THE FIRST MARTYR OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC
ALTHOUGH in point of time the actual martyrdom of the four valiant soldiers who died at Blaris Mór, and whose story is told on another page, came before that of William Orr, of Antrim, he was ‘the first victim marked down for destruction, by the “Irish” Government, the agents of England in Dublin Castle, and so we name him the first martyr of the Republic of Ireland. The brave soldiers were taken up in May, 1797; William Orr, was arrested in September, 1796, and held for a whole year in prison in the hope that he would be persuaded by threats or bribes to implicate others, and so break confidence and spread distrust in the ranks of the United Irishmen. Though not at, all prominent as a leader, he was very popular, and was looked upon by the enemies of Ireland as one who would have, great influence with men in times of crisis. I-e was a Presbyterian farmer, a famous athlete, a man of splendid physique and handsome appearance, honest, upright, God-fearing and quietly courageous, who feared no man and loved Ireland with a love that was deathless. It was evidently thought by the tools of England that by making an example, a blood-victim, of such a popular man they would strike terror to the hearts of others and stay them in their disaffected course. The English Chief Secretary’ here at the time, the man whom Castlereagh succeeded, was’ Pelham, and he had in his ‘power for some reason or other, the now notorious Samuel Turner of Newry, barrister-at-law and LED. of Trinity College, who had been instructed by his master to join the United Irishmen and pose as a super-patriot, for the purpose of getting information that would be useful to his employer, and for which he would be well paid. This scoundrel happened to’ become a friend and associate of open hearted, generous-minded, unsuspecting William Orr, and was the person selected by Dublin Castle to supply sufficient. evidence to have a charge of treason to the Crown made against him. To procure witnesses (professional informers) who would support the charge, a jury to find him guilty, and a judge to convict and pass sentence of death, would be an easy matter for’ the Dublin Castle despots; that was a business at which they were adepts. It is of very great interest to know that the man who directed this whole infamous plot against the life and character of William Orr (for they tried to blast his reputation after they had killed him) was Arthur Wolfe, who afterwards became Lord Kilwarden, and was killed by a mob in Dublin on the night of Emmet’s Rising in 1803. In history after history you will see it recorded that Kilwarden was the most humane and upright of judges, whose. death was little short of a national calamity, and crocodile tears are shed for him by people who have scarcely a word to say about the deliberate judicial murder of William Orr, and no word at all about Kilwarden’s leading and shameful part in it. Another member of the bloodthirsty pack who hunted William Orr to death was Solicitor-general John Toler, afterwards the notorious Lord Norbury, who sentenced scores of innocent men to death, before he was finally driven in disgrace from the bench. Of a like pattern were all the others—judges, lawyers, and sheriff—who had a hand in the martyrdom, and it has been truly said that “honour, purity of motive, and self-sacrifice were found only in the dock on that fateful 18th September, 1797, in the Courthouse of Carrickfergus Town.” Curran defended William Orr, but his eloquence rang through that polluted air in vain, for the result had already been decided by Dublin Castle. Still, there was one honest man among the carefully- packed jury, an old man named Archibald Thompson. He influenced two others, and all three held out against a verdict of “ guilty.” Then the jury were locked up for the night, intoxicating drink in lavish quantities was supplied to them at the Crown’s expense, the three un- accommodating jurors were threatened by their Orange colleagues with beggary and death, and finally bullied into submission, as they afterwards swore in three separate affidavits, and the desired verdict was at last handed to the presiding judge with a recommendation to mercy. It may be mentioned that one of the professional informers, Wheatley, who swore William Orr’s life away, afterwards confessed publicly that every word of his evidence was false. All in vain was that recommendation of the jury, and the sworn statements of the three jurymen, and the confession of the informer; Dublin Castle had selected William Orr as its first victim in the new phase of the old and never-ceasing campaign for the destruction of the Irish Nation, and no mercy or justice would be shown him. He was sentenced to be hanged, and the sentence was carried out at Carrickfergus on October 14, 1797, in the presence of his enemies only, and of a few intimate friends, for the whole population of the town, to mark their abhorrence of a crime against justice, quitted the place in a huge procession, and did not return until they came reverently, in sorrow and in pride, to accompany the body of the martyr to its last resting-place in the churchyard of Templepatrick. At the last moment, before the rope was fastened about his neck, this good and simple man whom traitors to everything good and holy had charged with treachery, cried out in a calm, clear voice, as if answering some secret thought passing through the minds of his murderers:— “I am, no traitor. I die a persecuted man, for a persecuted country.” How many other victims of aliens and renegades, in Orr’s day and in ours, have uttered thai passionate cry of protest against falsehood and injustice. So deep an impression did the sacrifice of this brave man make (he had been offered his freedom if he would plead guilty and implicate others) that “ Remember Orr “ was a rallying cry throughout the country in the years that followed; it was the cry even of the militiamen who joined the soldiers of the Republic in their fight against the invader. Remember Orr I” was the cry with which the Republicans of Ulster clashed into the fight at Antrim and Saintfield and Ballinahinch in the summer of 1798 when they made their gallant struggle for freedom, and left behind them an undying inspiration for all the generations that ware to come. As the men from William Orr’s own town land —the men he had taught -and rained_ hurriedly to Antrim town that sunny summer morning in response to McCracken’s call, they ran to the door of Orr’s home and said a hurried word of encouragement to the sad widow who with her six children, the youngest of whom was born six months after its father’s death on the gallows—was praying that victory might be theirs that day. She heard the din of battle during the hours that followed, she saw with sinking heart the United Irishmen as they. retreated slowly, fighting as they went, and when, finally, the red coats of the English soldiery came in view, she knew that she must flee with her young flock to the friendly shelter of the blossoming whins. From her hiding place she saw the home that had known so much happiness and sorrow—the home of William Orr—go up, in flames after it had been plundered of all its belongings, and it was a heart-broken woman who came back from the hills several days later to take up life anew in an old house near at hand that was fitted up and furnished for her by kindly, neighbours, who ploughed and sowed and reaped for her, the whole countryside turning out at. times to do her spring work and her harvesting, and to make known to friend and foe that the men and women of Antrim were true to the memory of William Orr.
ALTHOUGH in point of time the actual martyrdom of the four valiant soldiers who died at Blaris Mór, and whose story is told on another page, came before that of William Orr, of Antrim, he was ‘the first victim marked down for destruction, by the “Irish” Government, the agents of England in Dublin Castle, and so we name him the first martyr of the Republic of Ireland. The brave soldiers were taken up in May, 1797; William Orr, was arrested in September, 1796, and held for a whole year in prison in the hope that he would be persuaded by threats or bribes to implicate others, and so break confidence and spread distrust in the ranks of the United Irishmen. Though not at, all prominent as a leader, he was very popular, and was looked upon by the enemies of Ireland as one who would have, great influence with men in times of crisis. I-e was a Presbyterian farmer, a famous athlete, a man of splendid physique and handsome appearance, honest, upright, God-fearing and quietly courageous, who feared no man and loved Ireland with a love that was deathless. It was evidently thought by the tools of England that by making an example, a blood-victim, of such a popular man they would strike terror to the hearts of others and stay them in their disaffected course. The English Chief Secretary’ here at the time, the man whom Castlereagh succeeded, was’ Pelham, and he had in his ‘power for some reason or other, the now notorious Samuel Turner of Newry, barrister-at-law and LED. of Trinity College, who had been instructed by his master to join the United Irishmen and pose as a super-patriot, for the purpose of getting information that would be useful to his employer, and for which he would be well paid. This scoundrel happened to’ become a friend and associate of open hearted, generous-minded, unsuspecting William Orr, and was the person selected by Dublin Castle to supply sufficient. evidence to have a charge of treason to the Crown made against him. To procure witnesses (professional informers) who would support the charge, a jury to find him guilty, and a judge to convict and pass sentence of death, would be an easy matter for’ the Dublin Castle despots; that was a business at which they were adepts. It is of very great interest to know that the man who directed this whole infamous plot against the life and character of William Orr (for they tried to blast his reputation after they had killed him) was Arthur Wolfe, who afterwards became Lord Kilwarden, and was killed by a mob in Dublin on the night of Emmet’s Rising in 1803. In history after history you will see it recorded that Kilwarden was the most humane and upright of judges, whose. death was little short of a national calamity, and crocodile tears are shed for him by people who have scarcely a word to say about the deliberate judicial murder of William Orr, and no word at all about Kilwarden’s leading and shameful part in it. Another member of the bloodthirsty pack who hunted William Orr to death was Solicitor-general John Toler, afterwards the notorious Lord Norbury, who sentenced scores of innocent men to death, before he was finally driven in disgrace from the bench. Of a like pattern were all the others—judges, lawyers, and sheriff—who had a hand in the martyrdom, and it has been truly said that “honour, purity of motive, and self-sacrifice were found only in the dock on that fateful 18th September, 1797, in the Courthouse of Carrickfergus Town.” Curran defended William Orr, but his eloquence rang through that polluted air in vain, for the result had already been decided by Dublin Castle. Still, there was one honest man among the carefully- packed jury, an old man named Archibald Thompson. He influenced two others, and all three held out against a verdict of “ guilty.” Then the jury were locked up for the night, intoxicating drink in lavish quantities was supplied to them at the Crown’s expense, the three un- accommodating jurors were threatened by their Orange colleagues with beggary and death, and finally bullied into submission, as they afterwards swore in three separate affidavits, and the desired verdict was at last handed to the presiding judge with a recommendation to mercy. It may be mentioned that one of the professional informers, Wheatley, who swore William Orr’s life away, afterwards confessed publicly that every word of his evidence was false. All in vain was that recommendation of the jury, and the sworn statements of the three jurymen, and the confession of the informer; Dublin Castle had selected William Orr as its first victim in the new phase of the old and never-ceasing campaign for the destruction of the Irish Nation, and no mercy or justice would be shown him. He was sentenced to be hanged, and the sentence was carried out at Carrickfergus on October 14, 1797, in the presence of his enemies only, and of a few intimate friends, for the whole population of the town, to mark their abhorrence of a crime against justice, quitted the place in a huge procession, and did not return until they came reverently, in sorrow and in pride, to accompany the body of the martyr to its last resting-place in the churchyard of Templepatrick. At the last moment, before the rope was fastened about his neck, this good and simple man whom traitors to everything good and holy had charged with treachery, cried out in a calm, clear voice, as if answering some secret thought passing through the minds of his murderers:— “I am, no traitor. I die a persecuted man, for a persecuted country.” How many other victims of aliens and renegades, in Orr’s day and in ours, have uttered thai passionate cry of protest against falsehood and injustice. So deep an impression did the sacrifice of this brave man make (he had been offered his freedom if he would plead guilty and implicate others) that “ Remember Orr “ was a rallying cry throughout the country in the years that followed; it was the cry even of the militiamen who joined the soldiers of the Republic in their fight against the invader. Remember Orr I” was the cry with which the Republicans of Ulster clashed into the fight at Antrim and Saintfield and Ballinahinch in the summer of 1798 when they made their gallant struggle for freedom, and left behind them an undying inspiration for all the generations that ware to come. As the men from William Orr’s own town land —the men he had taught -and rained_ hurriedly to Antrim town that sunny summer morning in response to McCracken’s call, they ran to the door of Orr’s home and said a hurried word of encouragement to the sad widow who with her six children, the youngest of whom was born six months after its father’s death on the gallows—was praying that victory might be theirs that day. She heard the din of battle during the hours that followed, she saw with sinking heart the United Irishmen as they. retreated slowly, fighting as they went, and when, finally, the red coats of the English soldiery came in view, she knew that she must flee with her young flock to the friendly shelter of the blossoming whins. From her hiding place she saw the home that had known so much happiness and sorrow—the home of William Orr—go up, in flames after it had been plundered of all its belongings, and it was a heart-broken woman who came back from the hills several days later to take up life anew in an old house near at hand that was fitted up and furnished for her by kindly, neighbours, who ploughed and sowed and reaped for her, the whole countryside turning out at. times to do her spring work and her harvesting, and to make known to friend and foe that the men and women of Antrim were true to the memory of William Orr.