Charles Rickards

Level 347

Maureen Withey on 27th September 2020

Irish Convict Database, by Peter Mayberry. Charles Rickards, age 34, Asia I (3) 1825, Tried at Wicklow 1824, Life, DOB: 1791. Native of Wicklow Co., Ploughman shearer. ---------------------------------------------------- (Provincial News, from Limerick Journal) The only case of importance in the Criminal Court was the trial of a man of the name of Rickards, who was tried for administering the oaths of a Ribbonman, and convicted on the clearest testimony. The Secrets of the Society were, upon the trial, fully disclosed, and their objects exhibited to public view, which were to effect a separation between this Country and Great Britain, and a general assassination of the Protestants of Ireland. The Chief Justice, when passing sentence (which was transportation for life) delivered a most beautiful and impressive exhortation to the prisoner.- He reverted to the scenes of bloodshed in the year 1798, the effects of which he said, left many a woman a widow, and many a child as an orphan.- He pointed out the madness of the attempt to separate the countries that were held together by firm and constitutional ties, and which were governed by the best laws which any nation upon the earth was blessed with. Laws, as he said, that the prisoner himself was then enjoying the benefits of, for until a very few years ago, had he been convicted of the same crime, that offense which was now only accompanied with transportation, would have been stoned for at the gallows. Connaught Journal, 15 March 1824. -------------------------------------------------- Colonial Secretary Index. RICKARDS, Charles. Per "Asia", Feb 1825. 1825 Feb - On list of convicts landed from the "Asia" and forwarded to Appin for distribution (Reel 6014; 4/3513 p.491) -------------------------------------------------- 1828 Census Index. Charles Rickards, age 30, G.S. Asia, Life, catholic, Labourer, Cornelius Dempsey, Lower Minto district.