“My dearest Nancy,
“We return by Ross” (Co. Wexford) “both for greater safety and that we may see the scene of the famous battle.” (This probably was Vinegar Hill). “From every observation I can make it appears to me that this Country is completely quieted; if you were to hear all the different anecdotes told here you wou’d suppose you were reading another Helen Maria Williams. I shall give you but one—Col. Lehunte who is very civil to us was a prisoner to the Rebels and tolerably well treated as such till one day in the tattering (sic) of his house a Room—furnish’d with antique ornaments in black and orange was discover’d a small Skreen in the same colours with heathen divinities on it. This Skreen was carried instantly by the enrag’d mob thro the town as a proof of an intended Massacre by the Orange Men. This Skreen, says the famous fury Mrs. Dixon, was to be the standard of their Cavalry. This, (Hope) is the anchor on which the Catholic sailors were to be roasted alive—This, (Jupiter’s Eagle) is the Vulture that was to pick out the Catholic Children’s Eyes—She went thro the Mythology of the Skreen in this rational Exposition and entirely convinc’d the Mob. In a moment Col. Lehunte was dragg’d out to Execution, and his life was sav’d in the same manner his house was, by the number of disputants who shou’d take it. He received three pike wounds and was beat almost to death with sticks and the end of firelocks and at last taken back for a more deliberate Execution in the morning, being thrown for the night into a Dungeon where he lay wounded on fetters, bolts, and broken Bottles. This is a venerable old Gentleman, near 70 years old.
“We hear many such stories. The Bridge is deep stain’d with blood.
“Ever yours, my darling Nancy,
“C. K. Bushe.”
The temptation to quote extensively from these early letters of “the Chief” cannot be too freely indulged in, but I may include an account, written from Clonmel, in about 1797, to his wife, giving an account of what he calls “a most novel and extraordinary and disgusting species of crime”; which is a moderate way of defining the comprehensive atrocity of the act in question.
Charles Kendal Bushe to Mrs. Bushe.
Clonmel. (circa 1797.)
“...The woman was clearly convicted and will be exemplarily punish’d for it. She robb’d a churchyard of the hand of a dead man which she put into all the milk she churn’d. Butter making is a great part of the trade of the Country and the unfortunate Wretch was persuaded that this hand drawn thro the Milk in the devil’s name would give a miraculous quantity of butter, and it seems she has long made it a practice.”
From Chief Justice Bushe to Mrs. Bushe.