The Fate of Father Sheehy

One of the darkest episodes of Ireland’s penal laws supplies the plot of The Fate of Father Sheehy: A Tale of Tipperary in the Olden Time, a historical novel by Mary Anne Sadlier (1820-1903), the prolific Irish Catholic novelist who wrote as Mrs. J. Sadlier. Father Nicholas Sheehy, parish priest of Clogheen, was convicted on fabricated murder testimony and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Clonmel in 1766, a casualty of official hostility toward priests who sided with tenant farmers during the Whiteboy disturbances. D. and J. Sadlier brought the book out in New York in 1863, and James Duffy of Dublin issued an edition soon afterward. Sheehy’s grave at Shanrahan became a place of pilgrimage, and Sadlier’s tale helped fix his standing as a martyr in Irish popular memory. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.