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Town walls[edit]
Old Saint Mary's Church
West Gate of the town walls
Clonmel grew significantly in medieval times and was protected by town walls. A small section of the town walls remains in place near Old St. Mary's Church. This church was originally built in the 14th century or earlier but has been reconstructed or renovated on numerous occasions. It was fortified early in its history, the town being strategically important, initially for the Earls of Ormonde, and later the Earl of Kildare. Some fortified parts of the church were destroyed or damaged during the mid-17th century Cromwellian occupation.[citation needed]
One of the former entry points into the town is now the site of the West Gate, a 19th-century reconstruction of an older structure. There were originally three gates in the walled town, North, East and West – with the South being protected by the river Suir and the Comeragh Mountains. The West Gate is now an open arched entrance onto O'Connell Street, the main street of the town.[citation needed]
Elizabethan era[edit]
On 17 September 1583, while a fugitive during the last stages of the Second Desmond Rebellion, Fr. Muiris Mac Ionrachtaigh, chaplain and confessor to the Rebel Earl of Desmond, was taken prisoner upon Sliabh Luachra and taken to Clonmel for imprisonment, while he continued his priestly ministry to the best of his ability.
According to historian James Coombes, "Here, as in other southern towns, Counter-Reformation Catholicism was already beginning to make a real impact; and, as in these other towns, the citizens of Clonmel were beginning to come up against the problem of combining loyalty to the Pope with loyalty to the Queen. Maurice MacKenraghty continued his ministry during what proved to be a long imprisonment".
In April 1585, his jailer was bribed by Victor White, a leading townsman, to release the priest for one night to say Mass and administer Communion in White's house on Easter Sunday (11 April 1585). Permission was granted, and Fr. MacKenraghty spent the whole night hearing Confessions.
The jailer, however, had secretly tipped off the President of Munster Sir John Norris, who had just arrived at Clonmel. According to historian James Coombes, "Norris arranged to have White's house surrounded by soldiers and raided. The raiding party entered it shortly before Mass was due to begin and naturally caused great panic. Some people tried to hide in the basement; others jumped through the windows; one woman broke her arm in an attempt to escape. The priest hid in a heap of straw and was wounded in the thigh by the probing sword of a soldier. Despite the pain, he remained silent and later escaped. The soldiers dismantled the altar and seized the sacred vessels".
According to historian Judy Barry, Fr. Mac Ionrachtaigh, "surrendered himself when he learned that White would otherwise be executed in his place. He refused to take the oath of supremacy and was condemned to death. On 30 April 1585 he was tied to the tail of a horse and taken to the market place, where he was partially hanged. Accounts differ as to whether his executioners were persuaded to behead him without quartering his body. At all events, after his remains had been exhibited for some days on the market cross, they were handed over to local Catholics for honourable burial".
According to historian James Coombes, the former location of Victor White's house near Lough Street in Clonmel continued to be nicknamed "Martyr Lane" until well into Cromwellian times. Fr. Muiris Mac Ionrachtaigh was beatified by Pope John Paul II, along with 16 other Irish Catholic Martyrs, on 27 September 1992.
Corporation regalia[edit]
Under a charter granted by James I of England, Clonmel became a free borough on 5 July 1608, and the mayor and officers of the town were granted the power to "name, elect and constitute one Swordbearer and three Sergeants-at-Mace". The present sword and two silver maces date only from Cromwellian times. The sword, of Toledo manufacture, was donated by Sir Thomas Stanley in 1656 and displays the arms and motto of the town. The larger mace is stamped 1663.
Cromwellian period[edit]
One of the remaining towers of Clonmel's defensive wallYoung Irelanders stand trial before Justice Blackburne at Clonmel, 1848
Map of 17th-century Clonmel. Note "Irishtown" in the west.
Oliver Cromwell laid siege to Clonmel in May 1650. The walls were eventually breached, but Hugh Dubh O'Neill, the commander of the town's garrison, inflicted heavy losses on the New Model Army when they tried to storm the breach. That night, O'Neill, deciding that further resistance was hopeless due to a lack of ammunition, led his soldiers and camp followers out of the town under cover of darkness. The story is told that Cromwell became suspicious of O'Neill's desperate situation when a silver bullet was discharged by the townspeople at his troops outside the walls. The following morning, 18 May 1650, mayor John White was able to surrender the town on good terms as Cromwell was still unaware of the garrison's escape just hours before. Although feeling deceived, Cromwell did not put the inhabitants 'to the sword' as occurred elsewhere.
After being denounced by three men who desired the £5 bounty and arrested at Fethard while vested for Mass on Holy Saturday, 25 March 1654, Augustinian Friar William Tirry was taken to Clonmel Gaol (on the future site of the Clonmel Borstal) and held there pending trial. On 26 April, he was tried by a jury and Commonwealth judges, including Colonel Solomon Richards, for violating the proclamation of 6 January 1653, which defined it as high treason for priests to remain in Ireland. In his own defense, Fr. Tirry replied that while he viewed the Commonwealth as the lawful government, he had no choice but to disobey its laws, as the pope had ordered him to remain in Ireland. Fr. Tirry was according found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, which was carried out in Clonmel on 2 May 1654.
An account told by Franciscan Friar Matthew Fogarty, who had been tried with Friar William Tirry, supplies further details: "William, wearing his Augustinian habit, was led to the gallows praying the rosary. He blessed the crowd which had gathered, pardoned his betrayers and affirmed his faith. It was a moving moment for Catholics and Protestants alike."
Despite the efforts of a Puritan minister to silence him, Fr. Tirry told the assembled crowd, "there is only one true Church, whose head is the pope: Pope and Church are to be obeyed. He publicly forgave the three men who had betrayed him, and... stated explicitly that he had been offered life and favour, it would renounce his religion." Fr. Tirry was then hanged, after which he was buried, with some ceremony, in the ruins of the Augustinian friary in nearby Fethard. The evidence is that he was buried in the grounds, rather than inside the ruins of the church, but it has not yet been possible to locate his grave. Fr. William Tirry was beatified by Pope John Paul II along with 16 other Irish Catholic Martyrs on 27 September 1993. The Augustinian order celebrates his feast day on 12 May.
18th century[edit]
During the second half of the 18th century, the Sean-nós song Príosún Chluain Meala was composed inside Clonmel Gaol by one O'Donnell, a member of the Whiteboys originally from Iveragh, County Kerry, who was being held awaiting execution by hanging upon the following Friday. According to Donal O'Sullivan, O'Donnell had two companions awaiting the rope with him and that their heads were posthumously severed from their bodies and displayed spiked upon the prison gates. "The Gaol of Cluain Meala", an English translation of the lyrics, was made by County Cork poet Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795–1829).
19th century[edit]
A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Kickham Barracks in 1805. During an 1807 visit to Ireland on behalf of the London Hibernian Society, Welsh nonconformist minister Thomas Charles alleged ruefully that the Reformation in Ireland had failed because of the refusal of Protestant clergy to preach or educate in the local vernacular. Of his visit to Clonmel, Rev. Charles recalled, "All the county spoke Irish... they spoke Irish in the streets."
Following the failed attempt at rebellion near Ballingarry in 1848, the captured leaders of the Young Irelanders were brought to Clonmel for trial. The event was followed with great interest internationally and for its duration brought journalists from around the country and Britain to Clonmel Courthouse. Standing in the dock in the image opposite is Thomas Francis Meagher, Terence MacManus and Patrick O'Donoghue. Their co-defendant, William Smith O'Brien was also sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the last occasions such a sentence was handed down in Ireland. When delivering the guilty verdict, the foreman of the Grand Jury, R.M. Southcote Mansergh, great-grandfather of the academic Nicholas Mansergh stated:
We earnestly recommend the prisoner to the merciful consideration of the Government, being unanimously of opinion that for many reasons his life should be spared.
The sentences of O'Brien and other members of the Irish Confederation were eventually commuted to transportation for life to Van Diemen's Land. A conspiracy to rescue the prisoners on 8 November led by John O'Leary and Philip Gray was betrayed and resulted in the arrest at 'The Wilderness' of seventeen armed rebels led by Gray.
20th and 21st centuries[edit]
Clonmel was the location of the foundation of the Labour Party in 1912 by James Connolly, James Larkin and William O'Brien as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress.
In November 2015, the town was the location of Ireland's first marriage between two men.
