Cornelius Sheehan

343

Maureen Withey on 11th June 2021

Irish Convict Database by Peter Mayberry. Cornelius Sheehan, alias Sheahan, age on arrival, 23, Earl St Vincent (3) 1823, Tried Cork Co., 1823, Life, for Administering unlawful oaths. Irish rebel. DOB, 1800, native place, Cork Co. Ploughman. --------------------------------------------------- Cornelius was a Whiteboy rebel. One of the likely consequences of his trial and sentence was the following brutal case of murder, which was widely reported in both Ireland and England in the newspapers of the day. MOST ATROCIOUS MURDER OF A GENTLEMAN'S FAMILY. At early hour yesterday, (Wednesday 10th inst.) we received a communication, by express, from a correspondent of ours, detailing the particulars of one of the most revolting and dreadful instances of assassination that the history of even Whiteboyism itself can furnish. At about eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, a party of Whiteboys attacked the house of Mr. Thomas Franks of Lisnagoorneen, near Rockmills, within five miles of Fertnoy, and murdered that Gentleman, his wife and his son, Mr. Henry Maunsell Franks. Our correspondent states, that the miscreants murdered the old man by discharging a blunderbuss through his side, and his wife and son, by beating out their brains with a bar of iron. In consequence of a letter from George Bond Lowe, Esq. a Magistrate, a copy of which is now before us, Mr. O'Brien Coroner, set out yesterday afternoon, at half past four, to hold an Inquest, which will sit this morning. We understand that a man and maid servant of the deceased are in custody on suspicion. The particular motives by which these murders were instigated, cannot, of course, be positively known ; but it may justly be presumed, that they acted in pursuance of the system which for the last two years has afflicted the South of Ireland, and that this lamented and respectable family have been thus inhumanly massacred, in consequence of Mr. Franks and his son having prosecuted to conviction, at the last Spring Assizes, Cornelius Sheehan, for assaulting Mr. H. M. Franks with intent to rob him of his arms, and for administering to him a Whiteboy oath. This Sheehan was sentenced to transportation for life; thus most legally and justly punished; and now those who did and now those who did the great public benefit of promoting that deserved punishment, have been barbarously butchered in their unguarded and hitherto peaceful dwelling. We have, as the public know, all along maintained that the insurrectionary spirit was by no means subdued. Morning Post, (London) 16 Sept 1823.