What happened to Judith Lynch in 1818 ?

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Paddy Casey
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What happened to Judith Lynch in 1818 ?

Post by Paddy Casey » Sun Nov 26, 2017 1:24 pm

In http://www.csorp.nationalarchives.ie (ref. CSO/RP/1818/440, Case of Judith Lynch, who was allegedly forced to board an emigrant ship at Kilrush, County Clare, by magistrate Lieutenant William Burroughs) we read "File relating to investigation of case of Judith Lynch, who was allegedly taken without consent and placed on board the ‘Harp’ emigrant ship, at Kilrush, County Clare, by magistrate Lieutenant William Burroughs. Documentation includes letters relating to inquiry, statements, affidavits, and ship muster rolls; minutes of proceedings and of deposition taken before Major Warburton, chief magistrate of police, County Clare, and Thomas Worthington, surveyor general of customs; includes letter from anonymous writer styled ‘An Enemy to Oppression, and the feeble but zealous Advocate of the oppressed’, the Limerick Chronicle, to the Lord Lieutenant, protesting against forcible removal of Lynch and complaining that perpetrators used a ‘fictitious Summons’ in order to arrange transportation to America for protection of a married man, O’Brien, whom, it is alleged she had intercourse with [late 1818]; letter from Burroughs, Kilrush, to Warburton, stating ‘it is necessary for me to observe to you that my reason for giving Lynchy [sic] money to drop proceedings against me, was not from the dread of a Prosecution, but purely from the heavy expenses which I must have incurred without any prospect or possibility of recovering them’,1 December 1818; and copy letter from William H Gregory, Under Secretary of Ireland, Dublin Castle, to Major Warburton, advising a visit be paid to vessel and if any criminal conduct towards Lynch can be ascertained ‘you have a right to set her at liberty by force and to take the parties quietly into Custody’, 31 August 1818."

I loved the bit about taking the parties quietly into Custody. Nowadays we call that making people disappear.

Paddy

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