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A NEW book which has just been published tells the story of an event that happened on the Laois-Kilkenny border in 1824. Entitled Six years in Galmoy, the book covers a series of terrible events in Galmoy and surrounding areas, from 1819 to 1824, which culminated in the hanging that took place on the hill of Knockshinraw, overlooking the Rathdowney road.

The book is the work of Pádraig " Macháin, who lives in Crosspatrick with his wife Joan and their six children. A total of fourteen killings took place between Durrow, Cullahill, Johnstown, Urlingford and Errill, during the period in question, and the book also recounts the tragic story of the killing by the police of Mary Delaney at the Fair of Bawn in 1822.


Six years in Galmoy, lays out the history of violence in the Galmoy-Rathdowney area, and also the background of poverty, oppression and evictions that lay beneath these terrible events. The killing of John Marum, a Catholic landholder in Moneynamuck and Rathpatrick, is central to this. John Marum was brother of the Bishop of Ossory, and therefore a high-profile Catholic. His murder sent shockwaves through the Protestant Establishment and the Catholic middle-class, and the authorities were determined that someone should suffer for the crime, whether guilty or innocent.


The brutality of the authorities was always present, and the use by the police of paid agents who tried to get people to admit to crimes they did not commit, were features of the story. Two of the witnesses who gave evidence against the men at their trial were teenagers, and were coerced by emotional torture into giving evidence against the men. The people of Galmoy were unforgiving, however, AND A BALLAD COMPOSED AT THE TIME [emphasis added] records their anger and frustration."