[list-cumbria] Cumberland Pacquet - 53

[Steve Hayes]

On 24 Nov 2024 at 22:33, Nev Ramsden via list-cumbria wrote:

> The Communion of the Church of Rome, in Ireland, have published an
> Anathema against the White Boys.

I was curious about this, and this is what I found:

-----------------------
The original rebels: Ireland´s infamous Whiteboys
The Whiteboys were a secret Irish agrarian organization in 18th-century 
Ireland.

Holly Thomas @IrishCentral Oct 07, 2022

The Whiteboys, a secret Irish agrarian organization in 18th-century Ireland, 
took vigilante action to defend tenants´ land rights to subsistence farming.

The group earned the moniker `Whiteboys´ due to their custom of wearing white 
smocks during their nightly raids. Some Irish immigrants who settled in the 
rural United States carried their rebellious spirit with them across the 
Atlantic, as a result of which `Whiteboy´ became a generic term for `rebel´ 
outside the cities.

Back in Ireland, the Whiteboys were usually referred to at the time as 
Levellers by the authorities, and by themselves as "Queen Sive Oultagh's 
children", "fairies", "followers of Johanna Meskill" or "Sheila Meskill", all 
symbolic figures supposed to lead the movement.

The Whiteboys sought to address rack-rents, tithe collection, excessive 
priests' dues, evictions, and other oppressive acts by landowners. Landlords 
and tithe collectors were their primary targets. The `boys ran a slick 
operation, priding themselves on extensive forward planning and regular 
assemblies. Absolute loyalty was mandatory, and the Whiteboys were the first 
organization to invest the custom of swearing oaths with tremendous practical 
and symbolic importance.

Whiteboy activism saw its first peak in County Limerick in 1761, quickly 
spreading to Tipperary, Cork, and Waterford. Initially, activities focused 
only on specific grievances, and action was limited to leveling ditches that 
closed off common grazing land, and digging up ley lands and orchards.

As their numbers increased, so did the pace and severity of Whiteboy 
activity. Clandestine proclamations were posted under names like "Captain 
Moonlight", and the group sent threatening letters to debt collectors, 
landlords, and occupants of land gained from eviction, demanding that they 
give up their farms.

In 1762, the Whiteboys marched to "disaffected and treasonable tunes" about 
the countryside, entering towns at night to fire guns and taunt garrisoned 
troops. The boys posted notices announcing activities, and demanding that the 
townspeople illuminate their houses and provide their horses, ready saddled, 
for their use. More militant activities often followed such processions, such 
as attacks on unlit houses, and the forced release of prisoners from jail.
Read more

On 2 April 1761, a force of 50 militia men and 40 soldiers under the Marquis 
of Drogheda set out for Tallow and arrested eleven Levellers. Other raids 
took 17 Whiteboys in County Limerick and by late April, at least 150 
Whiteboys had been arrested.

Clogheen in County Tipperary bore the initial brunt of this assault as the 
local parish priest, Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, had earlier spoken out against 
tithes and collected funds for the defense of parishioners charged with 
rioting. An unknown number of "insurgents" were reported killed in the 
"pacification exercise" and Fr. Sheehy was unsuccessfully indicted for 
sedition several times before eventually being found guilty of a fabricated
charge of murder, and hanged, drawn and quartered in Clonmel in March 1766.

In the cities, suspected Whiteboy sympathizers were arrested, and in Cork, 
loyal citizens formed an association of about 2,000 strong which offered 
rewards for the capture of the chief Whiteboys and often accompanied the 
military on their rampages.

Though Whiteboy activism in Ireland was suppressed more effectively towards 
the end of the decade, their earlier activity served as a model for rebellion 
on an organizational scale never before seen in agrarian Ireland. Their use 
of the oath as a means of binding members, and their spirited objection to 
low wages and the conditions of the rural poor, saw their influence spread 
across the Atlantic, and their name adopted by rebellious groups across the 
US.

*This article was originally published in November 2015 as part of a previous 
partnership with FindMyPast. It was last updated in October 2022.

Source: 
<https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/genealogy/ireland-whiteboys>


-- 
Steve Hayes
E-mail: shayes at dunelm.org.uk, but if you use gmail, hayesstw at telkomsa.net
Blog: https://methodius.blogspot.com/
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Phone: 083-342-3563 or 012-333-6727
    Fax: 086-548-2525