The dreaded pillory is set to make a Mayo return!

by Dr. Michael O'Connor

Apart from imprisonment, fines, being bound to keep the peace and the ultimate sanction of death, the sentences handed down by the courts in the 18th and 19th centuries included hard labour, public whipping, burning of limbs and time in the pillory or stocks.

There was no treadmill at the County Prison on the Green in Castlebar, though in the 1820s, the installation of one was debated. The first and only treadmill employed in Mayo was installed in the later County Prison on the Westport Road.

Hard labour (breaking of rocks and bones) was imposed but proved impossible when overcrowding became an issue at the County Prison on the Green.

As a result, prisoners openly scoffed at the prospect of a sentence of hard labour when it was handed down at Castlebar or Ballinrobe courthouses.

However, sentences of whipping, burning, and pillorying were a different matter.

With the exception perhaps of Ballinrobe, there would appear to have been no permanent pillory at Castlebar or elsewhere in the county in the late 18th or 19th centuries.

An early reference to a pillory in Mayo is to be found in a 1627 case concerning the escape of prisoner James Nolan while en route to Mayo.

Thomas Nolan of Ballinrobe and his son James were ordered by the Court of Castle Chamber to ‘stand upon the Pillory in Dublin with papers on their heads Declaring their offences and to have each of them one of their Eares cut off … .’

Following this, they were at ‘the next Assizes to be houlden for the County of Mayo to be sent thether to stand likewise uppon the Pillory and to have their other Eares cut off … .’

When the court ordered that a prisoner be placed in the pillory, the high sheriff or his deputy, set about erecting one, with the cost falling to the county.

At the spring and summer assizes of 1795, John Gale was reimbursed £2 10s., and £10 for erecting a pillory at unspecified locations.

In 1896, the Ballinrobe Chronicle carried an illustration of oak stocks kept on the premises of Ballinrobe Courthouse. Stocks differed from a pillory in so far as only the legs were restrained. A pillory secured the head and hands.

The article speculated that the pillory, erected outside the courthouse, dated to the eighteenth century. Older inhabitants of the town testified to it being a permanent fixture in a prominent location outside the building during their lifetimes. It likely was used in the early decades of the 19th century.

In December 1806, judges found Patrick Flynn guilty of perjury at a Special Commission in Castlebar.

He was sentenced to transportation for seven years to New South Wales, but before that, he was sentenced to serve time in the pillory at Castlebar. We do not know the exact location of the pillory in Castlebar.

However, a new one was erected on each occasion that a pillory was required. The town pillory was usually located in a public place, such as at the market or in front of the prison.

The pillory may, therefore, have been erected on the Green near the prison or perhaps on Shamble Sq. In some instances, the pillory was placed on a raised platform so that passers-by and those who gathered to throw rotten vegetables, offal or other offensive missiles at the unfortunate could get a better view.

In February 1832, it was alleged in an article published by The Connaught Telegraph that a man named Murphy was put in the stocks at Newport to stop him from intimidating prosecutors and witnesses and disturbing the order and decorum of the courts. The use of stocks and the pillory ended in the 1830s.

Is it time for a new pillory or stocks in Castlebar?

This issue will be explored on the Green in Castlebar on May 4 next when a new pillory will be on view during the Races of Castlebar Festival 2024.

Those who attended the festival launch got a first glimpse of the new pillory.