BECAUSE John Sheares and Henry Sheares died hand in hand on a gallows in Dublin on July 14, 1798; because they were tortured before and mutilated after death by the invaders and enemies of their country; because they were betrayed by a man who had sat at their table as an honoured guest and had taken the young children of Henry Sheares upon his knee while he was planning to encompass their father’s death; and because their bodies in the crypt of St Michan’s Church in Dublin have never suffered decay or corruption, their memory has remained green and bright in Irish minds and hearts. They were natives of Cork, and that city was organised by them for the Rising. That it and Dublin were held in a grip of steel by the English was due to the information wormed out of John Sheares by the notorious Captain John Warneford Armstrong, the British officer who, under the tutelage and direction of Castlereagh, cultivated the acquaintance of the brothers for the purpose of betraying them. It has been a source of wonder to many writers that Armstrong should have got a secret pension of £500 a year—a big sum then—for such a trivial matter as the betrayal of two Irish rebels” at a time when they were. being killed, by the score; hut it was the bigger prize, the plans of the Republican Directory, that earned such a big reward for Armstrong.
After the scoundrel Reynolds had brought about the arrest of the majority of the leader at Oliver Bond’s house in the Spring of 1798, the Leinster Directory consisted of only three members—Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O’Connor, and John Sheares. The latter had tried to keep his elder and married brother out of the danger zone, but Henry was so much attached to John that he must share in all his projects and enterprises. Armstrong, who was attached to the British garrison at Loughlinstown Camp, Co. Dublin, was set the task of making the acquaintance, of the brothers Sheares, worming his way into their confidence, and getting from them, as a comrade and brother revolutionary, all the information possible regarding the Republican plans for the Rising. He did his work well, and he was generously rewarded by his grateful employers. He managed to get an introduction to them, professed to be an ardent lover of freedom and hater of the British invaders of Ireland, and declared himself ready to cooperate with the insurgent leaders in the task of taking Loughlinstown Camp by surprise, with all its valuable war material. He and the brothers became fast friends. He visited their house in Baggot Street, played with Henry’s young children, dined at their table frequently, and after every visit went straight to Castlereagh with his report, receiving from him instructions as to his next move against the lives of the brothers who hailed him as a comrade and a friend. So the plan for the capture of Dublin was known in advance to the English, and they took care to frustrate it by placing a heavy guard on all the approaches to the city, and on tile Castle, and on all the barracks and other buildings that it was planned to seize. In the same way the plan for Cork was discovered and similar measures were taken. And it was for that meritorious work Captain John Warneford Armstrong, gentleman, of Ballycumber, in Offaly, continued to draw a secret pension - until he died in his eighty-seventh year, an enemy of God and of Ireland to tile last. He made no secret of the fact that he was an atheist and always claimed that he had acted as a patriot and an honourable man and officer in bringing two dangerous ‘rebels” to justice, and helping to frustrate the nefarious designs of Irishmen who desired to commit the crime of breaking the enforced but blessed connection between their country and the British Empire.
Armstrong’s well done infamous work made it impossible for the Republicans of Dublin City to stir hand or foot. Every Orangeman and “loyalist,” even the lawyers in the courts and the judges on the bench, were armed to the teeth, every street was pan-oiled, every man suspected of being a member or supporter of the Republican Army was seized and imprisoned, and dwellings were i-aided night and day for men and arms. When the day of the Rising, May 23, came, the signal to be given—the stopping of the mail coaches—was carried out at Santry and Lucan, and a small force of patriot soldiers, led by Patrick Ledwidge and William Keogh, assembled at Rathfarnham. They attacked a much stronger force of yeomanry and had almost routed them when a company of Lord Roden’s dragoons arrived on the scene and turned the tide of battle. The two leaders were arrested. Patrick Ledwidge was hanged on Queen’s Bridge, Dublin, May 26, 1798, and his body thrown into “Croppies’ Hole” beside the Liffey, near Phoenix Park. William Keogh was severely wounded, but he recovered and managed to escape the vengeance of his captors. There was just one other incident. The impetuous Samuel Neilson mobilised a small body of men with the object of rescuing Lord Edward Fitzgerald from Newgate, but they were surrounded and overpowered and imprisoned. And that was the end of the Rising in Dublin City, thanks to the honourable activities of Sheares Armstrong, as the betrayer and spy was called to the end of his days.
The two brothers were arrested on May 21, and Armstrong, whose baseness at this time never occurred to them, had the effrontery to visit John Sheares in prison, probably in the hope of eliciting further information, They were horrified when he stepped to the witness table on July 12, to swear their lives away, and very calmly and efficiently he did the callous deed. The younger brother pleaded for Henry’s life, and asked that all the punishment for whatever was alleged to have been done by them might fall upon himself; but it was of no avail, The trial lasted for twenty-two hours, without an adjournment, and five hours after it had concluded they were brought up for sentence. Next day, July 14, 1798, they were hanged in front of Green Street prison.
It is of interest to note that, as well as Armstrong, the arch-spy Leonard McNally had a hand in the conviction of John and Henry Sheares. He, with Curran, Plunkett and Ponsonby, were acting for them. At a conference of these four a flaw in the Crown case was discovered and discussed. Curran’s intention was to catch the prosecution napping, spring the announcement of the flaw as a surprise, and then by a fierce attack, weaken the whole case. Imagine his amazement when he came into court and found his opponents prepared for him in every particular. And he never suspected his bosom friend McNally, who on this occasion, as on many another, had betrayed the clients depending upon him and the colleagues with whom he worked, to his employers at the Castle.