The smutty and libellous doggerel quoted below, and widely published at the time, demonstrates the extent to which the ‘establishment’ would go in 1832 to blacken the emerging Catholic political class.
John McCullagh
1830s Catholic electors
The list of names of Catholic Newry electors (2/2) of 1832 reproduced here is more interesting in a variety of ways to us 180 years later, than was its original intent (which was to intimidate Catholic electors who had failed to vote for the Catholic Dennis Maguire).
Newry Elections 1830s
The following list of names of allegedly recalcitrant Catholic electors of the Borough of Newry in the 1832 election to Parliament (Imperial) was printed and produced to punish, by intimidation, those who had failed to wrest the seat from the agents of the landlord, the Earl of Downshire.
Rebellion begins : Henry Joy
Henry Joy McCracken’s political activities alarmed the authorities and they concluded that he was one of the more dangerous of the United Irishmen conspirators.
T’as outwits the donkey … and Junk!
The traffic was stopped in every direction, waiting for us .. or for the donkey. Everybody came up with ideas or gave a hand. Would that donkey put a foot on the wooden bridge? No. It was like Delaney’s donkey in that song.
T’as Murphy and the donkey
One of the town’s great characters, T’as Murphy of Dromalane has agreed to share a few reminiscences on Journal with us. We are honoured.
Henry Joy : 3
Henry Joy McCracken was – like most of his family – a textiles manufacturer by profession. He ought to have succeeded, specialising in cotton, but his radical political outlook led to his neglect of his business, and Joy, Holmes & McCracken went to the wall.
Flu of 1918
In the Old Chapel graveyard there is a family plot belonging to the O’Hare family. It is close to the spot where my wife’s family is interred. When we would go to visit that grave…
