The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-30 00:00:00

It was to those three counties which he had named
only that his observation would apply. He regretted
to say that the peaceable inhabitants of the neigh-
bouring county of Fermanagh had been threatened
with similar outrages to those which had taken
pl ice in those counties to which he had referred.
It was about the middle of the month of September
last that these crimes assumed their present type.
They were, for the most part, directed not against
the landlords as a class, but they were directed in
almost all the cases against the class of landowners,
some of whom were possessed of only small portions
of property, and the crimes generally arose out of
motives of revenge, in consequence of circum-
stances in connexion with the possession of land.
The first case to which he would allude was one that
occurred on the 16th of September last : that was, the
else of a small farmer, where the party was shot dead
while attaching a rope to a hay stack, and the
only reason for it was, that there having been a dis-
tress on the estate of which he was tenant, the
landlord had returned some of his property to the man.
There was a man employed on the same field who was
not supposed to be a party to the murder ; the
murderer was well known, but he would not
mention names, and he had not yet been
tried for that and several other murders
he had, it was supposed, committed,
but such was the height to which intimidation was
carried, that the man in the field denied all know-
ledge of the murder, and declared that he had never
beard the firing of a shot. This was no case of sym-
pathy with the assassin, but it showed the difficulty
that existed in obtaining evidence of these murders
in consequence of the great extent to which
intimidation was carried.—(Hear, hear.) The next
case to which he would allude was that of Michael
Kelly, which occurred on the 17th of September. A
loaded pistol was discharged at him, which wounded
him in the back, and the inference was that the same
party committed the crime who had murdered the
individual in the last case to which he
had alluded. In that instance Kelly had
taken the farm of which the party charged with the
offence had been dispossessed. On the 23d of Sep-
tember John Kelly, a brother of Michael Kelly, was,
in the presence of his family, shot through the heart,
and seven bullets were left in his body. This was
one of the most awful of the cases to which
he had to allude, and was a disgrace to
the country in which it took place. Why
was it, he would ask, that such crime 3 as these took
place with such impunity ? Because it was well
Itnown that such was the extent to which intitnida-
ti(in was carried that no one would interfere except
the police.—(Hear.) That would account for the
fearful crimes that took place in those parts
of Ireland to which he adverted. He thanked
God that such a state of things did not
exist in this country ; in England and \Vales, when
crimes were committed, the people did not wait for
the interference of the police, but went in search of
the offender themselves.—(" Hear, hear," from Dr.
Bowring.) His Hon. Friend the Member for Bolton
cheered him in that statement. Why, it was only
the other day that the Honourable Member and
his brother were robbed by two of their own
workmen in Wales of a large sum of money,
in the true Irish fashion, or rather, he should say, in
the fashion in which these things were conducted in
Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary. They gave up the
money ; they were threatened to be shot immediately
if they did not ; there was no resisting such an appeal.
One of the men, on getting the money, pulled
out his pistol, and shot the horse that was in
the gig dead, in order to prevent pursuit.
The Hon. Member for Bolt( n however, went to a
house near at hand, got another horse, rode to the works,
and immediately gave information of what had taken
place, and what was the result ? Not such as would have
taken place in Tipperary, Clare, and Limerick, but
the whole inhabitants of the district, and all the
workmen at the works, went out in search of
the robbers and soon secured them. He wished
he could see the same spirit existing in Ireland,
and one object of the measure he was about
to propose was to promote the growth of
such a spirit, and to teach all the inhabitants
of that country that it was their duty
to assist those who were bringing guilty
persons to justice, and to render the refusal to do so
criminal on the part of the persons refusing.—(Hear.)
He would next draw the attention of the House to
another case : he held in his hand the report of the
subeinspectot of police respecting the murder of Mr.
Roe. That murder was committed on the 4d October
—committed in the broad daylight, at eleven o'clock
in the forenoon. 'This murder was not committed in
a desolate place. There were houses within gun-
shot of the place of the assassination. Mr. Roe was
on the high road, walking from his own residence to
the residence of his agent, when he was shot dead, and
the assassin was not discovered in consequence of the
shelter afforded by the persons residing in the neigh-
bourhood. The murderer had been protected by the
population of the district, who ought, for their own
sakes, to have delivered him up to justice. The
person who was supposed to have murdered
Mr. Roe had held about six acres of land under
him, for which he hal paid no rent for
upwards of six years. He had been asked to bring
only one year's rent, which he had refused to do, and
he had set the landlord at defiance, who had
served him with an ejectment, and had been in
consequence shot dead by this man, who was
five or six years' rent in arrears.—(dear, hear.)
In the county of Limerick, on the 4th October, James
M'Emreny was murdered. In Tipperary, on the
10th October, a man, Hanley, a steward of Mrs. Ot-
way Cave, was shot. In Limerick, on the 11th Oc-
tober, Peter Nash was fired at as he was passing
along the high road, and killed. He next came to the
murder ofMr. Lucas, which had been perpetrated in the
King's county, on the 18th October ; he had .been
fired at as he was walking on the high road accom-
panied by a policeman as a guard, and had been mor-
tally wounded by slugs. The shot had been fired
from a plantation, and although the policeman had
proceeded to the station-house close at hand, and the
police had turned out within half a minute of
time when the shot had been fired, yet the murderer
has escaped. This gentleman had ejected fourteen
tenants. In Clare a person named Reid had been
fired at, and had been wounded in the head. On the
2-Ith of October, in Tipperary, Patrick Ryan had been
shot dead. On the 30th Oct., in Clare, Miehael Walsh
had been shot dead. In the same county a man,
named O'Callaghan, had been fired at and killed in
the high road, and money, to the amount of
171., had been taken from his person by the
murderer, who had never been discovered.
He now came to the case of Major Mahon,
who had been murdered in the county of Roscommon.
This was the only case, with one exception, which
had happened in the county of Roscommon, but he
regretted to say that, owing to the perpetration of
this crime, and to the state of the adjoining counties,
such was the terror existing in the county, that no
person possessing property felt that his life
was safe. (The Right Honourable Gentleman
then proceeded at some length to detail the cir-
cumstances attending the murder of Major Mahon.)
There were no circumstances which could in the
slightest degree extenuate the crime of murdering
Major Mahon, and he would not therefore allude to
certain documents which he had received from the
friends of the deceased gentleman farther than to state
that no later than last spring he spent no less a sum
than 6,0001. in enabling many; of bis-unfortunate tenants
to emigrate to America. The vessel which he fitted
up for that purpose was unfortunately lost during the
heavy storms of October, and to this circumstance it
would seem was to be attributed the foul and bar-
barous murder of Major Mahon.—(Hear, hear.)
He would not insult the understanding of the
House by reading to them documents, to prove
that the parties who had the charge of fitting up
this vessel were in no way negligent in the perform-
ance of their duty, and he should therefore reserve these
papers till it became necessary to resort to them for
the purpose of replying to any statements that
might be made in the course of discussion, with the
view of tracing the cause of the murder. The
next case he came to was that of Mr. Keely, of
the county of Limerick, whose house was at-
tacked on the 4th of November last, and serious
injuries inflicted on several of his friends ; but it did
nut appear that the culprits were desirous of commit-
ting murder, but only of possessing themselves
of the arms they might find upon the premises.
The next was the case of a person named Darcey,
whose house was entered, and who, with a person
named Mead, made a gallant defence against their
assailants. They were obliged to surrender, but not,
however, before one of them had been thrown on the
floor, his body covered with a coat, and his body
dreadfully beaten. Two guns had been levelled at
them, but they both missed fire, and the inference
was, that they had been rendered unwork-
able on purpose. One had his skull frac-
tured, his thighs beaten, and he was dangerously ill.
The object of the party was the robbery of arms. This
extract showed the state of that society in which
armed men went about for such a purpose. The
next was the case of a person named George
Garby, wbo had been fired at on a former
occasion, because he had assisted in obtaining
the arrest of some person. He was a magistrate, and
was returning from the Mullingar Sessions about
3 p.M. on the day in question, with a constable
named Dobin, and a police-constable. The con-
stable, who was in advance on the public
road, observed two men in a ditch. He challenged
them and was fired at, the shots lodging in his
breast, shoulders, and thighs. His jacket was per-
orated with shot, and he was lying dangerously
i. Then a person named Smith was shot
at in Limerick by three men, who supposed
he had done them some injury. They were arrested
on the 6th, and he died on the 21st. On the 7th of
April a man named Daniel Harvey was shot at; he
died on the 9th—none of the party are known. '