I. 1741 his hand; on which the informant went from the CHAP. reading-desk, spoke to said Grady, and entreated him to retire and desist. On which he retired once or twice to the door, and then advanced with two of his accomplices, who were not known by the informant; but one had a gun cocked in his hands, and swore he would shoot the informant, and the other had a gun in one hand and a hanger drawn in the other, with which he struck the informant on the arm, and cut through the surplice and gown. Immediately after Grady and one of the said persons went into the pew in which Miss Susannah Grove sate, and carried her off by force. Most of all the ruffians who were armed retired with their arms presented, and their faces towards the congregation, till they came to the church door, which they locked, and carried off the key. . 1 Personal passion rarely or never shows in these brutal stories. Young girls were not the only victims. Elizabeth Dobbin, a wealthy widow, at Belfast, sixtytwo years old, was one night seized in her bed, dragged downstairs, flung upon a car, which was waiting in the street, and conducted by an armed party to a house in Carrickfergus. A priest was introduced dressed as a beggar. One of the ravishers presented himself as the intended husband, who answered her agonized entreaties to be spared by a threat that, if she refused to marry him, he would tear her limb from limb.' She was then stripped and violated, one of the confederates standing the while at the bedside with a drawn sword in his hand.'2 Catherine Stackpoole, another elderly widow of good fortune, living in Cork, was disturbed in her sleep by March 2, 1741.' MSS. Dublin 2 Case of Elizabeth Dobbin, Castle. 1 MSS. Dublin Castle. BOOK III. 1757 a clamour at her door. On rising to enquire the Let the reader multiply these instances by many 1 Case of Catherine Stackpoole, 1757. MSS. Ireland. Record Office. hundreds; let him understand that the cases which came before the courts were but a fraction of those, which shame and dread of notoriety kept concealed, and that universally there were the same accompaniments of unmanly brutality, and he will form some notion of this aspect of Irish life in the last century. A family of Protestants, named Keris, were settled on a farm in Clare. The father and mother were in prosperous circumstances. They had a single daughter named Honor, a girl of fourteen, who was the heiress of their wealth. One afternoon in March 1733, two gentlemen, a Mr. Thomas Lucas and a Mr. Edmond Stock, came to the Kerises' house; and intimated that some acquaintances of theirs, one of the O'Loghlins, perhaps the Hougher, and a certain William Blood, intended to break into their house that night and carry Honor to the hills. The object of the visit was to frighten the mother, and to induce her to allow them to remain to protect her and her child. The wolves had stolen in in the shape of watch-dogs. There were no police in those days. At nine o'clock in the evening the door was burst open. Blood with two companions rushed into the room where the family were sitting, struck the father to the ground with a bludgeon, and looked round for his victim. At the first alarm she had flown upstairs. Blood proceeded to search the house with a candle in one hand and a pistol in the other, saying that he would shoot anyone that stirred. He found the child cowering in the corner of a loft, brought her down fainting, and swore he would carry her away dead or alive. The wretched mother flung her arms about her. The ruffian seized the mother by the throat and, with an СНАР. I. 1733 BOOK III. 1733 oath, dashed her to the ground. The gentlemen. who had stood by, affecting terror, threw open the windows, and bade the girl spring out, where there were confederates waiting to seize her. The women servants now ran in to help their mistress. The brave young fellows set upon them with their sticks, and beat and mangled them till they fell on the floor. The father lay stunned and senseless; the mother's clothes were torn from her back; and, amidst curses and yells of triumph, Honor Keris was dragged to the door, flung upon a horse like a sack, and borne away in the moonlight. The ravishers stopped at a cabin a mile and a half distant, to let her recover her senses. There the mother, who had followed screaming along the road, came up with them. She found her daughter shivering with cold and terror, and implored them, in the name of mercy, if they would not give her up, yet to let her rest for the night where she That was not in the bargain, one of them cried, snatched her up, tossed her back on the saddle, and set off again at a gallop. By rare fortune this girl was saved. The father, having recovered his senses and finding himself alone, made his way to the house of a Mr. Ross Lewin, an English magistrate in the neighbourhood. Lewin mounted half a dozen of his servants, went off in pursuit, and overtook the ravishers before they could reach the mountains. The young gentlemen did not care to face Lewin's pistols; they dropped their prey, insolently saying, however, as they rode off, that they would have her again some day, and Lewin's own daughter besides.1 was. Each magistrate depended on his own resources to enforce the law. The parties were well known; they 1 Dublin MSS. Dublin Castle. 1733. did not even care to conceal their identity; but there was no force available to arrest them. The Keris family lived in nightly fear of a new attack-of finding their home in flames, or their cattle houghed. But no one was punished. Authority was as powerless in Clare, as in the days of the chiefs. Law, indeed, all over Ireland was a phantom, which few had cause to fear who dared defy it. Anarchy, not tyranny, was Ireland's scourge; and the medicine which she needed. was not concession, but the forgotten hand of Cromwell. Escape on these occasions was the exception. Almost always successful outrage was carried to the utmost limit of enormity. Rebecca White was an orphan girl residing in her own house, on her own property at Cappagh, co. Tipperary. As such she was a tempting prey to the young blades and bucks of the neighbourhood. An uncle lived with her as guardian, but was a poor protector. On a dark night, in the middle of the winter of 1718-19, three Fitzgeralds, a William Brien, and several other persons, all described as gentlemen, armed to the teeth, with swords, guns, and pistols, swooped down on Cappagh. The door was broken open. The women who, knowing the object of the visit, threw themselves in the way, were knocked down and kicked into quietness. Rebecca White was torn out of bed in her shift, dashed against the wall to stupefy her, and to make her easier to handle, and was then borne away many miles, to an empty police barrack, among the bogs on the edge of county Limerick. The key of the house was found, and the door opened. A young unregistered priest came forward as usual ready to perform the sacrament, and СНАР. I. 1719 |