FROM KNOCKNAGOW Kickham's novel, stems the description, "the town with the cloud over it", as applied to Clonmel, County Tipperary. In the novel, Kickham makes Billy Heffernan record the tradition"
of the Tipperary countryside" that since a March morning in 1766 when Father Sheehy, parish priest of Shandraghan, Ballysheehan and Templeheny, was hanged in front of Clonmel's old jail, a black cloud has rested over the town. Nicholas Sheehy was one of the last priests, if not the last, hanged in Ireland. A parishioner, Edward Meehan, died with him.
The archives of the diocese of Waterford and Lismore, to which Father Sheehy belonged, are most skimpy in that era. "The fearless manner in which Nicholas Sheehy faced the Ascendancy raised him up a host of influential enemies, chief of which was the Reverend Hewetson, a member of the established church.
Disappearance
Towards the end of the year 1764, a poor half simpleton, named John Bridge, suddenly disappeared. Bridge had been induced, it is said, by bribery and intimidation to give evidence against some members of" the Whiteboy Society and he had been bound over to appear" as a witness for the Crown at the coming as sizes. The authorities presumed that he had been murdered, but during the whole course of the trial it was never actually proved that such was the case.
On information sworn by a woman named Mary Brady, alias Moll Dunlea, whom Father Seehy had censored for impropriety, a horse thief named Tuohy brought out of Kilkenny jail for the purpose and a boy named Lonergan, a warrant was issued for the ar rest of the priest and £300 reward offered for his apprehension.
Being aware that a fair trial in Clonmel was impossible Father Sheehy decided to go "on his keeping" and for several months remained concealed in the neighbourhood of his parish, sheltered even by several Protestant families particularly by a farmer named Griffith. However he became weary of the life and eventually wrote to Dublin Castle offering to surrender himself on condition that his trial should take place in Dublin. The offer was readily accepted, and the priest was conveyed to, Dublin where he was lodged with the Provost in the Lower Castle Yard, but after a cursor examination he wasn't once freed and permitted to go anywhere within the city limits. Town Major Sirr, the father of Major Sirr of 1798 repute, actually went security for his appearance at the approaching trial.
Treason Charge
After a delay of nearly 11 months, on February 10th, 1766, Father Sheehy was arraigned at the Court of King's Bench before Chief Justice Gore and Judges Robinson and Scott. He was accused only of treasonable practices there was nothing said of the murder of Bridge, the charge on which he had been proscribed, and to answer which he had delivered himself up. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Almost immediately the Chief Justice told the prisoner that he was being remanded in custody on a charge of being accessory to the wilful murder of John Bridge.
Nicholas Sheehy was sent from Dublin to Clonmel for trial. On March 12th 1766, together with Edward Meehan he was put on trial.
The evidence of Tuohy, the horse thief, was that he was present with a party of Whitboys when Father Sheeby tendered an oath to Bride binding him to deny his information against the Whiteboys at the coming trial. Bridge refusing to take the oath a man named Pierce Byrne hit him with a stone and then Meehan killed him by striking him on the head with a billhook.
The evidence of the boy Lonergan was that he, met the art on the way to dispose of the body and, that Father Sheehy gave him three hall crowns not to inform on them. Mary Brady, alias Moll Dunlea deposed that she lived with her mother at Clogheen. A man named Michael Kearney, shed said was at their house on the night of the murder, and Father Sheehy called for him, and she followed him to Shanbally where she saw the priest, Kearney, and the other prisoner, Meehan, and others carrying the body of Bridge which they buried at a place called Baron and later at Ballysheehan. On both occasions the priest swore, all present to secrecy. Such was the evidence for the crown.
Defence witnesses
For the defence, Anna Hullan, Moll Dunlea's mother, swore that Moll slept in the same bed with her on the night mentioned and that on several nights before and after that she could not have left the witness's side without her knowledge and that Michael Kearney had not been house during the year 1764. Five or six witnesses then deposed that Kearney had left the country before the date of the disappearance of Bridge. In the case of Meehan, a farmer named Hendrichson testified that he had spent the entire night of October 28th in his house.
Mr Keating of Tubrid, a man of high standing in the community, swore that Father Sheehy had been an inmate of his house on the night of the murder, but as he was giving evidence, Mr Keating was denounced by the Reverend Hewetson, who alleged that he had been concerned in the murder of a sergeant and corporal in Newmarket, Co Kilkenny, and his evidence was expunged, and he himself committed to jail.
Impaled Head
Father Sheehy was convicted of aiding and abetting Meehan in the committal of murder, and both were condemned to death. As he had done in Dublin. Father Sheehy protested his innocence. After execution, his body was drawn and quartered the head severed and impaled on, a pole over the porch of the jail. The perception at the time was that Father Sheehy was the victim of a trumped up charge. That is the perception to this day. After 20 years the head was given to Father Sheehy's sister. Mrs Burke, and interred by, her with his body near the ruins of the old church in the little graveyard of Shandraghan.