February 3rd 1899 – RIC district inspector killed in scuffle with Canon James McFadden, the “fighting priest of Gweedore”
The Donegal priest was a fierce defender of the rights of tenant farmers.
On February 3rd 1899, Canon James McFadden, a native of Dúcharaidh, Co Donegal, was saying mass in Doirí Beaga chapel, when a group of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) men, led by District Inspector William Martin, arrived to arrest him. McFadden, who was known as “the fighting priest of Gweedore”, was a fierce defender of the rights of local farmers in the area. When bailiffs would arrive in Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair) to seize cattle or issue an eviction, residents would sound an alarm by blowing horns, and hundreds would assemble to prevent the legal officers for completing their task.
After McFadden exited the church, a scuffle began, and Martin was thrown to the ground, striking his head on a stone. He died shortly afterwards. Several of the locals fled the scene, seeking sanctuary in the local bogs and mountains. Some walked all the way to Co Derry, taking passage to the United States. McFadden was taken into custody, along with about thirty other people, and brought to Maryborough Gael in Queen’s County (known as Portlaoise Jail in Co Laois today).
Though McFadden was seen as someone who stood up for the rights of those without much power – that is, tenant farms in Co Donegal – he was not above some disciplinary measures which are brutal by modern standards. He once made a group of children walk barefoot to school for a week in winter, as punishment for their transgressions. He was also opposed to crossroads-dancing, where poitín (moonshine) was plentiful, and earned the nickname “An Sagart Mór” (“the big priest”), despite his relatively short stature.
McFadden’s trial, and the trial of twelve others, began on October 19th 1889. The prosecution was led by Peter O’Brien, the Attorney-General for Ireland, best known for administering Arthur Balfour’s Crimes Act of 1887, which gave greater power to local authorities in combating agitation during the Land War in Ireland. O’Brien was known as “Peter the Packer”, as he had a reputation for packing juries in order to influence the outcome of verdicts.
The defence was led by Tim Healy, responsible for the ‘Healy Clause’ in the 1881 Land Act, which protected tenants from rent increases on improvements. The trial proceeded for two weeks before O’Brien and Healy reached an arrangement, in which all the defendants would plead guilty, and none would be sentenced to death (a real possibility at the time). McFadden was released immediately, though some of the other men were sentenced to up to thirty years in prison. An editorial in the Freeman’s Journal attacked Healy for the deal, and accused McFadden of having abandoned his parishioners.
After his release, McFadden became parish priest in Inishkeel, Glenties, where he lived for the remaining 17 years of his life. The novelist Patrick MacGill, who was born in Glenties, based the character of Fr Devaney in his novel Children of the Dead End, on Canon James McFadden.
Sources
Boylan, Henry, A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd edn. (Niwot, CO: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1998).
Maye, Brian, “An Irishman’s Diary”, Irish Times, 17 April 2017, p. 13.