Don't Forget Your Shillelagh, in Which a Man is Assaulted With Sticks on His Head and a Traffic Light Turns Upside Down

 

     Ryan Whips.  That vaguely sinister sounding phrase appeared in my blog a few weeks ago.  I’ve found no relationship between that family, (for that is what the Ryan Whips were), and mine but they did reside in the same area of Tipperary as my Ryans and O’Dwyers.  Often written as "Ryan (Whip)" when speaking of one of them, it makes perfect sense that in a place where every second person was named Ryan, (the rest were Dwyers), a way to differentiate between them was needed.  I first encountered the Ryan Whips in an essay written by an Irish schoolchild in the 1930's describing that family as having a banshee.  That sounded right, I've heard all the old Irish families have one that laments their deaths.  Not much else turned up about this family in Google searches, but now that I had access to Irish newspapers for a short time, I thought I may as well run a search for them.

     It would be difficult to form a valid opinion of the Ryan Whips from just a few news articles, so let’s just say they seem like a fractious lot.  I wouldn’t want to anger them, but some of my ancestors apparently did.  The following article published in 1866 gave the circumstances:

     Andrew Dwyer/O'Dwyer, born in about 1780, was my fourth-great-grandfather, this clearly wasn't him but he did have a son named Andrew born about 1816, and a grandson of the same name born in 1838, at Churchfield in Tipperary.  I would think it was the son or grandson involved in this fracas.  A look at the map shows Rathnaveene, site of the attack, lies about halfway between Tipperary Town and Churchfield, anyone traveling between those two places would indeed pass through Rathnaveene.  Although Andrew was one of the less common forenames in the area, I still couldn't be positive this was one of my relatives.

     Since I was researching my O'Dwyers, I decided to check my old notes on them.  Some of those files haven't been opened in nearly a year and I like to skim them every once in a while to see if earlier finds fit in with more recent ones, and in this case they certainly did!  I opened a screenshot I had taken of a page in the Tipperary Petty Sessions Order Book and saw this:

     

     Andrew Dwyer of Churchfield, Parish Donohill Complainant.   Defendants, Philip Ryan and James Ryan (both Whip)!  When I first found this record I couldn't quite figure out what the word after Ryan was. Now, being older and wiser, I recognize the word as Whip.

                     

     The space containing a description of the charge gives the place of the assault as Rathnaveene and the date as the 9th; this was the prosecution of the crime detailed in the newspaper article above!  Unlike the news article, this document gave Andrew Dwyer's address, Churchfield.  This really was a member of my family!  Philip and James Ryan tried to counter charge Andrew, but the judge dismissed their attempt and sentenced them both,"To be imprisoned in Clonmel goal for two months and be kept to hard labor".

     Looking through the old newspapers it soon became evident, Tipperary in the mid 19th century was a rather violent place.  The Ryan Whips were often in court, not to mention goal, but they were far from the only ones.  There are numerous accounts of  physical altercations and arrests.  One article described a group of Dwyers from Donohill, bordering Churchfield, as fighting and throwing stones at the Ryans.  I've read that the phrase "Tipperary Stone Throwers" is a very old one, which reminds me of a tale from here in New York.

     On Syracuse's westside, about an hour from my home, lies the neighborhood of Tipperary Hill.  As one might guess, this section was home to numerous Irish immigrants, many of them from Tipperary.  Even today, Tipp Hill is a sea of green shutters, green doors, green roofs, and Irish flags.  The story begins almost 100 years ago, in 1925, when the city of Syracuse installed an electric traffic light there at the intersection of Tompkins and Milton.  That light, like every other traffic light in the USA and most other countries, had a red light on top, yellow in the middle, and green on the bottom.  That did not sit well on Tipp Hill.  To make their point, some youthful locals began a stone throwing campaign, regularly smashing the light until the city gave in and turned it upside down, placing the green on top as it should be.  And so it remains today. 

     In 1997 the community raised money to fund a small memorial park and erect a statue in honor of the stone throwers; a family dressed in 1920's clothing, the father gesturing towards the light where the green still proudly beams from the top.  

     We take our heritage very seriously in upstate New York...