In the aftermath of the Cromwellian confiscations, Englishmen and their agents came into possession of great tracts of our lands and those of the O’Driscolls, MacSwineys, O’Donoghues and other native families of the area. A Welshman named Puxley acquired land whereupon sat the ruins of Donal O Sullivan Beare’s Dunboy Castle. When he passed on, another Puxley relative in Galway was willed the property. A Protestant without any common sense, he assumed an air of supremacy and attempted to suppress the smuggling of Irish wool for French wines, brandies and the like, business between Ireland and France.
English parliamentary laws were designed to stifle Irish commerce. Another export was recruits for the French armies. One of the most daring of these smugglers was Morty Oge O Sullivan. Morty was descended from the chiefs of the sept but was denied his birthright by the imposition of English ‘law’. As a result, he was landless and poor. He was described as an adventuresome spirit with a long and bitter memory. A veteran of the Austrian Army, he had served the Austrian queen Maria Theresa in 1742. It is reported he was present at the battle of Fontenoy and, in April, 1746, was also with the ‘Pretender’, Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden, where Kerryman Colonel John Vera Sullivan, was Adjutant-General to the Prince (see noteworthy O Sullivans in 18th Century Ireland). Col. O Sullivan was grandson of Owen O Sullivan of Cappanacusha Castle.
Puxley was a revenue officer and guardian of the Crown interests in the region. One Sunday Morty Oge and Puxley became embroiled in an argument and Morty Oge shot Puxley dead. Morty fled to France where he continued to engage in his craft and visited Ireland on occasion to see his family. Unfortunately, word got back to loyalist authorities that Morty was visiting his family in his mountain cabin.
On a dark and stormy night a force set out from Cork to Berehaven in a boat, arriving late. Morty’s watchdog gave warning of the approaching men. What ensued was described in a publication called the Cork Remembrancer, printed in 1783. "Sullivan and his party took the alarm directly. O Sullivan came to the door and opened it in his shirt, with a blunderbuss in his hand; at the same time they might have taken away his life, but the commanding officer, choosing rather to take him alive, did not fire at him.
Sullivan and his men fired several blunderbusses out of the house at the party, but finding them too strong, he thought on a stratagem; by sending them out one man at a time, thinking by that means the party would leave the house to follow them, by which me may get off; but he was prevented by the officer, who only fired at the men as they went off. At length O Sullivan’s wife, with her child and nurse, came out and asked for quarter, which was granted. The officer asked her who was in the house; she answered no one but her husband and some of his men; upon which he ordered the house to be set on fire, which they were a long time doing, the men’s arms being rendered quite useless from the heavy rains; but the house being at last set on fire, they were obliged to come out.
Sullivan behaved with great bravery, as did his men; he stood and snapped his blunderbuss twice at the party, and missed fire; likewise the party snapped at him twice and missed fire, and cocking the third time, shot him through the heart dead." Two of Morty’s confederates, Sullivan and Connel, also lost their lives after being taken prisoner.
Morty’s body was lashed to the stern of their boat and it was towed from Berehaven to Cork. It was beheaded and spiked over the South Gaol (jail), next to that of Sullivan and Connel. The Irish have long memories when it comes to injustice for the name of Scully is given as the name of the betrayer. However, there’s no record to substantiate it there’s only the oral tradition.
Cork poet J.J. Callanan wrote a Gaelic lament for Morty, supposed to have been spoken by the old nurse of the family, who apparently cherished the personhood of Morty. Here I quote it in part:
" The sun on Ivera no longer shines brightly The voice of her music no longer is sprightly; No more to her maidens the light dance is dear since the death of our darling O Sullivan Beare. Had he died calmly I would not deplore him; or if the wild strife of the sea-war closed o’er him;
But with ropes round his white limbs through ocean to trail him,Like a fish after slaughter, ‘tis therefore I wail him. In the hole which the vile hands of soldiers had made thee, Unhonour’d, unshrouded, and headless they lid thee; No sigh to regret thee, No eye to rain o’er thee, No dirge to lament thee, no friend to deplore thee; Dear head of my darling, how gory and pale These aged eyes see thee high spiked on their jail; That cheek in the summer sun ne’er shall grow warm, Nor that eye e’er catch light but the light of the storm.
A curse, blessed ocean, is on thy green water, From the harbour of Cork to Ivera of slaughter, Since they billows were dyed with the red wounds of fear, of Muiertach Oge, Our O Sullivan Beare."
Morty’s comrade, Connel, wrote a lamentation in Cork Gaol on the night before his execution. It was preserved by the Rev. Mr. Gibson in his History of the City and County of Cork, published in 1861. Connel’s words are both beautiful and haunting. His great love for Morty is expressed, along with his great grief over his impending fate.
‘Morty, my dear and loved master, you carried the sway for strength and generosity. It is my endless grief and sorrow that admits of no comfort - that your fair head should be gazed at as a show upon a spike, and that your noble frame is without life. I have travelled with you, my dear and much loved master, in foreign lands. You moved with kings in the royal prince’s army; but it is through the means of Puxley I am left in grief and confinement in Cork, locked in heavy irons without hopes of relief. The great God is good and merciful; I ask his pardon and support, for I am to be hanged at the gallows to- morrow, without doubt. The rope will squeeze my neck, and thousands will lament my fate. May the Lord have mercy on my master; Kerryonians, pray for us. Sweet and melodious is your voice. My blessing I give you, but you will never see me again among you alive. Our heads will be put upon a spike for a show; and under the cold snow of night, and the burning sun of summer.
Oh, that I was ever born; Oh, that I ever returned to Berehaven; Mine was the best of masters that Ireland could produce, may our souls be floating to-morrow in the rays of endless glory; The lady his wife: Heavy is her grief, and who may wonder at that, were her eyes made of green stone, when he, her dear husband was shot by that ball. Had he retreated, our grief would be lighter; but the brave man, for the pride of his country, could not retreat. He has been in King’ places. In Spain he got a pension. Lady Clare gave him robes bound with gold lace, as a token of remembrance. He was a captain on the coast of France, but he should return to Ireland for us to lose him.’
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