Clonmel Chronicle 5 February 1881
The Threatening Notice Case at Ardmore
At the Ardmore petty Sessions on Tuesday, a
respectable farmer’s son named John Crowley, was charged with writing a
threatening letter and posting it on the gates of Ardmore chapel…Mr Thomas
Slattery, Solr., Lismore, appeared for the defendant, and Sub-Inspector Milling
prosecuted on behalf of the Crown. The Rev. Mr Shanahan P.P., Ardmore, deposed
that on Sunday morning, the 21st of November, he found the threatening notice
posted on the church gate; he tore down portion of it and threw it in the
sacristy, where a policeman afterwards obtained possession of it; he had known
the defendant for six years and he bore an excellent character.
Constable G. Pollock, Ardmore who found the notice
said that it read as follows:
‘Notice, any farmer in the property of the O’Dell’s,
Greaves, or Bagge’s that pay more than Griffith’s valuation must be guarded
himself like the tirant Boycott, you must be unioted and loial to the cause
like your fello countrymen. Our nation once again. Down with landlordism’.
Beneath the text was a drawing of a gun, and the
signature ‘Captain Moonlite’. Sub-Constable Patrick Hegarty said he went to see
Crowley at his home in Ballinamona on the pretext of gathering information on
local farms. ‘I am in the habit of gathering agricultural statistics and I am
aware that the defendant’s father is a tenant of Colonel Greaves, one of the
landlords mentioned in the threatening notice’. Hegarty stated that the
handwriting was the same as on the notice posted at the church. The case was
sent for trial by jury and Crowley was moved to Dungarvan bridewell. ‘The
prisoner was then admitted to bail, himself in £50 and two sureties of £25 each to attend the Waterford Assizes’.
.jpg) |
| Interior of Ardmore R.C. Church |
