Breandán Mac Suibhne on the intriguing family history of Irish-American historian Kevin Boyle
A view of Main Street, Dungloe, from the Bridge End, c. 1900. Bridge House, the home of Charlie Boyle and his son Condy , is the two-storey white building on the right. The barracks is behind the photographer. Photograph: Robert French, National Library of Ireland.On Saturday, May 30th, 1835 there was a row in Charlie Boyle’s house in the Bridge End of Dungloe.
Coldplay in Croke Park review: Croker loses its collective mind to choruses purpose-built for this kind of night outLife after running Harvey’s Point hotel: ‘We found our little piece of paradise in southwest France’ Andy Boyle had “a good many against him and a good many with him”, recalled John Sweeney, the son of an innkeeper. But more, it would seem, were against him than with him and he did not get the better of Philemy.
McDevitt would later admit grabbing the carbine and releasing the bayonet, but say that he had done so in self-defence: the police had attacked him without provocation, he said, and he feared that Armstrong was about to run him through with the bayonet. The arrest of the parish priest caused consternation to sober heads in the crowded town. Fearing a riot, Charlie Boyle and Andy McDevitt of Meenmore, a cousin of the priest, went up to the barracks, asking for him to be released. Armstrong refused and, presenting his bayoneted carbine at McDevitt, told him to stand back or he would run him through. The two men then sent for Peter Boyle, a shopkeeper cum town politician , to see if he might defuse the situation.
“Be damned to you”, Armstrong allegedly said to him, “It is fitter you should come here into your rank and be prepared to fire than at that work.” Armstrong and the constables duly stood trial for murder at the Lifford Assizes on Saturday, August 1st. There were allegations that defence attorneys had packed the jury by rejecting Catholics. And there were allegations from the defence that several of their witnesses had been intimidated.
The jurors trooped back to their room. Then, shortly before midnight, they returned with a verdict: they had acquitted the four constables but found Sergeant Armstrong guilty of manslaughter. The judge expressed surprise at the jurors finding a man guilty who half an hour earlier they had “virtually pronounced innocent”. He did, however, “receive” the verdict.
Events surrounding the killing of Boyle illuminate the State’s growing pains in the 1830s and for this reason they are of interest to historians. But perhaps the most intriguing twist in the tale is the fate of Charlie Boyle’s son, Condy, who was 16 or 17 years of age when his father was gunned down.
In 1888 the League boycotted Maurice Boyle, a hotelier, for supplying goods to the boycotted Constabulary in the neighbouring parish of Gaoth Dobhair. Boyle would compound his offence by applying successfully to become postmaster in Dungloe when, for his political entanglements, James Sweeney lost that lucrative position.
The row got wide attention until eclipsed in early February by the killing of District Inspector William Martin, when after Mass in Derrybeg he attempted to arrest James MacFadden, parish priest of Gaoth Dobhair, for inciting people to support militant land activists’ Plan of Campaign. Mass-goers battering a policeman to death with paling posts and stones in Derrybeg was more shocking than Mrs Gallagher whacking a priest with her umbrella in the gallery of Dungloe chapel.
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