Murder of Constable Feely and Arrest of his Murderers
We regret to say that Constable Feely, who, as we stated in our last, had been brutally and inhumanly beaten by a ferocious and reckless mob, opposite the Petit Sessions House of Ballinonty, on last week, has since died from the effects of the wounds he received on that day. This ill-fated man bore a most respectable character, and was ever found most punctual in the discharge of his several duties. He was a married man, and has left a wife in an advanced state of pregnancy, and four children totally unprovided for, to deplore his loss. An Inquest has been held on his body by Mr Cormack, Coroner, and a verdict of ‘Wilful murder” returned against Denis Carew, and four men named Corcoran, Delay, Cantwel and Stapleten, all of whom have been arrested and transmitted under a warrant from Fergus Langley and John Lane Esqrs., to our county gaol to abide the result of their trial at our next Assizes.
Clonmell Advertiser
The Morning Post 28 August 1834
And
A dreadful riot took place at Ballynanty, county Tipperary, while the magistrates were engaged at the Petit Sessions. Constables Barber and Feely received a warrant for the apprehension of a rioter: this they endeavoured to effect on last Friday, but they were so assailed with stones that they had to fly into the Court house for their lives, and constable Feely, who has a wife and large family, received so violent a blow of a stone that he died on Wednesday last. This outrage occurred while these two policemen were taking one of the rioters into the Court-house : but they were obliged to let the prisoner escape. The magistrates assembled, F Langley, M Jacob and J Lane Esqrs, immediately went out, accompanied by four policemen, the only force in that disturbed district, and with great difficulty, after reading the Riot Act, succeeded in driving off the mob, and securing the most daring of the rioters, a man of the name Carew, and the person who struck constable Feely with the stone. The mob broke the windows of the Courthouse. One of the persons concerned in the barbarous murder of Feely expressed his regret that he had not had the satisfaction of murdering two efficient magistrates, Dr Fitzgerald and Captain Jacob.
Limerick Chronicle.
The Standard 28 August 1834.
JM