Moyree girl informs on distillers,pays ultimate price (1819)

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Paddy Casey
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Moyree girl informs on distillers,pays ultimate price (1819)

Post by Paddy Casey » Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:11 pm

In the early 19th century, as in the Prohibition era in the 1930s, illicit distilling was big business conducted largely by small-time operators who were constantly involved in running battles with the Revenue Police. The administrative reports of the time are filled with detailed accounts of Revenue Police raids which list in each case the amounts of malt, singlings, potale and other evidence (e.g. stills, worms, mash barrels) confiscated.

The Times of Saturday May 23 1818 reports a barbarous murder of an alleged informer as follows: "For some time past the Excise officers in the district of Ennis in Ireland paid visits to the Commons of Moyree* where illicit distillation seemed to take its stand and bid defiance to law and civilisation. On a late occasion some bailiffs accosted in the following manner a Revenue officer and bailiff in that quarter: "We know who gives you information against our still and by God you shall never see Bridget Cullinan alive again". This declaration was not regarded with any seriousness because Bridget Cullinan was totally unknown to the officer. However it appears that a woman of that name resided in the above neighbourhood, whom these illicit adventurers suspected of having given information against them; and this marked victim of foul suspicion was most barbarously murdered on the night of Wednesday se'nnight, and was thrown into a well or pool, where her body was discovered the following morning. An inquest has been held on the body by Thomas Ievers, Esq., Coroner, when, after a full investigation of the dreadful circumstance, the Jury found - "that on the the night of the 13th inst. John Burns, Martin Burns, Thomas Roughan, Patrick Sullivan, James Sullivan, Michael O'Connor and J. Whelan, together with other persons unknown, broke into the house of John Hynes of Moyree and thereout dragged Bridget Cullinan, late of Moyree, whom they beat and abused in so savage a manner as to occasion her immediate death, and after her decease they conveyed her body to a pool of water, about 500 yards from Hyne's (sic) house, into which they threw it."

A subsequent account from The Morning Chronicle (London, England), Saturday, August 21, 1819 describes in gory detail (a) the fate of a girl who informed on illicit distillers in Moyrhee and (b) the fate of her murderers. The young girl was simply described here as "Biddy the informer" but is presumably the Bridget Cullinan named in the previous article. She was passing the house of John and James Sullivan where their companion John Burns was making whisky. Sullivan's mother called out "There goes Biddy the informer". With that her fate was sealed. As was, subsequently, that of two of her murderers. The report does not give the names of the two who were executed.

In those days hanging was a slow business and a form of public entertainment. As a deterrent the authorities liked to tar the corpses of the executed and hang them on a gibbet near the scene of the crime as a warning to the locals.

There was a sequel to all this. In the Irish Genealogy forum at http://irish.genealogyforum.eu/index.ph ... &start=45I I subsequently found the following entry from the The Connaught Journal, Galway, Thursday, May 6, 1824 with dateline Ennis, May 1 - "On Thursday morning last two men were brought into town by the police, charged with having on the night previous, with their faces blackened, forcibly searched several houses for one of the prosecutors of the Burns' at the last Assizes, one of whom was executed, and the other is still in our Gaol under sentence of death, for the murder of Bridget Cullinan, at Moyrhee, in the year 1818. They have been committed to prison". This suggests that two members of the Burns family were involved in her murder, one of whom was executed and the other, 6 years later, is still in gaol under sentence of death. On can only guess as to why the sentence of death had not yet been carried out on this latter person.

See also the list of indictments at the 1824 Lent Assizes (attached).

* Moyrhee Commons (variant spellings are Moyree, Myrhee, Moyree, Myree, Mweerhy, Morhee, Moirhee, Moorhey, Moyrhey, Mayree) is a townland just south of Shanballysallagh in the parish of Ruan. It is a rocky area of Burren limestone of limited agricultural use and was common land, i.e. anyone could put up a house and live there without having to pay rent to a landlord. The population was, according to contemporary accounts, very poor.
Attachments
Burns indictments 1824 for murder of Bridget Cullinan.jpg
Burns indictments 1824 for murder of Bridget Cullinan.jpg (164.55 KiB) Viewed 7104 times
Moyree illicit distillers hanged 1819.png
Moyree illicit distillers hanged 1819.png (93.28 KiB) Viewed 7277 times

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