CHAPTER XXIX

THE WHITEBOYS
The activities of the secret society known as the Whiteboys were, speaking broadly, confined to the decade 1761-71; but the name continued to be used as a designation for any agrarian criminal in Ireland to a much later period. In fact, the famous “Whiteboy Acts,” passed by the Irish Parliament in 1765, 1785, and 1787, conferred a certain amount of legal immortality on a society that had ceased to exist on an organised basis several years before the last of these Acts was placed upon the statute book; and we shall see that as late as 1815 the word was still used as a term of reproach, meaning a man engaged in a secret plot against the State.
From the days when Henry VIII first began the real subjugation of Ireland the English Government in that country was opposed in its operations by an irreconcilable element of the population which adopted every species of guerrilla warfare to render that Government uneasy and its representatives contemptible. In the days of Elizabeth and up to the middle of the seventeenth century these rebels were known as the “Wood Kerne”; after the Res¬ toration till the time of the Williamite Wars they were called “Tories” or “Rapparees,” tory being Irish for robber, while the rapery was a half-pike carried by irregular troops. After the Treaty of Limerick had ended the revolutionary war in Ireland the disaffected to government continued to be called tories, and rewards were paid for their heads, since they were outlaws, down to the year 1740 at least. No evidence, however, is available to suggest that these marauders were ever associated in a society and bound to one another by a solemn tie. The first association
215
216 famous secret societies
of an avowedly illegal character in Ireland which adopted that method of gaining greater security for its secret designs was the one known as the Whiteboys.
This society arose in the County Tipperary about the year 1761. A quotation from a recognized authority will describe in a few words the objects with which the association was formed.
“The White Boy association, which had its origin in 1759, in the south of Ireland, took its name from the frocks or shirts they were in the habit of wearing when they assembled ; . . . armed with scythes, clubs and swords they sallied forth at night and committed many acts of agrarian out¬ rage. The wrongs they professed to redress were those connected with the holding of lands on exorbitant terms, the inclosing of waste lands, the extortion of tythe-proctors, etc. Various laws were enacted to repress their excesses, all of which were of an agrarian character, wild, daring, ill-concerted, sometimes cruel, seldom premeditated, and eventually easily put down. The cause of these excesses is justly ascribed by Plowden to the agricultural distress which prevailed in the whole of the South of Ireland, consequent upon the practice generally adopted at this time of converting the large farms into grazing lands, which were let to wealthy monopolists, who turned the wretched peasantry adrift. At the close of 1762, Lord Halifax congratulated Parliament on the suppression of the insurrection of the White Boys.”1
This sketch of the Whiteboys deserved inclusion mainly on account of the picturesque and distinctive style. Some statements in it, however, are misleading.
Arthur Young, who made a tour of Ireland in 1776 and collected evidence about the Whiteboys on the spot, declares that no such thing as a Leveller or Whiteboy was heard of before 1760. He adds: “No foreign coin was ever seen among them, though reports to the contrary were circulated ; and in all the evidence that was taken during ten or twelve years, in which time there appeared a variety of informers, none . . . ever proved any foreign interposition. . . . No
1 R. R. Madden, United Irishmen, London, 1842, I., 133.
THE WHITEBOYS 2 1 7
foreign money appeared, no arms of foreign construction, no presumptive proof whatever of such a connection.”
According to Young, the Whiteboy disturbances lasted about ten years from the first outbreak in Tipperary, whence they spread into the neighbouring county of Water¬ ford and the adjoining districts.
George Cornewall Lewis, writing many years after the event but with all the acumen of a reliable historian, states that the first Whiteboy disturbance took place in October, 1761; that the movement had been nearly stamped out in Munster before 1770, but reappeared in Kildare in 1775, and continued sporadically till 1785, when the agrarian insurgents became known as the “Right Boys.”1
A Government enquiry into the outrages was held in 1762, and an official declaration inserted in the Dublin and London Gazettes to this effect: “The authors of these disturbances have consisted indiscriminately of persons of different [religious] persuasions, and no marks of dis¬ affection to His Majesty’s person or Government have been discovered in any class of people.”
Yet the Government five years later produced detailed evidence to prove that the Jacobites had a connexion with the Whiteboys! This story was upheld by a witness who was put forward as King’s Evidence in 1767 at a famous criminal trial in Clonmel, when several supposed Whiteboy leaders were convicted and executed. The man deposed that he took the Whiteboy oath “to be true and faithful to the King of France, and to the true king, Prince Charles, and to obey all the orders of his officers, and not to disclose his secrets to any one, except to a Frenchman, or one of his own party”.2 There is too much reason to believe that this deposition, with others in the same case, sworn five years after the alleged happenings, is not reliable; and more importance can be attached to the following document, published in 1762, when the Whiteboy disturbances were causing alarm all over Ireland, though actually confined to Tipperary and the neighbouring districts.
1 On Local Disturbances in Ireland, London, 1836.
2 Musgrave, Irish Rebellions, Dublin, 1801, Appendix 1.
2l8
FAMOUS SECRET SOCIETIES
“ The following is an authentic copy of the oath tendered by the Whiteboys, otherwise Sive Oultho’s Children, to those who enlist themselves in their society.
“I do hereby solemnly and sincerely swear that I will not make known any secret now given me, or hereafter may be given, to anyone in the world, except a sworn person belonging to the Society called Whiteboys, otherwise Sive Oultho’s Children. . . .
“Furthermore I swear, that I will be ready at an hour’s warning, if possible, by being properly summoned by any of the officers, sergeants, and corporals belonging to my company.
“Furthermore I swear, that I will not wrong any of the company I belong to to the value of one shilling, nor suffer it to be done by others without acquainting them thereof.
“Furthermore I swear, that I will not make known in any shape whatsoever, to any person that does not belong to us, the name or names of any of our fraternity, but particularly the names of our respective officers.
“Lastly I swear, that I will not drink of any liquor whatsoever while on duty, without the consent of any one or other of the officers, sergeants, or corporals; and that we will be loyal to one another as in our power lies.”1
It should be noted that in this oath, which is probably genuine, there is no reference to the King of France or Jacobitism in the person of “the true king, Prince Charles.”
The curious name “Sive Oultho’s Children” can be illustrated, in a way, by an extract from another deposition sworn by a witness for the Crown in 1766 (another case of King’s Evidence). The deponent asserted that he had been sworn to be true to “ Shaune Meskell and her Children, meaning the Whiteboys;” and that on another occasion Father Nicolas Sheehy had tendered an oath to all present “not to disclose what had passed that night, and to be true to the King of France, and Shaun Meskill and Children.”
A corroboration of the use of the name “Sive” by the Whiteboys comes from an unexpected source. John Wesley, in 1762, was travelling through Ireland, and noted some common gossip about the Whiteboys in his Journal. He
1 Belfast News-Letter, 13th April, 1762.
THE WHITEBOYS
219
states that they sent threatening letters, compelled everyone they met to swear allegiance to their leader “Queen Sive,” and obedience to her commands, and threatened those who refused to comply.
It seems, therefore, as if Sieve Oultho (or Oultagh) and Shaun Meskill were predecessors of such personages as have been heard of later under such names as Molly Maguire or Captain Moonlight. It remains to consider what the meanings of the two earlier names may have been. “ Oultho ” may be connected with the Irish word alltachd, savageness, and “Meskill” with misgeul, evil repute.