The Killing Of Thomas Dogherty
to kill a man, but, standing in front of his mother, in the family 
home, takes a certain kind of cruel.It was Monday, October 1st 1798 that Newtownmountkennedy man Hugh Woolaghan did just that, bursting into the Delgany home of one Thomas Doghtery,
and shooting him dead.Woolaghan was a member of the Newtownmountkennedy Corps of Yeonmanry, and he was determined, it seems, to flush out any remnants of rebel activity in Wicklow. The insurrection had been quashed since June 1798, and Dogherty had been lucky to get out of his family’s United Irish links alive. Tried in
July 1798 alongside 15 other men, Dogherty had been found guilty of sedition, and sentenced to death, only to have Elizabeth La Touche – the wife of Dogherty’s probable landlord, Peter La Touche – secure his pardon.Having been that close to death, Dogherty was no doubt happy
to be back in the bosom of his family in their small Delgany shack. His mother, Mary – described as ‘an old, infirm woman’ by one newspaper report at the time – had grown tired of the rebellion too, audibly cursing its authors, according to one neighbour, during a raid on her house in the early part of 1798. Arms raised, Mary complained that it had brought ruin on herself and her family, and that she had not seen her husband or sons for some time.
previous post