on the 4th of April, where new charges were to be preferred against them at the Special Assizes, which opened on the 8th of May, 1766. Edmond Sheehy, a second or third cousin of Father Sheehy, was a gentleman of moderate independence, connected with several of the most respectable Catholic families in the county, of a generous disposition, of social habits, and had lived on good terms with the Protestant gentry of his neighbourhood. His personal appearance was remarkably prepossessing. Persons still living have a vivid recollection of his frank, expressive features, his fine athletic form, of his intrepid demeanour on his trial; and on his way to execution, they speak of his personal appearance as that of a man in the prime of life, and the maturity of manly vigour. He was a married man, and had five children, the youngest under two years of age. He was well known in the country as "Buck Sheehy," a term which at that time was commonly applied to young men of figure, whose means were good, and who were looked on in the country as sporting characters. Buxton was a man in good circumstances, the poor man's friend in his neighbourhood, popular with the lower orders, and, as a matter of course, disliked by their oppressors. Farrell was a young gentleman in affluent circumstances, who moved in the best society, and, on his mother's side, was connected with Lord Cahir. He was about thirty years of age, had but recently married, and, like his friend Sheehy, his taste for field sports had procured for him the appellation of one of the bucks of Tipperary. The friends and relatives of the unfortunate priest, Sheehy, appear to have been especially marked out for ruin. The design of corroborating the guilt of Father Sheehy, by involving his immediate friends and relatives in the crime they laid to his charge, is evident, not only in these proceedings, but in others, which were adopted at a later period. True bills having been found against Edmond Sheehy, James Farrell, and James Buxton, they were put on their trials, before the Right Honourable Chief Justice Clayton and two assistant judges. They were tried separately. Edmond Sheehy was tried on the 11th of April, on a similar indictment to that on which Buxton and Farrell were tried on the two following days. The substance of the indictment, which I have taken from the Crown book, contains six counts, setting forth, the murder of John Bridge and various acts of Whiteboyism. The same wretches who were produced as witnesses on the former trial, John Toohy, Mary Brady, alias Dunlea, and John Lonnergan, were brought forward on their trials; and two new approvers, Thomas Bier and James Herbert, to support the sinking credit of the old witnesses.* Herbert was the man who had come to the former assizes to give evidence for the priest, and who, to prevent his appearance, had been arrested on a charge of high treason, lodged in gaol, and by the dextrous management of the prosecutors, was now transformed into a Crown witness. Bier was included in the indictment of the prisoners, but had saved his life by turning approver. Previously to the arrests of Edmond Sheehy, Buxton, and Farrell, he sent notice to them that their lives were in danger, and he recommended their making their escape. They had the temerity, however, to rely on their innocence, and they paid, with their lives, the penalty of their folly. The evidence for the prosecution in no material respect differs from that brought forward *It is somewhat startling to find that one of the principal witnesses against Father Sheehy and also Edmond Sheehy (the grandfather of Lady Blessington), on whose evidence (mainly relied on) their lives were taken, was a vagrant boy of the name of Lonnergan ; and forty years later, in the same locality, we find the life taken of a boy of the name of Lonnergan, by the husband of a daughter of Edmond Sheehy. on the trials of Meehan and Nicholas Sheehy. A detailed narrative of it will be found in the "Gentleman's and London Magazine" for April, 1766. It is needless to weary the reader with its fabrications. It is sufficient to say, the evidence of these witnesses was all of a piece, a tissue of perjuries clumsily interwoven, without a particle of truth, or a pretext for regarding the reception of it as the result of an imposition practised on the understanding of the jurors. The principal witness, whose testimony Mr. Sheehy relied on for his defence, was a Protestant gentleman, Mr. James Prendergast, "perfectly unexceptionable," says Curry, "in point of character, fortune, and religion."* This gentleman deposed, "That on the day and hour on which the murder was sworn to have been committed-about or between the hours of ten or eleven o'clock on the night of the 28th of October, 1764-Edmond Sheehy, the prisoner, was with him and others, in a distant part of the country. That they and their wives had, on the aforesaid 28th of October, dined at the house of Mr. Joseph Tennison, where they continued till after supper, which was about eleven o'clock, when he and the prisoner left the house of Mr. Tennison, and rode a considerable way together, on their return to their respective homes. That the prisoner had his wife behind him, and when they parted, he (Mr. Prendergast) rode direct home, where, on his arrival, he had looked at the clock, and found it was twelve exactly. That as to the day of their dining with Mr. Tennison (Sunday, the 28th), he was positive, from this circumstance, that the day following was to be the fair of Clogheen, where he requested that Mr. Sheehy would dispose of some bullocks for him, he (Mr. Prendergast) not being able to attend the fair."+ This was the evidence of Mr. Prendergast. Another witness for the prisoner, Paul Web *Review of the Civil Wars.-Curry, vol. ii. p. 279. ber, of Cork, butcher, swore that he saw Mr. Sheehy at the fair of Clogheen, on the 29th of October, 1764, and conversed with him respecting Mr. Prendergast's bullocks, which he subsequently bought of Mr. Prendergast, in consequence of this conversation with Mr. Edmond Sheehy. Another witness, Thomas Mason, shepherd to the prisoner, confirmed the particulars sworn to by Mr. Prendergast, as to the night and the hour of Mr. Sheehy's return home from Mr. Tennison's house. Bartholomew Griffith swore, that John Toohy, his nephew, had falsely sworn, on the trial, that the clothes he wore on the trial had been given to him by him (Griffith). That Toohy, on the 28th and 29th of October, 1764, was at his house at Cullen. One of the grand jury, Chadwick, volunteered his evidence to blunt the testimony of Griffith. He swore that Griffith, "on that occasion, was not to be believed on his oath." The next witness swore that Toohy lived with his master, Brooke Brazier, Esq., six weeks, where he behaved very ill. Mr. Brazier, another of the grand jury, was then called, and he declared, that Toohy was not known to him, but that a person was in his family for that time, and was of a very bad character. The managers of the prosecution had Mr. Tennison then examined by a Crown lawyer. This gentleman swore, "that Sheehy had dined at his house in October, 1764;" but "he was inclined to think it was earlier in the month than the 28th." This evidence was received as a triumphant contradiction of Prendergast's testimony. Now, as far as character was concerned, that of Sheehy's witness stood fully as high as that of Mr. Tennison. But with respect to the statement of the particular fact of the prisoner having dined on the particular day specified by Sheehy's witness, with Tennison, the evidence of Prendergast went positively to the affirmative, while that of Tennison amounted only to a supposition, that it was on an earlier day in the month than that specified that the prisoners dined at his house. "He was" only" inclined to think" that it was earlier in the month; but Prendergast " was positive," from a particular circumstance, that it was on the Sunday, the day before the fair at Clogheen, he dined there. There was no other witness produced to corroborate the suspicion of Mr. Tennison. There were two witnesses called to confirm the positive statement of Prendergast with regard to the particular night and hour of Sheehy's return from Tennison's house. So much for the evidence. It is now necessary to show that it was not relied on alone for the conviction of the prisoners. The managers who had on the previous trial surrounded the court with a military force, on this occasion crammed it with their adherents, whose minds had been inflamed by public advertisements previous to the trial, in which the leniency of the former measures of government was reprobated. "The baronet (Sir Thomas Maude) before mentioned, published an advertisement, wherein he presumed to censure the wise and vigilant administration of our last chief governors, and even to charge them with the destruction of many of his Majesty's subjects, for not having countenanced such measures with respect to these rioters, as were manifestly repugnant to all the rules of prudence, justice, and humanity. Nor did his boldness stop here; for, naming a certain day in said adver. tisement, when the following persons of credit and substance, namely, Sheehy, Buxton, and Farrell, and others, were to be tried by commission at Clonmel, for the aforesaid murderas if he meant to intimidate their judges into lawless rigour and severity, he sent forth an authoritative kind of summons, ' to every gentleman of the county, to attend that commission.""* With such arrangements for inflaming the public *A Candid Enquiry, &c. p. 10. |