Dr. Patrick Barrett, Ballina
1798 Martyr
(By Stephen Dunford, Killala)
BELOVED of seven parishes was Doctor Patrick Barrett, the almost forgotten Mayo martyr and father of the rebel leader, Colonel Patrick Barrett, who in 1798, was the most eminent, esteemed and successful Catholic physician practising in the town of Ballina. Born in the barony of Erris and descended from an ancient Anglo-Irish family who once possessed large estates in Erris and Tyrawley, a fact of which the good doctor was not a little boastful, Barrett was fortunate to have in his youth acquired a creditable general education, and as a result gained a competent knowledge of Latin, which he apparently spoke with “remarkable correctness and fluency.”
As a young man he served his apprenticeship to a “druggist” in Ballina and once qualified, he carried on in this occupation and was held in high regard by the good people of the town who quickly came to look upon him more as a physician than an alchemist. In fact, so highly was he regarded by the citizens, that they generously raised a sizeable subscription which enabled him to study medicine at Edinburgh; a gift he gladly accepted, and throughout this period of academia, his wife and children were amply provided for through the same subscription. After gaining his degree, Patrick returned to his native Mayo and established his practice in the newly thriving town of Ballina, having acquired a fine two-storey house on Pearse Street; directly opposite the former Bartra House Hotel. The practice flourished (£300 per annum), and Doctor Patrick Barrett soon became one of the most respected citizens of the town.
*A secret nationalist sympathizer who supported and welcomed the arrival of the French, Patrick himself took no active part in the military side of the rebellion, other than tending to the wounded (of both sides) and generally assisting the Franco-Irish Army, in a non-combative manner.
In September, after the sacking of Killala and the crushing and final collapse of the rising, Barrett continued to practice openly, despite the fact that his son Patrick was at this time a wanted fugitive, on the run and hiding out with a price on his head.
In the immediate aftermath of the rising there appears to have been a determined and concerted effort, orchestrated mainly by Mr. Nelligan, the local parson and loyalist, enthusiastically assisted by Colonel King, to have the doctor arrested and tried for his rebel associations. Eventually, a local ‘neer do well,’ a confirmed quarrelsome drunkard and sometime tinsmith named Maxwell, who hailed from Ardnaree, an ancient neighbourhood of the town, was approached and well bribed by the pair to swear false testimony against him. As a result, Doctor Patrick was taken into custody and conveyed to Castlebar where he was placed before a courtmartial to face numerous charges. It is traditionally believed that it was Maxwell’s hearsay which swayed those denizens of Dublin Castle, the courtmartial, and acting mainly on the word of this witness, Barrett was found guilty of all the charges and sentenced to death. It is told that before the trial commenced, Barrett was supposedly offered his freedom, on condition that he and his entire family (seven children) leave Ballina for America. But so conscious was he of his innocence, and so confident did he feel that not one treasonable charge could be lawfully proved against him that he scornfully rejected the offer saying that if proof sufficient to condemn him could be secured he would not have received such a lenient offer.
The day following the courtmartial the good doctor was retuned under heavy escort to Ballina where he was to be publicly executed, as a grisly example to the townspeople, and any other would-be rebel sympathisers.
It is remembered that the night before his execution, Barrett sent word from the bastille where he was held, to the local undertaker, a Mr. Hewson, requesting him to construct his coffin larger than normal, as he wished to be buried in his finest suit and best hat. This done, he then sent for his good friend, Jack O’Dowd, a prosperous Ballina merchant, and obtained from him a promise that Jack would, in the aftermath of the execution, cut down his body from the fatal tree and ensure that he was interred in consecrated ground.
Early the next morning, Doctor Patrick Barrett was led out in shackles from the jail, and conveyed under armed guard across the solitary bridge straddling the then flooded river Moy, to the Fair Green at Ardnaree. As he journeyed across the bridge, it is said that the man’s great benevolence drew multitudes of the local people to pay their last homage to him: he was accompanied by two local Catholic priests reciting prayers.
When the cortége reached the place of execution it was met by the aforementioned Jack O’Dowd, who, tradition tells, was dressed exactly like his condemned friend, in a black morning coat, knee breeches, silk stockings, low shoes fastened with gold clasps and a silk Caroline hat.
Previous to the heavy noose being placed around the victim’s neck, Jack stepped forward and the two friends embraced for the last time on this earth. In a few short sentences, Doctor Patrick then addressed the large gathering, calling on God to witness his innocence of the charges for which he had been so unjustly convicted and condemned. Following this short emotive speech, the execution commenced and the good doctor, still displaying the most lofty contempt for death was quickly “turned off” and died “with much propriety and without any fear.”
In the aftermath of the execution, when the body had dangled long enough for all to witness, Jack O’Dowd was given permission to carry out his duty, and he duly and solemnly fulfilled his good friend’s final wish. With great reverence he cut down the body and brought it to the nearby graveyard of the old Abbey at Ardnaree, and buried it, exactly as he had vowed, within the walls of the consecrated ground.
A short time after that fateful day, a severely disheartened Jack O’Dowd himself was laid to rest in the same graveyard, close by the grave of his lamented friend.
At the same time as Dr. Patrick Barrett was being hanged on the green of Ardnaree, another Ballina rebel and physician, a friend of Barretts,’ Doctor Thomas O’Brien was meeting a similar grisly fate on the infamous gallows tree at Castlebar, having been charged with “accepting a military commission from the French and acting as a surgeon to the Rebels and French while at Castlebar.”
An unpublished local memoir written from the loyalist perspective, claims that during the rebellion of ’98 a rebel by the name of Barrett who was later hanged at Ardnaree bridge in Ballina, once took possession of Rappa Castle (Caisleán a Rapaigh/the Castle of the Plunderers) a short time after it had been vacated by the owner, who fled to Moyne Abbey having been attacked by rebels. According to the memoir, the rebel claimed to be the lawful owner of the castle, being descended as he was from its pre-Cromwellian proprietors, also named Barrett, who acquired possession of the property during the latter part of the fifteenth century. Apparently, the rebel of whom we speak only occupied the castle for two days before he was arrested and met his fate. The account also claims that a coat of mail which once belonged to an ancient Gaelic Chieftain and which had been found previous to the rebellion in a perfect state of preservation in a nearby bog and kept at the castle was removed and never recovered.
Another version with similar sympathies contradicts the aforementioned and claims that the rebel was in fact Colonel Patrick Barrett, son of the good doctor.
It reports:
1798 MARTYR
“In his new sphere of duty his time was occupied in restraining the exuberant excesses of his followers, than in training them in military discipline. Nor were these exertions confined solely to the town, for often he had to mount his horse and hurry into the country to protect private property. Learning that the house of Mr. Knox at Rappa was in danger of being plundered, he proceeded there with a party and removed the plate and other valuables which he secured at his father’s house in Knox St, now the Munster and Leinster Bank (Allied Irish Bank) premises. He also collected and deposited in safety, parish records, deeds, wills and other documents which he found scattered and trampled underfoot at the house of the Rev. Mr. Nelligan who had fled to Sligo.”
Tradition has it that as the French forces were advancing on Ballina, Patrick and his family fearing for their safety, fled from the town and took refuge on Annagh Island in Lough Conn, where they remained for more than a week. They only returned when their provisions ran out and on arrival back in the town were placed under a promise of protection by the rebel command.
It is told in the folklore of Ballina that Maxwell, the tinsmith, who falsely swore away the life of Dr. Barrett, met his death by Providence, when the roof under which he was sleeping fell in and killed both he and his wife, though their only child who was sleeping between them escaped completely unhurt.
Nelligan lived in the house with the steps in McDermott Street, while Col King lived in Knox Street, now in the possession of MacHale, solicitors.
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