Information on Murders, 1881

John H. McConnell, [...] I was and am still clerk of the municipality of the village of Lucan. I was going [illegible] with James Feheley on or about the 25 April last I met him on the street in Lucan James began to tell me how badly they got used about their farm. [...] I asked him, if they got their money, he said “they had. They know better than not to give it to us. I laughed, and said I [Jim?] I guess you have got too good a hold on those fellows to let them beat you out of £500 – he said, you be we have. We will make them give us back our farm or a better one, or we will hang the whole of them, and they know we can do it. I said Jim there is no doubt you know something about that murder, he said, Mac, I don’t want to say anything, but you have always proved square with us and I am not afraid to talk to you. I told him he need not be afraid to talk to me about it and I said to him, the parties who committed that murder should be punished – he said, after our going to London and saving their necks, see what they have done on us now – he then said I was not in it myself, I was not at that murder, but there were others at it, and if it wasn’t for them, he would hang the whole of them [...]. he told me then he was sent by the vigilance committee that night to see who was in Donnelly’s house, and when he went out to his road after leaving the house, he met James Carroll and James Maher and some others whose names I don’t remember and he told them who was in the house, I asked him if he told them Johnny O’Connor was there – he said he didn’t he thought it was John Donnelly who was in bed with the father – he said, the vigilants sent him on to Whalen’s corners, to see who went in or out of Will Donnelly’s house [...] I then said to him, you must have known there was going to be murder [...] he said, they told him they were going to [call?] the Donnelly’s out, and hang them [illegible], till they told who burnt Ryders barn. He said he knew nothing about their intention to kill any one [...] he told me not to open my mouth to a soul about that, until he got out of the country, that all he wanted was protection and he would tell the whole of it

[...]William Donnelly — [...] About the time of the row about the £500, I was speaking to James Feheley – He said he was going to tell all – He said he would have told immediately after the murder only for his father [...].