The Dublin Penny Journal (Vol1 N.33 Feb 9th 1833) – The Dublin Penny Journal was a weekly newspaper, and later series of published volumes, originating from Dublin, Ireland, between 1832 and 1836. Published each Saturday, by J. S. Folds, George Petrie and Caesar Otway,[1] the Penny Journal concerned itself with matters of Irish history, legend, topography and Irish identity, and was illustrated with a number of maps and woodcuts.

While originally a paper of low circulation – numbering only a few thousand in its first edition – the Penny Journal’s popularity led to increased production.[2] By the cessation of publication in 1836, 206 works had been published in four volumes,[3] and were sold wholesale in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Paris

(Wikipedia)

 

The subject of our prefixed illustration, which is a small town in the
barony of Kilmaine, in the county of Mayo, immediately bordering on the
county of Galway, possesses in its ancient bridge, and proud baronial
castle, much picturesque attraction,–but unhappily it derives a deeper
interest from being the scene of one of those disgraceful deeds of
atrocity but too common in all periods of our history, and more
particularly in the long and disastrous civil war of the 17th century.
In the beginning of that calamitous era, this bridge was the scene of a
frightful massacre–and this castle, now gloomy and untenanted,–a
chief residence of the supposed instigator of the bloody deed!

We are aware that in this
unhappy country, where even yet the events of
remote times are regarded by society with all the prejudices of
partizanship, it may be dangerous to our own immediate interests, to
lay open the pages of history with an impartial hand, and that with the
ultras of all parties, our love of truth and desire for peace, will
obtain us but little favour. But we aim at higher objects, and shall
take our chance for success, animated by the conviction, that even if
we fail, we shall sow the seeds of future national improvement, and
have, in addition to the approbation of our own conscience, the
applause of good and wise men. Hitherto our literature, as regards the
multitude, has only lived in connexion with, and been made subservient
to the purposes of party. History has been distorted, and the madness
and the crimes of past ages have not been held up impartially as
warnings to the present.

Man, unimproved by judicious mental
cultivation, is the same slave of passion and prejudice in all ages and
under every appellation, and acting under their influences, the virtues
of his nature remain undeveloped, and his vices rise predominant. We,
in our humble sphere, shall endeavour to give our countrymen juster
views, and more benevolent feelings towards each other, and as the
ancient Greeks were accustomed to inspire a detestation of drunkenness
in the minds of their children, by shewing them their slaves in all the
disgusting deformity of intoxication, so we hope to excite in our
countrymen a horror of religious feuds and civil strife, by exhibiting
to them their frightful consequences.

These explanatory observations are due to our own character, for we
have been assailed by ultras of each side as having a leaning to the
other–the motto of all being that –he that is not with us–out and
out–is against us. But we utterly deny a leaning to any side, or a
purpose of any kind, but the cause of truth and the improvement of our
country , and we confidently refer to the pages of our little journal
for the evidences of our sincerity. We now proceed with our subject.

On Sunday the 18th of February 1641, a great number of English
protestants, who had surrendered to the Lord Mayo at Castlebar, on
condition that they should march away with their arms, and be safely
conveyed to Galway, were inhumanly attacked on the bridge of Shruel by
their convoy, who butchered men, women and children, to the number of
sixty-five individuals. That this statement is however somewhat
exaggerated, as well as many of the circumstances of the massacre, we
have little doubt; and though we have no wish to palliate the motives
or lessen the disgust that such an act of atrocity should excite, it
gives us pleasure to believe from facts we shall presently relate, that
the amount of guilt was not so great as the prejudice of party has
assigned to it, and that even in those dark times of general bigotry
and barbarism, there were many of all sects and classes, in whom the
divine principles of benevolence and humanity still shone triumphantly
conspicuous.

The circumstances of this massacre will be best understood from the
quaint, but circumstantial details, in the depositions taken
immediately after before the privy council and commission appointed for
that purpose, and to be found in Archdall’s Peerage vol. iv. From the
deposition of Mr. John Gouldsmith, incumbent of Brashowle, County of
Mayo, it appears that “Sir Henry Bingham’s castle of Castlebar being
beleaguer’d by the rebel Edmond Bourke, Sir Henry desired the Lord Mayo to take
that castle from him, and to keep it for his use, for that he himself
could hold it no longer; whereupon he went thither with his forces, but
the rest of the castle not assenting to part with it, he returned home.
About which time, the Bishop of Killala [Dr. John Maxwell] having
formerly lost his castle and goods, contracted with Bourke of
Castleleaken to give him a safe convoy; but he most perfidiously
brought him into the hands of the said Edmond Bourke (as he was
besieging Castlebar) who proposed to have put him upon the engine or
Sow, which he had prepared for undermining and breaking down the
castle, purposely that if the besieged should shoot against the Sow,
they might hit the Bishop their friend; whereof the Lord Mayo having
notice, wrote a letter to Bourke the convoy, blaming his
perfidiousness, and signifying plainly unto him, that if he did not
deal with the Bishop according to his promise, he would deal with him
as an enemy, wheresoever he met him; whereupon, Bourke brought the
Bishop within sight of his Lordship’s house, and there left him. His
Lordship then went to meet the Bishop, and took him and his family
home, where he kindly entertained them, and gave him a band to put
about his neck, and a shirt which he wanted, and kept him, with his
wife, three children, servants, and five or six of his ministers, for 8
or 10 days.

At that time Sir Henry Bingham again desired his Lordship
to “come and take his castle, which he could no longer keep; whereupon,
he marched thither with an army, drove away Edmond Bourke, and entered
and possessed the castle, upon quarter, and his promise to convoy the
garrison safe to Galway. Whereupon, Sir Henry, with his company, the
Bishop of Killala, and many of the neighbouring English, above 60 in
number, (whereof some fifteen were Ministers) were taken to be conveyed
to Galway, his Lordship covenanting with one Edmond Bourke for their
safe convoy upon a certain day, in whose custody he left them at
Shrule; but was not gone far, when Bourke drew out his sword, directing
the rest what they should do, and began to massacre these Protestants;
some whereof were shot; some stabb’d with skeins; some run through with
pikes; some cast into the water and drowned; and the women, that were
stripped naked, lying upon their husbands to save them, were run
through with pikes; so that very few escaped; among whom was the Bishop
of Killala, but was wounded in the head; and Mr. Crowd, a clergyman,
was so beaten with cudgels on his feet, that he died thereof shortly
after, the other Ministers being slain.

“This bloody affair is more distinctly specified in the deposition of
Henry Bringhurst, of Kileran in the county of Mayo, Esq. who deposeth,
that his Lordship, with his son Sir Tibbot Bourke, did personally
accompany the said unhappy people from Castlebar, Kinturk, and
Bellcarrow, with five companies of soldiers, for their better security,
to the town of Shrule, where two companies were to receive them over
the bridge, being in the county of Galway, and for their more safe
convoy, the titular Archbishop of Tuam faithfully promised his Lordship
to accompany them with his letter, and several Priests and Friars, to
see them safely delivered at the fort of Galway; And being all come to
Shrule on Saturday night, 12 February 1641, the Lord Mayo provided for
them at the house of Serjeant Robert Lambert and others, and the next
day for their dinner, lying that night in one bed with the Bishop of
Killala, whose wife and children, according to his desire, lay in the
next chamber.

The next day being Sunday, (that bloody day) the
gentlemen of the barony of Kilmaine, finding themselves much burthened
by the soldiers (having lain upon them four nights) entreated to be
eased of them, by sending them to their homes, for that they had
brought them to the end of the county of Mayo, where they were to be
received by the companies of Murrough-na-Doe O’Flaherty, and Ulick
Bourke of Castlehacket, who lay that night within two miles of Shrule,
and appointed to meet the company at Kilnemanagh, about a mile from
Shrule, on Sunday morning. Upon which earnest request of the gentry,
the Lord Mayo dismissed his companies (except one under the command of
Captain Walter Bourke, who lived within a mile of Shrule, or little
more) which company being then commanded by his brother Edmond, was
appointed to convoy the company to Kilnemanagh, to the two companies
there ready to receive them; and it being almost twelve o’clock, and
the march long (14 miles) and having no place nearer for the poor
travellers to lodge at that night than Clare, which was ten miles, the
said Edmond Bourke having, with his wicked company, been at Mass, and
the titular Bishop having failed to send either Priests, Friars, or
letter, and the town not being able to provide for the company another
night, they desired to be going, undertook for their safe delivery at
Kilnemanagh, and the company being desirous to get to Galway, the Lord
Mayo furnished them with his own and his son’s horses, so that his son
had not a horse left to go with him; and having seen the Bishop, with
his wife and children, and the rest that had horses, mounted, he took
leave with them; and accompanied by two or three horsemen, rode away
towards Conge, Sir Tibbot Bourke’s house, 6 miles from Shrule; who
(notwithstanding that he rode a good round pace, for the weather was
very cold) intending to stay for his son at the horse of one Andrew
Lynch, 2 miles short of Conge, a messenger, as he was ready to
dismount, came and told him, that presently after he was out of sight,
the said Edmond Bourke and his men fell upon the Bishop and his
company, had wounded and stripped him, with his wife and children and
all the rest, had murdered some, and were about to murder the
remainder. Whereupon his Lordship went instantly into a chamber, and
there wept bitterly; pulling off his hair, and refusing to hear any
manner of persuasion or comfort, or to be patient, having no means at
that time left him to be revenged of that inhuman bloody massacre;
fearing besides the loss of his son, and that now they were entered
into blood, they would fall upon himself, being then a Protestant, with
the few English he had under his protection.

And within half an hour
after came Sir Tibbot, his son, who with tears related the tragedy, but
could not certainly tell who was killed, or who escaped; But being
demanded by his father, why he would ever come away, but either have
preserved their lives, or have died with them? Answered, that when they
began the slaughter, they charged him, (having his sword drawn against
them) both with their pikes and musquets, and would have killed him,
but that John Garvy, the Sheriff of the county of Mayo, (who was
brother-in-law to Edmond Bourke, the principal murderer) came in
betwixt him and them, took him in his arms, and by the assistance of
others, forcibly carried him over the bridge, brought him a horse, and
caused him to be gone after his father, for that there he could do no
good, but would be killed or endangered, if he opposed them, whereupon
he came away.”

Sixty-five persons are said to have been killed at Shruel among whom
were two women great with child, and were all tumbled into two pits
close by the highway, without any ceremony or order, But we have
already expressed our belief that this number is exaggerated, and
according to the Roman Catholic authorities of the time, it did not
exceed above thirty persons. The survivors were rescued by the Catholic
gentry of the neighbourhood, who hastened to their assistance, and
carried them to their houses and treated them with hospitality and
kindness, and we have great pleasure in adding that one of the persons
who most distinguished himself in this Christian work of charity was
Bryan Kilkenny the guardian of the neighbouring abbey of Ross, who
though an aged man was of the first that made haste to the rescue, and
brought the Bishop’s wife and children, and many others to his
Monastery, where they were hospitably entertained to the best of the
friars’ ability for several nights, when they were removed to the house
of Mr. Bourke of Castle Hacket.

That the Lord Mayo and his son Sir Theobald had no real participation
in this massacre appears to us certain from the depositions given
above. Yet by Cromwell’s act of parliament for the settlement of
Ireland, passed the 12th of August, 1652, they were both excepted from
pardon, (though the former had died in 1649,) and the latter, having
been tried by the High Court of Justice, as it was called, on the 30th
of December in the same year, was found guilty, and condemned to be
shot by a majority of the Commissioners–seven voting for his
condemnation, and four dissenting. The sentence was carried into effect
in Galway, where he was buried. The soldiers appointed to shoot him
missed fire three times, and strange to say, the individual by whom he
was finally shot was, as Lodge familiarly tells us–a corporal blind of
an eye!

The son of Sir Tibbot was restored to his estates, consisting; of
50,000 acres, in the county of Mayo, in 1666,–but the property was
sold by his brother Miles, who succeeded him in the title. Since the
death of the last viscount, which occurred in 1767, the title has lain
dormant.

Shruel is remarkable for its handsome modern Roman Catholic chapel, and
the ruins of a very ancient church, called after one of the numerous
Saints Colman. The town is now the property of Patrick Kirwan, of
Dalgin, Esq., whose house is one of the finest in the county.