Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-sq2k7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-01T15:23:15.926Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Whiteboy movement, 1761-5*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2017

James S. Donnelly Jr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The great tradition of the Buachailli Bána in the south of Ireland had its small beginnings on the Tipperary side of the Knockmealdown mountains during the closing months of 1761. ‘ Their first rise was in October last,’ a Youghal gentleman told his son in London in April 1762, ‘ and they have ever since been increasing;… they always assembled in the night with their shirts over their clothes, which caused them to be called Whiteboys. ’ The exactions of tithe-farmers and the enclosure of commonage sparked the initial oath-bound combination in the district between Clogheen and Ballyporeen. A recently installed tithe-farmer named Dobbyn, who kept an inn at Ballyporeen, issued the novel demand that local catholic couples pay him a fee of 5s. when they married before a priest. Among those who vehemently denounced this new tax was Fr Nicholas Sheehy, the outspoken, socially committed young parish priest of Shanrahan; Fr Sheehy had already attracted the disapproving notice of local protestant ministers and magistrates by opposing the collection of church rates when he was stationed in the parish of Newcastle, and by proclaiming the excommunication of the inhabitants of the town of Mitchelstown and the parish of Brigown Fant, who was later convicted of riot and trespass and sentenced to a fine of £50 and two years in prison, seemed a rather pathetic and improbable leader of an agrarian movement. But the action of the crowd he had harangued at Kilmallock proved contagious. From there the disturbances spread northwards to the districts of Bruff, Hospital, and Caherconlish. Bodies of Levellers, collected by the blowing of horns, mobilised ‘ in great numbers ’ and fired guns as they marched along in their white shirts, ‘ demolishing in the night time the fences of the inclosures ’ of many persons and ‘ swearing fidelity to each other and secrecy ’.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 81 , March 1978 , pp. 20 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Samuel Clark, David Dickson, James S. Donnelly Sr, K. Theodore Hoppen, Fr Patrick O'Donoghue, and Paul Roberts, who read this article in typescript, called my attention to errors and omissions, and made valuable suggestions for revision. For their generosity in allowing me to consult manuscripts in their possession, or to quote from documents in copyright, I wish to thank G. H. Boyle, Esq.; Earl. Fitzwilliam and his trustees; the Director of the National Library of Ireland; the Deputy Keeper of the Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; the Director of the Sheffield City Libraries; and the Head of the Department of Irish Folklore, University College, Dublin.

References

1 For a brief but insightful account, see Wall, Maureen, ‘ The Whiteboys ’ in Williams, T. D. (ed.), Secret societies in Ireland (Dublin and New York, 1973), pp 13–19 Google Scholar.

2 Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182 (hereafter cited as G.M.H.C.).

3 Madden, , United Irishmen, (2nd ed., Dublin, 1858), i, 34 Google Scholar; Burke, W. P., History of Clonmel (Waterford, 1907), p. 368 Google Scholar.

4 Burke, Clonmel, pp 368, 402 n.; John Brady, Catholics and Catholicism in the eighteenth-century press (Maynooth, 1965), pp 94–5 (hereafter cited as Catholics).

5 Quoted in Burke, Clonmel, pp 368–9. This intimidation was ineffective, for one of the Rosses was burned in effigy at Ballyporeen in June for having successfully prosecuted a Leveller named Owen O'Callaghan (Faulkner's Dublin Journal, 3–6 July 1762 [hereafter cited as F.D.J.])

6 Edmund Burke, unfinished paper, n.d. (Sheffield Central Library, England, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Burke MS 8/1–3); Correspondence of the right honourable Edmund Burke between the year 1744 and the period of his decease in 1797, ed. Earl Fitzwilliam and Sir Richard Bourke (London, 1844), i, 44-5.

7 William Fant to [earl of Halifax], 18 Oct. 1761 (Sheffield Central Library, England, Burke MS 8/13, 1–3).

8 F.D.J., 5–8 June 1762.

9 F.D.J., 10–13, 13–17 Apr., 11–15 May 1762. See also Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 8 Apr. 1762 (P.R.O.N.I., Carbery papers, B/3/14).

10 Gentleman's and London Magazine, or Monthly Chronologer, xxxi (June 1762), 369–70 (hereafter cited as G.L.M.). This periodical is sometimes cited as Exshaw's Magazine, after its Dublin printer, John Exshaw.

11 G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436.

12 Ibid.; F.D.J., 10–13 Apr., 22–26 June 1762; Burke, Clonmel, p. 365.

13 G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182. See also F.D.J., 23–27 Mar. 1762.

14 G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182. See also G.L.M., xxxi (Mar. 1762), 191.

15 F.D.J., 23–27 Mar., 29 May–1 June 1762; G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182–3; G.L.M., xxxi (May 1762), 308; (July 1762), 436.

16 Quoted in Lecky, Ire., ii, 23.

17 F.D.J., 6–10, 17–20 Apr., 10–15, 25–29 May 1762.

18 Quoted in Lecky, Ire., ii, 22.

19 F.D.J., 12–15, 19–22 June 1762, 5–9 Mar. 1765; G.L.M., xxx (June 1762), 370.

20 F.D.J., 29 June-3 July 1762.

21 F.D.J., 20–24 Apr., 27 Apr.-i May 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June, 1762), 370.

22 F.D.J., 25–29 May 1762.

23 F.D.J., 11–15 May 1762.

24 See below, pp 44–51.

25 Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 24 Apr., 8 May 1762 (P.R.O.N.I., Carbery papers, B/3/15, 17);F.D.J., 3–6 July, 14–17 Aug. 1762.

26 F.D.J., 5–8, 12–15, 22–26 Mar., 16–19 Apr. 1763; G.L.M., xxxii (Mar. 1763), 231; Burke, Clonmel, p. 364.

27 F.D.J., 9–12 Apr. 1763, 23–26 June, 1–4 Sept. 1764, 2–5 Mar., 6–9 Apr. 1765; G.L.M., xxxiv (Aug. 1764), 523; xxxv (Apr. 1765), 254.

28 F.D.J. , 8–12, 12–15 Mar. 1763.

29 F.D.J., 9–13, 16–20 Oct., 6–10, 10–13 Nov. 1764, 29 Oct.-2 Nov., 5–9 Nov. 1765.

30 F.D.J., 6–9 Apr., 29 Oct.-2 Nov., 19–23 Nov. 1765; G.L.M., xxxv (Mar. 1765), 191.

31 F.D.J., 29 June-3 July, 3–6, 6–10 July 1762, 9–13 Oct. 1764, 5–9 Nov. 1765.

32 Burke, Clonmel p. 400.

33 Wesley, John, The works of the Rev. J. Wesley (London, 1872), iii, 96 Google Scholar; F.D.J., 5–8 Mar. 1763.

34 F.D.J., 29 Mar.-2 Apr. 1763. See also G.L.M., xxxii (Mar. 1763), 232; (Apr. 1763), 238.

35 F.D.J., 22–26 Nov. 1763.

36 Cork Evening Post, 19 Sept. 1763 (hereafter cited as C.E.P.); F.D.J., 20–24 Sept., 29 Oct.-1 Nov., 5–8, 22–26 Nov. 1763; 6–9 Apr., 1–5, 5–8, 15–19 Oct. 1765.

37 Wesley, Works, iii, 97.

38 F.D.J., 16–19 Apr. 1763.

39 G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436; An alarm to the unprejudiced and wellminded protestants of Ireland, or seasonable queries upon the rise, danger, and tendency of the Whiteboys (Cork, 1762), appendix (hereafter cited as Alarm).

40 F.D.J., 6–10 Apr. 1762. See also G.L.M., xxxi (Apr. 1762), 240.

41 Corkery, Daniel, The hidden Ireland: a study of Gaelic Munster in the eighteenth century (Gill and Macmillan edn., Dublin, 1967), pp 126-42Google Scholar; Zimmermann, Georges-Denis, Songs of Irish rebellion: political street ballads and rebel songs, 1780–1900 (Dublin, 1967), pp 53-6Google Scholar.

42 G.L.M.,xxxi (July 1762), 436.

43 Quoted in Lecky, Ire., ii, 27–8, n. 1.

44 Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 25 Mar. 1762 (P.R.O.N.I., Carbery papers, B/3/12); F.D.J., 1–4 Sept. 1764.

45 F.D.J., 16–20 Mar. 1762, 4–7 May 1765.

46 Finn's Leinster Journal, 26–29 Apr., 28 Oct.-1 Nov., 25–29 Nov. 1775, 23–27, 27–30 Mar. 1776.

47 Thomas Rafter, a Whiteboy captain committed to the gaol of Clonmel in May 1773, bore the alias of Shevane Meskill (Finn's Leinster Journal, 8–12 May 1773). And the writer of a threatening notice in County Kildare in the early 1830s signed himself ‘ a son to that poor old woman called Terry's mother ’ (G. G. Lewis, On local disturbances in Ireland, and on the Irish church question [London, 1836], p . 221).

48 G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182.

49 Ibid.; Wesley, Works, iii, 96; F.D.J., 1–4 Sept. 1764.

50 The Levellers were scarcely the first to assume this dress; it had been worn by the so-called Houghers of Connacht between 1711 and 1713 (Lecky, Ire., i, 363) and was frequently the garb of nocturnal Irish bandits before as well as after the early 1760s.

51 G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 372.

52 Copy of unsigned letter, n.d., but ca. Apr. 1766 (Sheffield Central Library, England, Burke MS 8/9, 2). See also Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 8 Mar. 1762 (P.R.O.N.I., Carbery papers, B/3/9).

53 G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 372.

54 Belfast News-Letter, 30 Nov., 21 Dec. 1756, 18 Feb., 5 Apr., 6 May, 14 June, 26 Aug., 13, 20 Sept. 1757 (hereafter cited as B.N.L.); L. M. Gullen, An economic history of Ireland since 1660 (London, 1972), pp 68–9.

55 B.N.L., 20 Sept. 1757, 29 July, 8 Aug. 1760, 30 June 1761; F.D.J., 3–7 Aug. 1762.

56 C.E.P., 4 Aug. 1763; F.D.J., 2–6, 20–23 Aug. 1763, 4–7 Feb., 3–7 July, 8–11 Sept. 1764.

57 G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182; Burke, Correspondence) i, 39.

58 John, A. H., ‘ Agricultural productivity and economic growth in England, 1700–1760 (with a postscript) ’ in Jones, E. L. (ed.), Agriculture and economic growth in England, 1650–1815 (London, 1967) p. 188 Google Scholar.

59 31 Geo. 2, c.28; O'Donovan, Econ. hist., pp 109–10; Cullen, Econ. hist., p. 59.

60 O'Donovan, Econ. hist., pp 111–12.

61 B.N.L., 12 June 1761.

62 Customs 15/60–8 (P.R.O.).

63 Ibid.

64 Cullen, Anglo-Ir. trade, pp 217–18.

65 F.D.J., 20–24 July 1762. See also B.N.L., 13 July 1756.

66 F.D.J., 19–23 July 1763.

67 Arthur Young's tour in Ireland (1776–1779), ed. A. W. Hutton (London, 1892), ii, 106; Cullen, Anglo-Ir. trade, p. 55.

68 Customs 15/64–9 (P.R.O.).

69 Finn's Leinster Journal, 2–5 Mar. 1774.

70 [John Curry], A candid enquiry into the causes and motives of the late riots in the province of Munster, together with a brief narrative of the proceedings. against these rioters, anno 1766, in a letter to a noble lord in England (2nd ed., London, 1766), pp 4–5; Bush, John, Hibernia curiosa: a letter from a gentleman in Dublin to his friend at Dover in Kent, giving a general view of the manners, customs, dispositions, etc. of the inhabitants of Ireland (London, 1769), pp 136-8Google Scholar; Young, Tour, i, 82; Crawford, William, A history of Ireland from the earliest period to the present time, in a series of letters addressed to William Hamilton, Esq. (Strabane, 1783), ii, 317 Google Scholar; Griffith, Amyas, Miscellaneous tracts (Dublin, 1788), pp 240-1Google Scholar.

71 For cases of the razing of dwellings, see F.D.J., 12–15, 26–29 June, 3–6 July 1762, 22–26 Nov. 1763, 24–28 Sept., 29 Oct.-2 Nov., 5–9 Nov. 1765.

72 F.D.J., 11–15 May, 29 May-1 June 1762, 12–15 Mar., 31 May-4 June 1763; G.L.M., xxxi (May 1762), 308.

73 F.D.J., 23–27 Mar. 1762, 15–19 Oct. 1765; G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 182; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 371.

74 F.D.J., 16–20 Mar., 13–17 Apr. 1762, 22–26 Mar. 1763; G.L.M., xxxv (Apr. 1765), 254; J. White, ‘ The annals of the city and diocese of Limerick ’, n.d. (N.L.I. MS 2714, p. 177, photostat).

75 F.D.J., 6–9 Apr. 1765. See also G.L.M., xxxv (Apr. 1765), 254.

76 An enquiry into the causes of the outrages committed by the Levellers or Whiteboys of Munster (Dublin, 1762) (hereafter cited as Enquiry).

77 Copy of unsigned letter, n.d., but ca. Apr. 1766 (Sheffield Central Library, England, Burke MS 8/9, 2). Similarly, the County Limerick land agent Jeremiah Jackson told his employer Lord Carbery in 1762: the Whiteboys ‘ have dispersed several letters declaring their intention is only to relieve the poor and to oblige the oppressors of them to let them have land at a reasonable value to plant potatoes for the support of their families. The value they set seems very fair and sufficient… . It is a bad way of redressing grievances, but there seems to be a real necessity for it, and if they go no further than their declarations, few will condemn them ’ (Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 25 Mar. 1762, P.R.O.N.I., Garbery papers, B/3/12).

78 ‘ The true and genuine speech and last declaration of James Buxton … ’, 2 May 1766 (Sheffield Central Library, England, Burke MS 8/7, 2, copy). In a somewhat different version of his dying declaration Buxton was understood to have said that the Whiteboys had pledged ‘ not to deal in tithe with any but the dean or minister, and that the tithe was of his or their immediate living’ (quoted in Griffith, Miscellaneous tracts, pp 256–7).

79 Quoted in Burke, Clonmel, p . 364.

80 Quoted ibid., p. 365.

81 F.D.J., 1–5, 5–8 Oct. 1765. See also F.D.J., 29 Oct.-2 Nov. 1765; G.L.M.S xxxv (Nov. 1765), 703.

82 C.E.P., 25 July 1763; F.D.J., 1–5, 5–8 Oct., 29 Oct.-2 Nov. 1765; Sir James Caldwell, Debates relative to the affairs of Ireland in the years 1763 and 1764, taken by a military officer (London, 1766), i, 78.

83 G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436. See also Alarm, appendix.

84 Bush, Hibernia curiosa3 pp 135, 137.

85 F.D.J., 1–4 Sept. 1764. See also G.L.M., xxxiv (Aug. 1764), 523.

86 F.D.J., 29 Oct.-1 Nov. 1763.

87 Enquiry.

88 F.D.J., 4–7 May 1765.

89 Viscount Taaffe, Observations on affairs in Ireland from the settlement in 1961 to the present time (3rd ed., Dublin, 1767), p. 19 (hereafter cited as Observations).

90 Young, Tour, ii, 55.

91 J. White., ‘ The annals of the city and diocese of Limerick ’, n.d. (N.L.I. MS 2714, p. 184).

92 Copy of unsigned letter, n.d., but ca. Apr. 1766 (Sheffield Central Library, England, Burke MSS 8/9, 1–2).

93 F.D.J., 3–6, 6–10, 10–13 Apr- 1762; G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 183.

94 F.D.J., 20–24 Apr., 27 Apr.-1 May, 12–15 June 1762.

95 G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 183.

96 F.D.J., 6–10, 10–13, 13–17, 17–20 Apr. 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (Apr. 1762), 240; G.M.H.C., xxxii (Apr. 1762), 183.

97 F.D.J., 24–27 Sept. 1763; William Tighe, Statistical observations relative to the county of Kilkenny made in the years 1800 and 1801 (Dublin, 1802), p. 539. For an interesting illustration of farmers with sons working as journeymen or apprentice weavers on t h e earl of Abercorn's estate in Ulster, see J . H. Gebbie, An introduction to the Abercorn letters (as relating to Ireland, 1736–1816) (Omagh, 1972), p. 67.

98 F.D.J., 17–21 Jan., 13–17 Mar., 29 May-2 June 1764; Young, Tour, i, 402. For other journeymen's combinations and riots, see F.D.J., 13–16 Aug., 18–22 Oct. 1763, 2–5 Nov. 1765, 25–28 Oct. 1766.

99 Folder marked ‘ Gaelic poetry ’ (Department of Irish Folklore Library, U.C.D., Prim MSS, box 4).

100 See, e.g., F.D.J., 16 July 1795, 4 Aug. 1796, 22 Apr. 1797; S.P.O.I., Rebellion papers, 620/22/27; S.P.O.I., State of the country papers, 1797/216.

101 F.D. J., 31 May-4 June, 25–28 June 1763; G.L.M., xxxii (May 1763), 307

102 Burke, Clonmel, pp 365–405.

103 F.D.J., 12–15, 22–26 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 370–1.

104 Alarm, p. 17.

105 Ibid., p. 18.

106 G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436.

107 Young, Tour, i, 397–9, 458–9, 462–3. At the height of the Whiteboy outbreak in the spring of 1762 the seneschal of the manors on Lord Kingston's estate around Mitchelstown, great tracts of which were held in partnership, summoned ‘ all the tenants of every degree ’ to take an oath of allegiance to George III (F.D.J., 15–18 May 1762).

108 J . White, ‘ The annals of the city and diocese of Limerick ’, n.d. (N.L.I. MS 2714, pp 177, 184).

109 F.D.J., 5–8, 22–26 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 369–70; Cork Hibernian Chronicle, 23 Jan. 1786.

110 Alarm, pp 5, 7. See also Calendar of Home Office papers of the reign of George III, 1760 (25 Oct.)-1765, ed. Joseph Redington (London, 1878), pp 173, 175 (hereafter cited as Cal. H.O. papers).

111 See below, pp 44–5

112 Caldwell, Debates, ii, 653–62.

113 F.D.J., 16–20 Oct. 1764.

114 F.D.J., 6–10 Apr. 1762.

115 F.D.J., 16–19 Apr. 1763.

116 F.D.J., 20–24 Apr., 27 Apr.-1 May 1762, 9–12 Apr. 1763.

117 F.D.J., 10–13, 20–24 Apr., 22–26, 26–29 June 1762.

118 Quoted in Burke, Clonmel, p. 365.

119 F.D.J., 30 Mar.-2 Apr. 1765; G.L.M., xxxv (Mar. 1765), 190. For the trials of well-to-do catholics in 1766 and 1767, see F.D.J., 25–29 Mar., 29 Mar.-1 Apr., 5–8, 8–12, 12–15, 15–19, 19–22 Apr. 1766, 24–28, 28–31 Mar. 1767; G.L.M., xxxvi (Apr. 1766), 244–6; (May 1766), 310, appendix, pp 113–16; (June 1766), 374–6.

120 See the government proclamations of 17 and 24 Mar. 1762 in F.D.J., 16–20, 23–27 Mar. 1762.

121 B.N.L., 15 Aug., 4 Nov. 1760. The earl of Drogheda was succeeded in April 1762 by General Montague as commander of the troops stationed in Munster for the suppression of the Whiteboys (F.D.J., 20–24 Apr. 1762).

122 B.N.L., 26 Aug. 1760, 17 Mar. 1761.

123 F.D.J., 6–10, 10–13, 13–17, 17–20 Apr., 25–29 May 1762.

124 F.D.J., 10–13 Apr. 1762. See also Cal. H.O. papers, p. 175.

125 F.D.J., 6–10 Apr., 27 Apr.–1 May 1762.

126 F.D.J., 22–25 May 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (May 1762), 308.

127 F.D.J., 27 Apr.-1 May, 4–8 May 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (Apr. 1762), 239–40.

128 Lord Taaffe's observations upon the affairs of Ireland examined and confuted by an impartial hand, who wishes well to the persons, though not to the religion, of the Roman catholics of Ireland (Dublin, 1767), pp 26–7.

129 Quoted in G.L.M., xxxi (May 1762), 308. ‘ Lord Halifax … sent down a solicitor and would not let the rebels be indicted only [i.e., except] as common trespassers, or the counties of Cork and Waterford would have hanged them all ’ (Jeremiah Jackson to Lord Carbery, 21 July 1762, P.R.O.N.I., Carbery papers, B/3/27).

130 Richard Aston to William G. Hamilton, 24 June 1762, in Burke, Correspondence, i, 37–41.

131 F.D.J., 5–8, 22–26 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 369–70; Cork Hibernian Chronicle, 23 Jan. 1786.

132 F.D.J., 5–8, 8–12, 12–15 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 369–70; L. F. Renehan, Collections on Irish church history, ed. Daniel McCarthy (Dublin, 1861–74), ii, 118–19.

133 F.D.J., 22–26 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 371.

134 Crawford, Hist. Ire., ii, 318. See also Plowden, Hist. rev. Ire. (Philadelphia, 1805), ii, 71; Madden, United Irishmen, i, 31–2.

135 F.D.J., 12–15 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 370.

136 F.D.J., 26–29 June 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (June 1762), 370.

137 F.D.J., 29 June-3 July 1762.

138 F.D.J., 12–15 June 1762.

139 F.D.J., 17–20 July 1762; G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436–7.

140 Wesley, Works, iii, 99.

141 F.D.J., 26–29 June 1762.

142 F.D.J., 12–16 Oct. 1762.

143 F.D.J., 29 June-3 July, 3–6 July, 14–17 Aug. 1762.

144 F.D.J., 29 Mar.-2 Apr. 1763. See also F.D.J., 26–29 Mar. 1763; G.L.M., xxxii (Mar. 1763), 231–2; (Apr. 1763), 238.

145 F.D.J., 31 May-4 June, 25–28 June 1763; G.L.M., xxxii (May 1763), 307.

146 G.L.M., xxxii (Mar. 1763), 232; (May 1763), 307.

147 F.D.J., 31 May-4 june 1763.

148 G.L.M., xxxv (Mar. 1765), 191; F.D.J., 6–9 Apr. 1765.

149 F.D.J., 29 Sept.-2 Oct. 1764; G.L.M., xxxiv (Sept. 1764), 595–6.

150 F.D.J., 2–6, 16–20 Oct. 1764.

151 F.D.J., 9–13 Oct. 1764.

152 Department of Irish Folklore Library, U.G.D., Prim MSS, box 6, folder 2.

153 G.L.M., xxxv (Apr. 1765), 254.

154 F.D.J., 20–23 Apr. 1765. See also Department of Irish Folklore Library, U.G.D., Prim MSS, box 6, folder 2.

155 Plowden, Hist. rev. Ire., ii, 72.

156 These figures are based on the results of special commissions and assizes reported in Faulkner's Dublin Journal and the Gentleman's and London Magazine from 1762 to 1765. In a few cases included here, the inadequate description of the crime makes it impossible to be certain that the prisoner was found guilty of a Whiteboy offence. Another unresolvable problem is that five of those capitally convicted as Whiteboys at the spring assizes of Kilkenny in 1765 were respited. It is probable that two, and possible that all five, were not hanged. There were no reports of their execution; they may have been transported instead (F.D.J., 20–23 Apr., 7–11 May 1765). Some assizes in the Munster counties and Kilkenny during the early 1760s were not mentioned in either Faulkner's Dublin Journal or the Gentleman's and London Magazine, but it may safely be assumed that in almost all cases, such assizes were omitted because they had been maiden, i.e., free of capital convictions. In these omitted cases some prisoners may have been found guilty of misdemeanours as Whiteboys, but their number was probably small because the conviction of any Whiteboy was important news.

157 For examples of the use of approvers, see Renehan, Collections, ii, 118–19; G.L.M., xxxi (July 1762), 436–7; F.D.J., 6–9 Apr. 1765.

158 Few Cases of bribery of prosecution witnesses ever came to light, but one Hayes, a man ‘ in good circumstances ’ living near Ballyporeen, was committed to Clonmel gaol in July 1766, charged with ‘having frequently attempted, by offering sums of money, to suborn the evidence of the crown against the people called Whiteboys ’ (F.D.J., 8–12 July 1766).

159 5 Geo. 3, c.8, continued in force by 7 Geo. 3, c.20.

160 Caldwell, Debates, i, 85.

161 F.D.J., 17–21 Sept. 1765. See also F.D.J., 22–25 june 1765.

162 F.D. J., 3–6, 10–13, 17–20 Aug. 1765.

163 F.D.J., 12–15 Oct. 1765.

164 F.D.J., 19–23, 26–30 Nov., 14–17 Dec. 1765.

165 F.D.J., 19–23 Nov. 1765. See also F.D.J., 9–12 Nov. 1765.

166 F.D.J., 1–5 Apr. 1766. See also F.D.J., 8–12, 15–19 Apr., 27–31 May, 17–21 June, 1–5, 12–15 July 1766.

167 Cal. H.O. papers, pp 630–1, 631–2, 634; F.D.J., 25 Feb.-1 Mar., 27–31 May, 17–21 June, 12–15 July 1766.

168 F.D.J., 26–29 July 1766.

169 F.D.J., 19–22 July 1766.

170 F.D.J., 17–21, 24–28 June, 5–8 July, 16–19 Aug. 1766; George Rudé, The crowd in history: a study of popular disturbances in France and England, 1730–1848 (New York and London, 1964), pp 38–45.

171 F.D.J., 17–21 June, 16–20 Sept. 1766.