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most flagitious injustice and the most cruel oppression. The insurrections against which we are so eager to carry out the terrors of the law, are no more than branches, of which the shameful negligence of our clergy, and the defects in our religious institutions, constitute the root."

These causes operated on the people for a long time, and continued to produce the most fearful results, as we shall see as we proceed.

In this year, on the 5th of August, Dr. Laurence Nihill, afterwards Bishop of Kilfenora,2 was appointed parish priest of Rathkeale. In 1764, White marks the following incidents :

"This year a sumptuous City Courthouse was commenced on the ground where the old Courthouse stood in Quay Lane, opposite to the Mayoralty House. The first assize held in it in the summer of 1765, and the Quay was finished from the East side of Ball's Bridge, and joined the bank of the canal. This year also was finished the famous mill on the north side of the canal above the lock nearest the city; therein six pair of mill-stones for corn, four boulting mills, four tucking mills, and all loads were raised to the top of the house, and all that performed by two water-wheels and at the same time. Famous stores were likewise built for the reception of corn over the mill dam."

These mills were erected by Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mr. Uzuld at a cost of £6000

4

One of the most memorable civic demonstrations was made on the occasion of the riding of the franchises of the city of Limerick on the 5th and 6th of September, 1765. This demonstration is described so graphically and clearly by White, that we give the facts as they appear in his MSS. :The Order of Franchises of Limerick rode the 5th and 6th of September, 1765. "On Thursday, the 5th of September, Thomas Smyth, Esq., being Mayor, Alexander Franklin and Counsellor John Tunnadine being Sheriffs, the Franchises of the city and liberties of Limerick were rode. Servants, Bailiffs, and Mayor's Sergeants preceded on horseback, with blue cockades in their hats; then the bands of music belonging to the army, the sword bearer, and water bailiff, with their proper ensigns, the two sheriffs with their rods, the Mayor, richly dressed, with the rod in his hand, rode after; then followed the rest of the Corporation, John Quin, Esq., carrying the blue Corporation standard, and then followed numbers of other gentlemen well mounted, all having blue cockades in their hats. Then fourteen of the Trades or Corporations rode after them, each trade according to the antiquity of their charters, and each trade was headed by their respective masters and wardens. Each trade had a standard according to the colour of their trade, with the arms of the trade in the centre, and cockades peculiar to the trade, and after their masters, and wardens followed the principal of each trade, all well dressed, well mounted and accompanied with drums and music. On Thursday they rode from the King's island through the city, and visited the S. E. liberties of the city. On Friday they,

1 Debates in the Irish Parliament, reported by an officer, 2 vols.

2 White's MSS., which add that the Rev. Laurence Nihill was inducted P.P. of Rathkeale on the 5th of August, 1762. He exchanged afterwards with the Rev. Denis Conway, who succeeded the Rev. James White in the Parish of St. Nicholas, Limerick, whence he was promoted, in the year 1784, to the see of Kilfenora.-Dr. Young's Note.

3 White's MSS. contain in this year the following remarks and incidents :

The Rev. Timothy Flynn, on whom Priesthood was conferred by the Right Rev. Dr. Kearney, in St. John's Chapel of Limerick, on the 7th of April, 1764, was Doctor of Nantz, Professor of Theology, returned to Ireland in the year 1794, or 5, was curate of St. John's under the Right Rev. Doctor Conway, succeeded the Right Rev. Dr. John Young in the Parish of St. Mary, 1796, as Dean and Parish Priest, was translated thence to St. Michael's in the year 1805, and died 17th April, 1813. He was succeeded in St. Michael's Parish by the Rev. Patrick Hogan, inducted 24th of April, 1813, by the Rev. Charles Hanrahan, P.P. of St. Mary's, under the special mandate of the Right Rev. Dr. Young, who forthwith made him Vicar General. The Rev. P. Hogan's Note. The Very Rev. P. Hogan died Parish Priest of St. Michael's in 1839, and a beautiful monument was raised to his memory in St. Michael's Church. 4 White's MSS.

in like manner, visited the S. W. liberties, returned through the city, and visited the N. liberties, but they never broke down any walls, or regulated any encroachments. On Friday, the 8th of September, the Corporation and the aforesaid trades, with their standards, and cockades in their hats, walked with the Mayor from the square behind St. John's Church to St. Mary's Church, and returned with him, in the said order, to said square, where he treated them with wine, and had the masters or wardens of each trade to dine with them that day. On Thursday, the 10th of September, the Mayor, Sheriffs, and rest of the Corporation, in the King's yachts, went down the river, in order to assert and make good his right of being admiral of the river Shannon. On Thursday, the 12th of September, the Mayor held a Court of Admiralty on the island of Inis Scattery, and on Friday, the 13th, he sailed to the mouth of the Shannon, where, between the heads, he threw a dart into the sea to point out the limits of his jurisdiction; at the same time it happened that a sloop of war entered the river, whom the Mayor compelled to lower her colours and her foretop sail in acknowledgement of his Power of Admiralty in said river Shannon. The Mayor and Corporation returned to Limerick on Saturday, the 14th, by ringing of bells, &c."

In 1765, the revenue of the port began to increase, and a very handsome and commodious Custom House was built from a design by an engineer named Davis Dukart. Caleb Powell, Esq., an ancestor of Caleb Powell, Esq., of Clonshavoy, ex-M.P. of the county of Limerick,' was appointed collector of the Port, and was the first who inhabited the Custom House.2

In the following year a return was made in Parliament of the number of Protestants and Papist" families in Limerick, Tipperary, and Clare, by which appeared that the Catholics trebled in number the Protestants in these counties. There were then 38 priests, and 8 friars in the county of Limerick.

Caleb Powell, of Clonshavoy, Esq., in the Parish of Abingdon and County of Limerick, who represented the County in Parliament from 1841 to 1847-in which year he contested the seat with the Right Hon. Wm. Monsell and the late Wm. Smith O'Brien, Esq., and was defeated by twenty-four votes-Caleb Powell is descended from Robert Powell, a Cromwellian officer, who, with his brother, Giles Powell, supposed to have been derived from a Shropshire family, settled in the County of Limerick in the year 1649. The latter obtained large grants of land in the barony of Costlea, and served the office of High Sheriff of the County, in 1676. Robert Powell married Barbara, and had issue Robert, married to a daughter of Hugh Massy, of Duntryleague, and had a son, Richard, a Captain in the Limerick Militia at the Siege of Limerick in 1691. He married Martha, daughter of Robert Minnitt, of Knigh, in the Co. Tipperary, and had an only child, Robert, born in 1694, and married, in 1717, Anne, daughter of Colonel Samuel Eyre M.P. for the town of Galway, by whom he had issue sons and daughters. Caleb, the fifth son of Robert Powell and Anne Eyre, was born in 1730, served in India under Clive and Forde, to whom he acted as aide-de-Camp ; he retired from military service in 1760, and same year married Frances, daughter of John Bowen, of Taghmon, in the County Westmeath, and was appointed Collector of the Revenue for Trim and Athboy. In 1765, he was made Collector of the Port of Limerick, and was the first occupant of the present Custom House. He had issue by Frances Bowen, Stratford, born in 1761, died unmarried in 1790, an officer in the East India Company's Military Service; Samuel, died in America; Eyre Burton, born in 1767, married in 1792 Henrietta Magill, daughter of John Magill, of Tullycairne, in the County of Down, male representative of the Viscounts Oxenford, of Scotland. Eyre Burton Powell was called to the Bar, and practised successfully; O'Connell, who was some years junior to him, used to relate many instances of his zeal and self-possession in advocating the cases of his clients. Having had a professional dispute with his first cousin, George Powell, many years his senior, they had a hostile meeting, in conformity with the code of honor of the day, and Eyre Burton Powell was mortally wounded in a duel, by his cousin, leaving a widow and four children. The eldest was called to the Bar; married, in 1838, Georgina Frances, daughter of George Waller, of Prior Park, Co. Tipperary, and has issue a son, born in 1839. Stratford Powell, second son of Eyre Burton Powell and Henrietta Magill, entered the East India Company Service, and became Adjutant General of the Bombay Residency. Eyre Burton, third son, was Comptroller of Stamp Duties in Ireland, and left a son Director of Public Instruction at Madras, who married Miss Langley, and has issue.

This building cost about £8,000. The revenue of the Port in 1765 was £31,099, having nearly doubled within six years, from 1759. The Post Office department has been carried on for several years in a portion of the Custom House, where also the Inland Revenue department has its offices, and where, in 1864, the District Probate Office was also placed.

Reports of a sinister character were now being industriously propagated arising ostensibly out of the continued excesses of Whiteboyism, but as many strongly suspected, really originating in the efforts of the ascendancy party to throw all manner of obloquy on the people, in order to justify the legalised oppressions of the day. These reports went to show that the Catholics of Ireland had agreed to rise on a certain fixed night in order to massacre all the Protestants in the kingdom; and that the houses of certain Protestants in Kilkenny, Waterford, and other cities, were chalked at night to show that they were destined victims. A letter was sent to the Mayor and Corporation of Limerick, threatening to make the streets of the city flow with Protestant blood; but when a reward of £500 was offered for the discovery of the writer, and when, at length, it was found that he was a zealous instrument of the dominant faction, his influential relatives interfered, and he was suffered to escape. Among those stated to have been marked out for destruction near Clonmel, was the Lord Dunboyne, who afterwards abjured the faith of his fathers, after he had been Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. Such was the fierce spirit of the times, that the Rev. Nicholas Sheehy, Parish Priest of Clogheen, had to fly from the storm, to his cousin's residence, in the county of Limerick; but he was ultimately taken, and on evidence confessedly perjured, tried, condemned, and publicly executed in Clonmel, for a crime which was never perpetrated. Turning away for the moment from these terrible scenes and events, we may take a passing glance at the improvements which spirited citizens were now making in Limerick, as an evidence of the anxiety to avail themselves of the advantages which had been extended by the demolition of the walls, and the opening up of new roads." Amyas Griffith's Tracts.

The Rev. Nicholas Sheehy when hunted by the minions of the law, proceeded to the county of Limerick, to the residence of his cousin, Roger Sheehy, Esq., of Appletown, where he left a suit of satin crimson vestments fringed with gold. Mr. Roger Sheehy was grandfather of Bryan Keating Sheehy, Esq., J.P. of Garbally, Newcastle, West, who has these vestments yet in his possession, and who values them highly.* These Sheehys descended from the ancient Sheehy family of Ballyallinan, near the river Deel, in the barony of Connelloe, Co. Limerick, whose descendants also were the Sheehys of Drumcolleher and Ballintubber, Co. Limerick. The Rev. Nicholas Sheehy was son of Francis Sheehy, Esq., of Glenahira, near the Cummeragh mountains, Co. Waterford-whose brothers were Roger of Dromculloher, who died without issue; Bryan of Gardenfield, the father of Roger who lived at Appletown; and William of Corbally, Co. Cork, who was grandfather of William Sheehy, Esq. of the same place. From the Cummeragh branch descended "Buck" Sheehy, who was executed at Clogheen, in 1772, and who was father of Colonel Sheehy, a distinguished officer of the French Service, who became aide-de-camp to Wolfe Tone, and also father of Mrs. Power, wife of Michael Power, Esq., J.P. of Clonmel, who had two daughters, Margaret and Ellen, both very beautiful; the first became Countess of Blessington, and the other the wife the Rt. Hon. Charles Manners Sutton, afterwards Lord Canterbury. The gifted Countess was fond of tracing her descent from the Earls of Desmond maternally through the Shehys. 3 Amyas Griffith's Tracts. Mr. John Creagh, re-erected in Broad-street, in the Irishtown, the ancient buildings which in 1640 had been built by his ancestor Pierce Creagh, and which had been known in the last century as the Bear Inn. These houses were seventy feet in front, and were considered the oldest in the Irishtown. On a chimney-piece in these buildings was this inscription :

PETRUS CREAGH FILII ANDRE &

ELIONORA RICE UXOR EJUS
CURARUNT EXTRUI HAS CEDES
A SUIS HERIDIBUS IN TIMORE
AMORE ET FAVORE NUMINIS DIU POS
SIDENDAS VICENTIBUS.

+
I. H. S.
1640.

By some it is stated that the vestments were brought to Appletown by "Buck" Sheehy' when he was on the run, and who valued them as the vestments in which his uncle, Father Nicholas Sheehy, last celebrated mass.

Mr. Pery, ever active in charitable deeds, gave a small plot of ground in St. Francis's Abbey, to Mr. Charles Smyth and the Rev. Dean Hoare, at a pepper-corn rent, on which an hospital, containing forty beds, was built; and as this hospital was outside the walls, and in the county, the act, which had just come into existence, in reference to county hospitals, was applied to it; subscriptions were obtained, not only from the city and county of Limerick, but from Tipperary, Clare, and Kerry, and at a general meeting of the subscribers it was unanimously resolved that the benefits arising from the Act should be extended to the Limerick county hospital. In 1750, Surgeon Giles Vandeleur had made an unavailing endeavour to establish, at his own expense, a Hospital in the Little Island. In 1761, a charity sermon was preached at St. Mary's Cathedral, and a play was acted to revive the charity, to which surgeon Sylvester O'Halloran gave his gratuitous professional services. Other improvements were made about this period. A Deanery House had been already built off Bow-lane, in 1764. A flourishing paper mill existed at this time, under the proprietorship of Mr. Joseph Sexton; and as if to manifest the active progress of civilization, an Assembly House was soon afterwards begun on the South Mall-subsequently called the Assembly Mall.3 Other projects also were now afloat; though political

On the occasion of the re-edification of these buildings, the following inscription was cut in relief on the Key Stone of an arch, through which there is an entry to a lane that leads from the Broad Street to Curry's Lane:

BUILT IN 1640
BY PIERCE

CREAGH

RE BUILT

1767

BY
JOHN
CREAGH.

In one of the houses on the north-east side of the arch, Alderman James Quinn has at present a Grocery establishment.

The Deanery House was afterwards taken down, and on its site a portion of the city gaol was built at Crosby's-row, so called from the Hon. and Very Rev. Dean Crosby who occupied the Deanery House. The present Deanery House is on the north side of George's-street in the

new town.

2 Mr. Sexton had been patronized by Lord Chesterfield, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland: his mills made 30,000 reams of paper yearly. He supplied the local newspapers (of which in 1766 there were but three in the province of Munster) with paper-and amassed a considerable fortune-he

died in 1782.

3 Prior to the year 1768, the want of a large public room for assemblies had been very much felt by the gentry of Limerick and the surrounding counties, so much so, that it was suggested to build an Assembly House of such dimensions as would amply supply the want so much felt at the time. At a meeting of those interested, it was resolved-that a society consisting of twenty gentlemen be formed for the purpose; and at a subsequent meeting, held in the Grand Jury Room of the City Court House, on the 30th September, 1768, John Prendergast, Esq. in the chair, It was resolved-that the following gentlemen be formed into a society for building and maintaining a Public Assembly House in the city of Limerick, on a capital stock of £2,000; and that each member should bear an equal proportion of the expense, viz. :- -Charles Smyth, Esq., Thomas Vereker, Esq., mayor; George Smyth, recorder; Thomas Symth, Esq., alderman; David Roche, Esq., alderman; Robert Hallam, Esq., alderman; William Monsell, Esq., burgess; John Prendergast, Esq., burgess; John Tunnadine, Esq., burgess; Alexander Franklin, Esq., burgess; Sir Henry Hartstonge, baronet; Silver Oliver, Esq., John Bateman, Esq., Rev. Mr. Dean Hoare, Rev. Mr. Jaques Ingram, Alexander Sheares, Esq., William Blood, Esq., John Minchin, Esq., Norcot D'Estere, Esq., and Patrick Mahony, Esq. Charles Smyth, Esq., having proposed to accommodate this society with a convenient lot of ground for building thereon such Assembly House,-It was resolved to take a lease of the plot of ground, as described in a plan

objects, including the agitation about the law for the electing of members of Parliament every eight years, the Octennial Bill,-contributed to occupy the minds of all classes,

-

CHAPTER XLIV.

ELECTIONS UNDER THE OCTENNIAL BILL-PROGRESS OF LIMERICK.

THE excited state of society in the city and county of Limerick during the agitation caused by the Octennial Bill, showed the high degree of importance attached to that measure; hence during its passage through Parliament, Limerick was the constant scene of electioneering intrigues. Among the candidates for the city, the favourites, for the two seats, were Mr. Charles Smyth and Mr. Pery. Mr. Smyth was the favourite of the masters and wardens of the several guilds of trade. Mr. Villiers of Kilpeacon, was a candidate; but presented by the Rev. Dean Hoare, which was approved of, from Charles Smyth, Esq., for the term of 999 years, at the yearly rent of five shillings. The ground was on what afterwards went by the name of the Assembly Mall, in a line with Charlotte's Quay. A committee of five was appointed to carry on the work forthwith; and on the 24th October, steps were taken to commence the foundation of the house. The house was finished in August, 1770, and by the following extract from the original minute book of the society, it was resolved, at a meeting held 1st August, 1770-"That the house be opened for the reception of company on Tuesday, 11th September, and shall be opened every night during the assizes, at an English half-crown each ticket." (2s. 83d.) The arrangements of the assemblies and "drums," were carried out by the members, and the gentlemen in their turn took the tickets at the door, and acted as stewards in the rooms. This building cost the proprietors £3208 2s, 11d., and the house was well supported by the public for many years. In 1772 it was set to Mr. Bowen, for the purpose of assemblies, &c., to be carried on by him, under the control of the company; and he agreed to pay £300 per annum for the purpose, at a lease of 31 years. Before the expiration of Mr. Bowen's lease, balls and suppers became less frequent; and in the year 1790, the principal room was converted into a theatre by Sir Vere Hunt, Bart., Mr. Clinch, principal manager; and on the 31st of January was opened with Shakespere's comedy of "As You Like It." It continued a theatre for several years. In 1818, the Christian Brothers, for the first time in Limerick, opened school in the upper rooms of the house; and paid £75 per annum for the part they occupied as school-rooms, for the gratuitous education of the poor, and remained there until more convenient schools were opened in 1824. A Mechanics' Institute was first opened in this house in the year 1825. The large ball and supper rooms now became the theatre of Limerick, and some of the best actors of the day, performed here. It was in this house that Edmund Kean first made his appearance in Limerick; here too, all the celebrated singers of the period, that came to the city, appeared before crowded audiences. In was used as a theatre until 1834 or 1836, when it was suffered to go out of repair; and in 1838, by order of the Sheriff, it having become dangerous, it was taken down. The site of this once beautiful building with part of the walls only now remain, and is the property of Mr. Stephen Hastings, T. C., who holds the books and papers of this very interesting old place, to which many of the older citizens look back to agreeable evenings spent in happier days, unequalled in the present time in Limerick.*

It was only when the Assembly House was completed (1770), that a parapet wall was built as a protection on Charlotte's Quay, before this time it was an open quay.

In a postscript to a letter on the subject the writer adds his belief, "that Villers will not stand it," and sends a notification to this effect :

The Free Citizens of Limerick, who met on Monday, the 29th of February last at Mr John Boyce's;* request their friends who mean to be true friends to liberty, and the Protestant interest, to meet at said John Boyce's on Monday, the seventh day of March inst., at five o'clock in the afternoon, to keep up a friendly union, and to consider what may be for the honour, credit, and advantage of the City of Limerick, for the cause of liberty, and the service of the Friendly and United Club.

REV. DANI WIDENHAM, in the Chair.

* Mr. John Boyce was an active solicitor-father of the late Alderman John Boyce, Mayor of Limerick in 1849, and grandfather of Thomas Boyce, Esq., J.P., Spring Fort, near Limerick.

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