Broadside entitled 'A Full and Particular Account of the Execution'

Transcription

A Full and Particular Account of the

EXECUTION

Of FIVE WHITEBOYS, who were Hanged at Newcastle, in the
County of Limerick,on Monday the 7th January, 1822. Also,
their Address from the Scaffold to their deluded fellow-country-
men. With an account of their funeral procession from the place of
Execution to the Croppies Hole, where they were buried by the
Public Authorities.

(From the Limerick Chronicle.).

ON Monday morning, 7th January, at eight
o'clock, Thomas Kelly, Michael Kiely,
Timothy Shea, John Histon, and John Mul-
lane, who were convicted at the Commission,
of offences under the Whiteboy Act, and order-
ed for execution, were taken from the county
jail on cars, to Newcastle, in the County of
Limerick, by an escort of the carabineers, and
one hundred men of the 79th, commanded by
Lieut.-Colonel Brown, to undergo the awful
sentence of the law. They arrived at the place
of execution, a field of Mr. Hartnett's, near
Newcastle, a little after two o'clock. When
the platform was erected, the unfortunate men
ascended, attended by their clergy, who, hav-
ing previously afforded them spiritual consola-
tion, individually exhorted them to make open,
free, and full confessions to the surrounding
spectasors; and to warn them against the awful
delusions which had brought so fatal a result
before their eyes.

Kelly spoke first—He called upon the pea-
santry to listen to the wholesome advice of their
clergy, to be obedient to the laws, and to the
gentry, and finally to give up the arms, and re-
turn to peace and quiet, and resume habits of
industry; but denied his guilt pf the crime for
which he was was about to suffer.—Shea ac
knowledged the justness of his sentence. He
called upon all persons concerned with the
whiteboys to give up their arms, and to forsake
their evil ways, that by a due obedience of the
holy doctrines taught by their respective, pas-
tors, they might expect forgiveness on earth as
well as hereafter in heaven; he also stated, that
after his conviction, he had given information
against several persons as being implicated with
him in whiteboy acts, which, he found himself
bound to say, was false; and that he was led in-
to such expressions by the vain hope that it
would have released him from his unhappy si-
tuation; he pronounced all the persons he had
heretofore named as perfectly innocent of his
charge. Kiely addressed the populace in Irish,
which he spoke fluently; he said he was not
guilty of the charge for which he was about to
die—that he was engaged with the disaffected
people of the country about 2O years ago, and
also in the disturbances which occurred about
eight years back, but that having a knowledge
of the results of those periods, and clearly see-
ing the folly of pursuing such conduct any lon-
ger, he had Always exerted himself in advising
the people of the present day to give up their

pursuit, as it would only end in the way which
was then presented to their view; he said his
real name was Kelly, not Keily —Histon fully
acknowledged his crime, and also freely ad-
mitted that he did belong to the nightly depre-
dators, whom he called upon, as they valued
the happiness of their families and friends, to
give up their arms, and lead quiet and peacea-
ble lives in future, which was the only means
within their power to compensate for the crimes
which they had committed.—Mullane (who
appeared an idiot) declared in Irish his inno-
cence, that he never took arms, and did not
know what they were.

After the unfortunate men had severally ad-
dressed the populace (who had all been suffered
to approach within the military lines, by Mr.
Cuthburt, sub-sheriff, and whose number might
be estimated at about 1500 only) the Rev. Mr.
Fitzgerald, in the most solemn manner, exhort-
ed the people upon the awful examples then
about tb take place; five human beings standing
on the brink of eternity, brought to that igno-
minious scaffold by the vile counsel of those
whose mandates they have fulfilled; and per-
haps some of those very persons who have thus
immolated their fellow mortals at the shrine of
vicious purposes at this moment silent specta-
tors of those miserable victims. If such are
presents, what must be their feelings, what re-
paration could they make to an offended God,
and to upright laws so violently outraged?—
Turn from their evil ways or that must be
their fate also.

Kelly, Keily, and Shea were then launched
into eternity; Histon and Mullane in about
half an hour after. They had all changed this
mortal scene before 4 o'clock, and after hanging
the usual time, their respective families were
permitted to take down the bodies, and to in-
dulge in their feelings, the exhibition of which
was truly affecting.

The bodies were then placed in cars, and the
cavalcade returned to Rathkeale, where they
stopped, leaving the cars, during the night,
near the sessions-house, under the care of a
military guard; and on Tuesday they were,
brought into this city, and interred in a place
called Croppies' Hole, at the back of the county
jail, with quick lime. The appearance of the
dead bodies on the cars had a dreadful effect
and was sufficient in itself to strike terror into
the minds of the country people as they passed
along the road.

John Muir, Printer, Glasgow.

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