A Visitors’ Guide to the 1848 Warhouse
by Dr Thomas McGrath
The Famine Warhouse at Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary was the scene of the main action of the Young Ireland Rising of 1848.
Young Ireland
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| The Young Ireland movement which attracted journalists, barristers, historians and poets was founded by the Protestant intellectual, Thomas Davis and comprised some of the most brilliant names in modern Irish history. Together with Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, Davis founded the Nation newspaper in 1842 to promote national cultural identity and a pluralist Ireland.
Thomas Davis (left)
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The Young Irelanders, who were influenced by the interdenominational ideals of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen of the 1790s, were a ginger group within the Repeal of the Union movement established by Daniel O’Connell to seek an Irish parliament. However, they differed from O’Connell in demanding an Irish parliament regardless of which British political party was in power and they did not rule out the use of physical force in all circumstances. The leader of the Young Irelanders was William Smith O’Brien, Member of Parliament for Co. Limerick. O’Brien was an Irish Protestant, son of Sir Edward O’Brien of Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare and descended from the High King, Brian Boru, who defeated the Danes at the battle of Clontarf in 1014.
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Famine and Emigration
The Young Irelanders became increasingly discontented and radicalised by the horrors of the Great Famine of 1845-1850. Of a total Irish population of over eight million, more than a million people died during that period and another million fled into exile, mainly to North America. The British government was committed to the principle of free trade and its response had not been adequate to prevent deaths on this massive scale. As the famine progressed, the Young Irelanders denounced the government for not doing enough. O’Brien was the most trenchant critic of the government in the House of Commons.
1848: Revolutions in Europe
1848 was a year of revolutions throughout continental Europe. In February 1848, the King of France was overthrown and a Republic proclaimed in Paris. The French Revolution sent political shock waves across Europe. Revolutions broke out in Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Prague, Budapest and Cracow and absolutist governments were replaced by liberal administrations, near universal suffrage was introduced and elections were held to constituent assemblies to draw up new national constitutions. It was described as the “springtime of the peoples”.
The Young Irelanders were deeply influenced by these events and the success of liberal, romantic nationalism on the continent inspired the movement to contemplate revolution in Ireland. O’Brien and Thomas Francis Meagher led a delegation to Paris to congratulate the new French Republic. Meagher returned to Ireland with the tricolour flag - a symbol of reconciliation between the Orange and Green
Thomas Francis Meagher (right)
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The fact that the continental revolutions were relatively bloodless led O’Brien to believe that he could attain a similar result in Ireland by manifesting the moral will and the moral force of a united people. He hoped to unite landlord and tenant in Ireland in protest against British rule and the Young Irelanders prepared for a Rising in autumn 1848. The government, however, forced their hand in late July 1848 by suspending Habeas Corpus which meant that people could be imprisoned on proclamation without trial. O’Brien decided that rather than let the government arrest the leaders a stand had to be made.
Rising
Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon discuss founding 'The Nation' newspaper under a tree in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.
From 23-29th July 1848, O’Brien, Meagher and Dillon raised the standard of revolt as they travelled from Co. Wexford, through Co. Kilkenny and into Co. Tipperary. On 29th July, O’Brien was in village of The Commons where barricades had been erected to prevent his arrest. His local supporters - miners and small tenant farmers - awaited the arrival of military and police. As the police from Callan approached the cross roads before The Commons from Ballingarry they saw barricades in front of them and thinking discretion the better part of valour they veered right up the road towards Co. Kilkenny. The rebels followed them across the fields. The police lead by Sub-Inspector Trant and his forty-six men took refuge in a large two-storey farmhouse taking the five young children who were in the house as hostages. The police barricaded themselves into the house and pointed their guns from its windows. The house was surrounded by the rebels and an uneasy stand-off ensued. Mrs Margaret McCormack, the owner of the house and the mother of the children in it, demanded to be let into her house but the police refused and would not release the children. Mrs McCormack found O’Brien reconnoitring the house from the out-buildings, and asked him what was to become of her children and her house.
Contemporary view of the battle at the Warhouse
O’Brien and Mrs McCormack went up to the parlour window of the house to speak to the police. Through the window O’Brien stated: “We are all Irishmen - give up your guns and you are free to go”. O’Brien shook hands with some of the police through the window. The initial report to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland stated that a constable fired the first shot at O’Brien who was attempting to negotiate. General firing then ensued between the rebels and the police. O’Brien had to be dragged out of the line of fire by James Stephens and Terence Bellew MacManus, both of whom were wounded.
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The people were incensed that they had been fired upon without provocation and the shooting went on over several hours. During the initial exchange of fire the rebels at the front of the house
- men, woman and children - crouched beneath the wall. So great was the pressure of the crowd that one man, John Walshe, was forced to cross from one side of the front gate to the other. As he crossed between the gate piers he was shot dead by the police. During lulls in the shooting the rebels retreated out of the range of fire. Another man, Thomas McBride, who had been standing at the gable-end of the house when the firing began - and was quite safe where he was -now found that his companions had retreated and he was quite alone. Jumping up on the wall to run to join them, he was fatally wounded by the police.
It was now evident that the position of the police was almost impregnable and a Catholic clergyman of the parish intervened in the interests of peace. When the Cashel police were seen arriving over Boulea hill an attempt was made to stop them but the police continued to advance, firing up the road and it became clear that the police in the house were about to be reinforced and rescued. The rebels then scattered in various directions effectively terminating both the era of Young Ireland and Repeal but the consequences of their actions would follow them for many years. Since that time Mrs McCormack’s house has been known locally as the Warhouse. The McCormack family emigrated to the USA about 1855.
Contemporary view of the battle at the Warhouse
Trial, Tranportation, Exile
After the failure of the Rising, O’Brien, Meagher, MacManus and Patrick O’Donohue and a number of locals who rallied to them were captured and tried for high treason. Juries found the leaders guilty but recommended mercy. However they were sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering. They refused to appeal. The sentences were commuted by a special act of parliament to penal imprisonment for life in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in Australia. There, they were joined by Young Ireland colleagues - John Martin, Kevin Izod O’Doherty and John Mitchel. Mitchel had been convicted of treason-felony and sentenced to fourteen years transportation in May 1848.
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Other Young Irelanders present at Ballingarry escaped to France and the USA. John Blake Dillon died as Member of Parliament for County Tipperary in 1866. James Stephens, John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny co-founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B) or Fenian movement in 1858. The IRB later organised the unsuccessful Rising of 1867 and the 1916 Rising which lead to Irish independence.
Of those transported to Australia, a number escaped from there to America where they became leaders of the Irish diaspora. Meagher became a Union General leading the Irish Brigade in several great and bloody battles of the American Civil War. He died as acting Governor of Montana. On the other hand John Mitchel supported the south in the same war. He was elected Member of Parliament for Co. Tipperary in 1875, the year of his death. MacManus died in San Francisco in 1861 and was accorded a famous funeral in Ireland.
Kevin Izod O’Doherty on his release served as a member of the Queensland legislature in Australia and later as an Irish M.P. Charles Gavan Duffy emigrated to Australia where he became Premier of the State of Victoria in 1871. John Martin became a Home Rule M.P. for County Meath in 1871.
O’Brien was incarcerated on Maria Island and then in a two-roomed cottage within the infamous Port Arthur penal colony in Tasmania. He returned to Ireland when he received a pardon in 1856. He refused many offers from Irish constituencies to return to the House of Commons. He died in 1864 and is buried in the O’Brien mausoleum, Rathronan, Co. Limerick. His statue stands on O’Connell St., Dublin.
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