16 October 1997 Edition
Remembering the Past: The most unfair trial
In the second of three articles, Aengus O'Snodaigh marks the 200th anniversary of the judicial murder of United Irish leader William Orr.
William Orr was married to Isabella Greer and was the father of five children (Isabella gave to birth to another daughter five months after his hanging). He was arrested when attempting to visit his sick father on 17 September 1797. He had been a marked man once Samuel Turner from Newry informed on him and once the Crown began to move against him.
Orr's crime was that he was said to have administered the United Irish oath to two English soldiers at a meeting on his farm in Farranshane in County Antrim in April 1796. Hugh Wheatley and John Lindsay were introduced to the secret meeting as sympathisers. Among those also present were Jack Gourlay (the Orrs' herdsman and whose barn it was); Dick Roy; Andy Parker; David MacQuillan; David Campbell and others. Dick Roy didn't trust the two soldiers and stayed concealed. Despite what later emerged at the trial it is said that they were sworn in, not by William Orr but by a William MacIvor.
This did not deter the two soldiers, obstensibly of the Fife Fencibles, and post haste they were knocking at the door of George MacCartney, local magistrate and vicar of Antrim. Their declarations were taken and sent to Dublin Castle where the decision to further proceed against Orr was a mere formality.
Divide and conquer is the tyrant's maxim - Unite and conquer is the patriot's creed.
William Sampson, William Orr's defence counsel
It later emerged that neither of the two `soldiers' were of the Fife Fencibles, but were agents in the pay of the authorities in Dublin Castle on an entrapment mission. It spoke volumes at Orr's trial that their supposed colonel, who was in Belfast at the time, or the several Fencible officers in court, were not called to vouch for their characters as was common in such trails.
After Orr was incarcerated in Carrickfergus for a year his trial date was chosen to reinforce General Lake's brutal campaign against a populace suspected of being sympathetic to the United Irishmen. The trial date was also chosen for a time when all the elements of the judicial conspiracy were in place.
The judges, Barry Yelverton (Lord Avonmore) and Tankerville Chamberlaine, were mere yes men in the game. Yelverton was chief baron of the Court of Exchequer and member of parliament for Carrickfergus. He was seeking higher office and did the government's bidding accordingly. Chamberlaine, one of the justices of the King's bench, was a backer of verdicts otherwise decided on.
The Attorney-General Arthur Wolfe (later Lord Kilwarden) was looking forward to a seat on the bench. He was considered to have been the adviser of most, if not all, of the repressive laws introduced into Ireland that year. In 1798 he was made Lord Chief Justice and later sought the Lord Chancellor's job in 1802. In 1803 Kilwarden, who was rushing to Dublin Castle with news of a rising, was dragged from his carriage and stabbed to death in the one incident of note during Robert Emmet's failed rising.
The solicitor-general in the case was John Toler, later Lord Norbury the `Hanging Judge'. In one assize (court session) he is said to have hanged 197 out of 198 men who'd come up in front of him. The one who survived was a yeoman who killed a rebel.
In 1798 he prosecuted as attorney-general John and Henry Sheares. He said of the `Walking Gallows' Lieutenant Hampenstall of the Wicklow Militia that ``he had done no act which was not natural to a zealous, loyal, and efficient officer'' when finding him not guilty of literally hanging a suspect over his shoulders. It was he who sentenced Robert Emmet to his doom in 1803.
One of the main cogs in the case was the sherrif, Chichester Skeffington, afterwards Lord Massereene. It was he who arranged the jury which tried Orr, and it was under his personal supervision that the execution was carried out. He was paymaster for the informer named Newell, who was paid the vast sum in those days of £22.15s on 2 February 1798.
While Orr had gathered together what appeared to be a formidable defence team, with the United Irish counsels John Philpot and William Sampon, his attorney who instructed counsel was a pious Catholic from Belfast, James MacGucken. McGucken also happened to be `managed' by the crown solicitor John Pollack who paid him hundreds of pounds for services rendered. It was Pollack who was paymaster after the case for the `Fencibles' Wheatley and Lindsay, who received for their troubles over £175 and £120 respectively.
As one Protestant clergyman put it after the `trial': ``In the ordinary system of espionage, which formed a leading feature in the administration of the day, no means were too vile, no intrigues too low, no teaching or deception too base for some of the highest official characters to stoop to; nor was it considered incompatible with the public duties of these officers of the State to intrigue with the lower and most abandoned of society.''
Orr's counsel John Philpot Curran had this to say:
``Informers are worshipped in the temple of justice, even as the devil has been worshipped by pagans and savages, even so in this wicked country is the informer an object of judicial idolatry; even so is he soothed by the music of human groans; even so is he placated and incensed by the fumes and by the blood of human sacrifice.''
Next week: Orr is tried and executed
William Orr was married to Isabella Greer and was the father of five children (Isabella gave to birth to another daughter five months after his hanging). He was arrested when attempting to visit his sick father on 17 September 1797. He had been a marked man once Samuel Turner from Newry informed on him and once the Crown began to move against him.
Orr's crime was that he was said to have administered the United Irish oath to two English soldiers at a meeting on his farm in Farranshane in County Antrim in April 1796. Hugh Wheatley and John Lindsay were introduced to the secret meeting as sympathisers. Among those also present were Jack Gourlay (the Orrs' herdsman and whose barn it was); Dick Roy; Andy Parker; David MacQuillan; David Campbell and others. Dick Roy didn't trust the two soldiers and stayed concealed. Despite what later emerged at the trial it is said that they were sworn in, not by William Orr but by a William MacIvor.
This did not deter the two soldiers, obstensibly of the Fife Fencibles, and post haste they were knocking at the door of George MacCartney, local magistrate and vicar of Antrim. Their declarations were taken and sent to Dublin Castle where the decision to further proceed against Orr was a mere formality.
Divide and conquer is the tyrant's maxim - Unite and conquer is the patriot's creed.
William Sampson, William Orr's defence counsel
It later emerged that neither of the two `soldiers' were of the Fife Fencibles, but were agents in the pay of the authorities in Dublin Castle on an entrapment mission. It spoke volumes at Orr's trial that their supposed colonel, who was in Belfast at the time, or the several Fencible officers in court, were not called to vouch for their characters as was common in such trails.
After Orr was incarcerated in Carrickfergus for a year his trial date was chosen to reinforce General Lake's brutal campaign against a populace suspected of being sympathetic to the United Irishmen. The trial date was also chosen for a time when all the elements of the judicial conspiracy were in place.
The judges, Barry Yelverton (Lord Avonmore) and Tankerville Chamberlaine, were mere yes men in the game. Yelverton was chief baron of the Court of Exchequer and member of parliament for Carrickfergus. He was seeking higher office and did the government's bidding accordingly. Chamberlaine, one of the justices of the King's bench, was a backer of verdicts otherwise decided on.
The Attorney-General Arthur Wolfe (later Lord Kilwarden) was looking forward to a seat on the bench. He was considered to have been the adviser of most, if not all, of the repressive laws introduced into Ireland that year. In 1798 he was made Lord Chief Justice and later sought the Lord Chancellor's job in 1802. In 1803 Kilwarden, who was rushing to Dublin Castle with news of a rising, was dragged from his carriage and stabbed to death in the one incident of note during Robert Emmet's failed rising.
The solicitor-general in the case was John Toler, later Lord Norbury the `Hanging Judge'. In one assize (court session) he is said to have hanged 197 out of 198 men who'd come up in front of him. The one who survived was a yeoman who killed a rebel.
In 1798 he prosecuted as attorney-general John and Henry Sheares. He said of the `Walking Gallows' Lieutenant Hampenstall of the Wicklow Militia that ``he had done no act which was not natural to a zealous, loyal, and efficient officer'' when finding him not guilty of literally hanging a suspect over his shoulders. It was he who sentenced Robert Emmet to his doom in 1803.
One of the main cogs in the case was the sherrif, Chichester Skeffington, afterwards Lord Massereene. It was he who arranged the jury which tried Orr, and it was under his personal supervision that the execution was carried out. He was paymaster for the informer named Newell, who was paid the vast sum in those days of £22.15s on 2 February 1798.
While Orr had gathered together what appeared to be a formidable defence team, with the United Irish counsels John Philpot and William Sampon, his attorney who instructed counsel was a pious Catholic from Belfast, James MacGucken. McGucken also happened to be `managed' by the crown solicitor John Pollack who paid him hundreds of pounds for services rendered. It was Pollack who was paymaster after the case for the `Fencibles' Wheatley and Lindsay, who received for their troubles over £175 and £120 respectively.
As one Protestant clergyman put it after the `trial': ``In the ordinary system of espionage, which formed a leading feature in the administration of the day, no means were too vile, no intrigues too low, no teaching or deception too base for some of the highest official characters to stoop to; nor was it considered incompatible with the public duties of these officers of the State to intrigue with the lower and most abandoned of society.''
Orr's counsel John Philpot Curran had this to say:
``Informers are worshipped in the temple of justice, even as the devil has been worshipped by pagans and savages, even so in this wicked country is the informer an object of judicial idolatry; even so is he soothed by the music of human groans; even so is he placated and incensed by the fumes and by the blood of human sacrifice.''
Next week: Orr is tried and executed