History « Thurles Information

Thurles Women – Tipperary Stone Throwers

Tipperary women, in particular, have a lot to answer. The next time the wife throws a plate in the direction of your head, the chances are she has Tipperary connections. This remark is borne out when we trace the true origins of the nickname attributed to natives of County Tipperary – “Stone Throwers“.

This nickname came about because of a strange social phenomenon thriving in Ireland at the beginning of the 19th century, the cult of ‘Stick Fighting‘ better known as ‘Faction Fighting‘ or ‘Shillelagh Fighting‘. This sport which began its roots, possibly, in the village of Cappawhite, Co. Tipperary from whence it spread rapidly throughout Munster, Leinster and eventually to most of the rest of Ireland. This sport was at its peak in Tipperary in the second and third decades of the 19th century.

Faction Fights were planned events where men in two lines met face to face and fought for usually no other reason other than the sheer love of fighting. Tenant farmers and their sons dressed for a fight with great care and attention. The ‘game’ of Faction Fighting took place openly, usually towards the end of public gatherings such as fairs and markets, funeral wakes, race meetings, and patterns (parish patron days), between groups whose members had in common, drink and loose bonds of kinship or friendship. Fighters obeyed the rules of their chosen Captains and were bound in duty to ‘never back off if fight was offered’.

They fought with large sticks, some hardened and loaded with lead and manufactured usually from the ready available blackthorn tree or from ash suckers. These sticks were then carefully cut and tested following careful drying beside the domestic turf fire. For these fights, willing participants were trained as meticulously as were military swordsmen in the then British cavalry. Some landlords made wagers on the fighting ability of their tenants “To be sure, skulls and bones are broken, and lives lost; but they are lost in pleasant fighting – they are the consequences of the sport, the beauty of which consists in breaking as many heads as you can” (Daniel J. Casey & Robert E. Rhodes, Views of Irish Peasantry, p. 137).

These groups of Factions Fighters had many names such as Caravats and Shanavests, The Three Year Oulds, The Four Year Oulds, Cooleens, Pudding Lane Boys, Black Hens and Magpies, to name but a few. In the flourishing state of Faction Fighting, vendettas were pursued between “Shanavests” and “Caravats” at the fairs of Ballingarry, South Tipperary, between “Rawlins” and “Cusheens” at the green in Cashel, Tipperary, between “Darrigs” and “Cummings” at Roscrea, Tipperary and between “Pallates” and “Bawnies” at the fairs held in Borrisoleigh, Tipperary. The “Reaskawallagh” faction was nearly all Ryan’s and took their name from a towns-land in the parish of Doon, on the Tipperary / Limerick borders, where the Ryan chieftains had lived for generations.

Many a life was lost at these fights and serious injury was to be expected. In some cases both faction groups, which could number between 200 to 1,000, would combine together against a common foe, often turning their attentions to attacking unwanted interfering policemen (Peelers) who attempted to bring about law and order. Quite often, regiments of soldiers had to be called into action to prevent or quell riots between these factions.

In 1836 alone, over 100 faction fights were reported in Co. Tipperary. The granddaddy of all faction fights took place on June 24, 1834, the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist, a Holy Day which traditionally served to commemorate the occurrence of the longest day of the year, when 3,000 participants, the Coolens on one side, with Lawlors, Blacks and Mulvihills on the other, went up against each other at Ballyveigh Strand in County Kerry. When the bleeding stopped, 20 men were dead.

On the 20th March 1826, in the main square of Thurles, Co Tipperary (today, strangely, this square is called Liberty Square, see picture.) women standing on the sidelines enjoying the spectacle of a local faction fight, somehow got it into their heads, as women will, that their men folk required support. These women began firing large rocks at the opposing faction. The stones it seems had been secreted away in their shopping baskets, in readiness for this event. According to reports of this event, the stones fired by these interfering women, missed intended targets and broke many of the windows of the local shop keepers. The police who intervened were “desperately attacked” and shots were fired killing 3 men. This serious riot was only quelled by the intervention of the 15th. Royal Foot Regiment, then garrisoned in Thurles, who were prevailed upon to support the local authorities.

Faction fighting declined at the end of the 19th century for many reasons. There was less tolerance of violence by the Authorities and better policing. The existence of a little less poverty also contributed, making for a much more contented and peaceful population. The influence of the Catholic Church, and the rise of militant Irish republicanism (Fenianism) put an end to large-scale Faction Fighting, as more and more of the agrarian faction groups united and were absorbed into the Fenian organization, in the latter half of the 19th century.

The Irish Temperance Movement which began in 1838, led by Tipperary priest Fr Theobald Matthew also had a dramatic effect on Irish life, with 40% of the countries adult population taking an oath of temperance. By 1845 revenues obtained from alcohol manufacture and sales fell from £1.4 million to £0.8 . There was also an appreciable reduction in local acts of crime reported.

However, probable the main reason for this decline was the foundation of the G.A.A. in 1884 at The Haye`s Hotel Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Stick Fighting would now have rules and exchanged blows would for the most part be levelled only at a leather ball.

Should any of our readers now decide to revive this ancient sport of “Stick Fighting”, just remember to leave the wife at home. “Give women an inch and they think they are a ruler“.

Cormack Brothers – John Gore Jones Investigates Ellis Death

Confraternity Hall previously Thurles Jail

This weekend Loughmore Community Hall will stage their annual play, “The Cormack Brothers“, a true and tragic story which occurred during turbulent years in the Ireland of the mid 19th century. The play centres about the murder of a Tipperary Land Agent & the hanging of two innocent boys for a crime they did not commit.

One true story, however, very much associated with this event in history is little known and concerns investigations in and around the murder of John Ellis the land agent in question.

The murder victim Ellis, was a protestant Scotsman, who was land agent to local landlord Mr John Trant of Dovea, (Latters residence is now Dovae AI station.) For 27 years the harshness with which he extracted rents from the impoverished tenants on the Trant estate and especially during the famine years, in no way endeared him to his local community. Such activity had earned for John Ellis a very unpleasant reputation indeed. He had purchased lands in the locality under the Encumbered Estates Act and proceeded to evict the peasant farmers who had holdings rented on these lands. So many enemies had John Ellis gained, that a police barracks had been erected in the townsland of Killahara, across the road from his home, Kilrush House, solely for his protection.

His moral character was also greatly called into question and it was generally believed that one of his victims was Kitty Cormack, sister of Nancy, Willie & Danny Cormack. Willie & Danny Cormack (The Cormack Brothers) were later wrongfully hanged for the murder of Ellis and their grave today can be found at Loughmore parish Church with their coffins on display in an open Morselium.

Mr Gore Jones resided at Cathedral St. Thurles, then known as Main Street, next door to and on the left hand side as you face the premises we now know as Mario’s Restaurant.

The Cormack family had been a plain Roman Catholic peasant people living in one of the many thousands of yellow clay or sod hovels which abounded throughout Ireland at this time. The brothers were uneducated, but had both earned their living labouring for John Ellis.

On Thursday night 22nd October 1857, 17 year old Tommy Burke took a horse and cart to Templemore railway station. His instructions were to collect Mr Ellis on his return from his weekly trip to the markets in Dublin. At 11.00 p.m. on the narrow road leading to Kilrush from the main Thurles road the cart was ambushed and John Ellis fell dead with seven slugs lodged in the area of his heart. Burke galloped the horse and cart, together with the dying occupant, to the police barracks at Killahara, but arrived too late to obtain any medical aid for his passenger.

None of the five policemen appointed to guard Mr Ellis went on patrol to meet him that night because they believed that Ellis, was not returning, as was usual, from Dublin. This information they claimed had come from a patrolman’s daughter, one Lizzie Douglas. Lizzie claimed that she in turn had learned this information while playing with an 11 year old friend Ann Brophy.

Ann Brophy, Killahara, Templemore, Thurles, Co. Tipperary was arrested on the 28th of October 1857, at the tender age of 11 years. Her arrest came just 6 days after the murder of Ellis. She was arrested at the behest of the then resident magistrate in Thurles, Mr John Gore Jones RM. (His wife Leticia Elizabeth Sheridan is buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard, in the grounds of and close to St Mary’s church, Thurles. Co.Tipperary.)

Mr Gore Jones, suspected the Cormack brothers had some connection with this crime. Arresting Ann Brophy, he had hoped to get her to give evidence that she had overheard this information from Willie & Danny Cormack, with whom she was acquainted. Ann denied any such information was known to her and she was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in Thurles gaol, known then as the Bridewell (which then existed where the Confraternity and Premier halls stands to-day. See picture – circa 1900.)

Eight days later she was again interrogated, but still sticking to her story, that she knew nothing, she was returned to her cell for a further eight days with only her jailer for company. When she became ill, a doctor was called and she was sent to Nenagh gaol for a further seventeen days and again detained in solitary confinement.

At the end of this period she was brought back to the Bridewell (Thurles gaol) where the bed was removed from her cell and she was detained for a further 27 days.

Efforts by her parents to visit her during this sixty day ordeal were denied by John Gore Jones who threatened her parents by stating: quote “you too may hang for this crime“.

When she became hysterical, she was released three days before Christmas on the 22nd December 1857, thrown into the street and left to find her own way home to Killahara.

Anne, through her parents, later took Gore Jones RM to court for unlawful arrest. The jury found in her favour, but Gore Jones council asked that the compensation awarded, to be the smallest coinage then available (one farthing). The jury deliberated for one hour before awarding her the princely sum of six pence in damages.