180 years later it is impossible to tell what really happened on that night. The Magistrates and Board believed the painters had no case to answer but the question remains, who attacked Thomas Young and why?
When
2022
Who
Archive & Heritage Officer
Over 180 years ago, on the 30th October 1839, the Commissioners of the Ballast Board received a report forwarded by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Viscount Morpeth, of an ‘Outrage committed on a Painter employed by your Department at Dobins (Oyster) Island’. He urged the Ballast Board to investigate and offered police protection if necessary.
The dramatic incident occurred on the 24th October at about 2 A.M at a house at Ballincar Point where a painter Thomas Young and several other tradesmen had temporary lodging while employed at the Lighthouse at Oyster Island. A group of 40 men reportedly surrounded the house and gained entry, dragged Young out into the road and ‘threatened to throw him into the sea’. They warned him ‘…not to be there tomorrow night or if he was, to prepare for his coffin’.
Thomas Young had recently been employed at the Lighthouse where three painters were previously working. According to Young’s witness statement, he believed that the painters ‘resorted to this unlawful means for the purpose of keeping the job in their own hands’. However, on the night in question, none of the three were spotted in the group that attacked Young, but he was able to identify others in the crowd.
The Inspector of Lighthouses was ordered to make immediate enquiry into the circumstance and report to the Board.
On the 29th November, George Halpin (Inspector of Lighthouses) laid his report before the Board. He stated that the painters who had been suspected of inciting others to commit the assault had been temporarily suspended pending an investigation by the Magistrates. Following this investigation they were ‘declared guiltless of the charge’… and ‘allowed to resume their occupations’. Halpin concluded that ‘On full enquiry it does not appear that any person in the service of the Corporation was concerned in the outrage described’.
180 years later it is impossible to tell what really happened on that night. The Magistrates and Board believed the painters had no case to answer but the question remains, who attacked Thomas Young and why?
