On this day in 1942, Tipperary man George Plant was executed by military firing squad at Portlaoise prison after ‘one of the most controversial cases in Irish legal history.’
Although raised in a ‘strict, sober’ Protestant household outside Fethard, Plant had republican sympathies by the time he was a teenager. By 1940, Plant was on full-time IRA service and in November of 1941, he, along with IRA Southern Division commander, Joseph O’ Connor were charged in the Special Criminal Court with the murder of fellow IRA-man Michael Devereux. It was alleged that Plant and accomplices lured Devereux, who was suspected of informing to the gardai, to a meeting in the foothills of Slievenamon where Devereux was shot dead.
After Devereux’s body was found, Plant and O’ Connor were charged with murder, the guards being tipped off by a confession from IRA chief-of-staff Stephen Hayes. The state’s only substantial evidence were the statements of three of Plant’s alleged accomplices and when they refused to testify in Court, the prosecution’s case quickly collapsed.
Plant and O’Connor were immediately rearrested after being released and the state once again charged them, along with two of the accomplices (Patrick Davern and Michael Walsh) with murder.
Fianna Fail Minister for Justice, Gerald Boland, issued an order under emergency powers legislation that the four defendants should be tried before the special military court. Remarkably, another emergency powers order revoked ordinary judicial procedure regarding evidence, authorising the military court to suspend itself, whenever it saw fit, from abiding by any rule of evidence. Even though Davern and Walsh again refused to testify, their original statements were read out by Gardai and accepted as evidence by the Court.
Consequently, Plant, Davern and Walsh were convicted of murder and sentenced to death while O’ Connor was acquitted. After appeals for clemency, Davern’s and Walsh’s sentences were commuted to life imprisonment but Plant’s sentence was upheld and he was transferred to Portlaoise prison where he was executed one week later.
What exactly transpired in the ‘Plant-Devereux affair’ will forever remain shrouded in mystery given the extraordinary measures taken by the government of the day to get a prosecution in times of national emergency (bearing in mind this occurred during ‘the Emergency’) and the fact that none of the key witnesses wished to testify. Whether guilty or innocent, Plant's remains were exhumed and released to his family in 1948. He is buried in St. Johnstown cemetery near Fethard.
Sources:
https://www.dib.ie/biography/plant-george-a7360
Michael Moroney, ‘George Plant and the rule of law – the Devereux affair 1940–1942,’ Tipperary Historical Journal, (1988)
The 1867 Fenian rebellion happened on this day 158 years ago.
Though militarily a disaster, the rising would have profound historical consequences for Ireland. Although the main focus of the rising was on Tallaght, Co. Dublin, there were rebellions in Limerick, Cork, Monaghan, Louth and Tipperary.
There were attacks on police barracks at Ballingarry, Emly, Gortavoher (near Tipperary Town) and Roskeen (near Drombane), where the rebels succeeded in burning the barracks. Groups also gathered at Moyaliffe, Drombane and Borrisoleigh.
A large group of armed rebels assembled at Ballyhurst, between Tipperary Town and Kilfeacle. The men were led by Colonel Thomas F Bourke of Fethard, a veteran of the American civil war where he had fought for the Confederate side. At Ballyhurst, there was a brief skirmish with soldiers of the 31st Regiment under the command of Magistrate de Gernon and one of the Fenians, James Russell from Lattin, was killed. Bourke, along with forty other men, was captured and taken to Tipperary Town Bridewell Gaol. Bourke was sentenced to death but this was later commuted to life imprisonment and he was eventually freed in 1871.
In Templederry, a band of Fenians attempted to raid “a house of the gentry” to procure arms. However, like many other raids around the county, word had already filtered through to the authorities that something was afoot. The police ambushed and captured the rebels. One man, Jeremiah Bourke, was shot and seriously injured. All the conspirators were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment or transportation. Due to his injury, Bourke would not be tried until 1868 when he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. During the War of Independence, Bourke’s family home in Templederry would be used as a safehouse by the likes of Sean Treacy and Sean Hogan when they were on the run.
Lastly, William Carden of Barnane, Templemore communicated to Magistrate John Gore Jones in Thurles that a large force of Fenians had been seen heading towards the Devil’s Bit. On Jones’ instruction, Inspector O’ Connor of Templemore, along with a troop of Constabulary and a detachment of the 31st Foot, pursued the rebels, eventually catching up with them near Dovea. As the rebels tried to outflank the military, Jones gave the order to open fire which led to the rebels scattering.
By the end of the short-lived rebellion, John Flannery states that up to 200 people had been imprisoned in Nenagh Gaol while there were hundreds more in the county gaol in Clonmel. On July 8th, when the North Tipperary Assizes opened in Nenagh, the caseload was mainly concerned with the Fenian rebellion and 62 people were finally charged with taking part in the rebellion in north Tipperary.
Historian Ronan McGreevy states that the 1867 Fenian Rebellion was ‘so badly organised and executed as to convince even the most hardened Fenian that an open rebellion against British rule would never succeed in peacetime’. John Devoy, a Fenian who was imprisoned at the time of the rebellion, concluded that an Irish rebellion could only succeed when “England is engaged in a desperate struggle with some great European power or European combination”. Hence, the fateful decision in September 1914 by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) to use the opportunity created by the first World War to stage a rebellion against the British.
Sources:
https://tipperarystudies.ie/fenian-walk-and-glankeen-commemorative-event-sun-5-march/
https://www.nenaghguardian.ie/2017/03/01/remembering-the-fenian-rising-in-tipperary/
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/fenian-rising-of-1867-to-be-remembered-with-events-across-ireland-1.2996546
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/in-every-generation-an-irishman-s-diary-on-the-fenian-rising-of-1867-and-the-battle-of-tallaght-1.2991204
Tipperary Annual 2018 – p42
