharged without a stain on his character, and brass
bands met him on his return, also a torchlight procession."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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