The Cork executions of 5 April 1740: social and economic background
(Background note written 7 Oct 2026, revised after checking the printed sources. [F] = Fitzgerald, The Cork Remembrancer (1783), pp. 158-159, the same page as the execution entry. [W] = Wikipedia article "Irish Famine (1740-1741)". [T] = Triskel Christchurch, "Terry Vault" web page. [R] = returns of convicts and vagabonds ordered for transportation, Journals of the Irish House of Commons (1744), as transcribed online by Ulster Ancestry. [G] = general background not yet checked against a specific source. The Remembrancer entry itself says nothing about hunger or motive.)
WHEN IT HAPPENED. The executions fell in the first spring of a national crisis. The Great Frost began on 26 December 1739 [F] and lasted about seven weeks, followed by drought in spring 1740. Frost spoiled stored potatoes, harvests were poor and milk was short [W]. The normal death rate is said to have tripled in January and February 1740 [W]. On 19 Jan 1740 the Lord Lieutenant banned grain exports except to Britain [W].
CORK. The Remembrancer's own entry for 1740, on the same page, says that in the summer after the Hard Frost a large pit was dug at the back of the Green in Shandon churchyard, where several hundred poor people were buried for want of money to buy graves, and that the sixpenny household loaf weighed only 2 lb 13 oz that year [F]. By mid-June 1740 beggars lined Cork's streets as country people moved to the towns [W]. The worst came in 1741, Bliain an Áir, the Year of Slaughter; estimated deaths 300,000 to 480,000, highest in the south [W].
WHAT THE ENTRY DOES AND DOES NOT TELL US. The group was hanged for stealing a piece of linen cloth from the house of John Terry, one of the city's sheriffs, with a second linen theft (from Joseph Popham) charged against Honora. Fitzgerald's list of mayors and sheriffs names John Terry and Noblet Phillips as sheriffs in the mayoral year of William Fuller (1739-40) [F]. A John Terry of Cork, son of the John Terry who was mayor in 1719, was a linen draper and burgess (died 1751) [T]; if this is the same man, the cloth was probably his stock. The record gives no motive and no occupations, and nothing shows that the family stole because they were hungry. It does show a household of parents, a son, and a married daughter with her husband, acting together in a city filling with beggars in a year of high food prices. The Braden, Shinnick and Foley defendants are linked to the Hurlys only as co-defendants.
THE TRIAL. The entry gives no trial date. The Cork City assizes of 22 March 1739 (Old Style, i.e. 1739/40), two weeks before the executions, are the likely trial. The transportation return for those assizes [R] lists Margaret Hurly among the convict felons and a "John Finally" among those presented as vagabonds. "John Finally" may be a misreading of Joan Fihilly, who the Remembrancer says was presented as a vagabond and transported; this is unconfirmed. Margaret Hurly's relationship, if any, to Timothy Hurly's family is not known.
THE LAW. Many felonies were then capital in Ireland, the system later called the Bloody Code [W]. The entry shows the ways a person might be spared: (1) a wife who took part in a theft in her husband's presence was treated as acting under his influence, which is why Joan Fihilly escaped hanging ("on account of being in company with her husband"); (2) a woman could plead pregnancy and be examined by a jury of matrons, but Mary Bradeen was found not to be pregnant; (3) an accomplice could turn approver and give evidence for the Crown, as Elenor Shinnick did; (4) lesser offenders could be presented by the Grand Jury as vagabonds and transported. The 1744 returns [R] show Cork convicts and vagabonds of these years being transported to America. Honora Hurly lost the protection that spared Joan because she was also convicted on a second indictment.
THE SHERIFF. By custom the sheriff supervised executions. The remark that Terry "of course, had the satisfaction of escorting the nefarious culprits to the place of execution" is the compiler's sarcasm: the victim was the officer who led the thieves to the gallows.
THE DATE. Easter Saturday 5 April 1740 is Old Style (Julian); Ireland adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The same day is 16 April 1740 in the modern calendar. Easter Sunday 1740 (Julian) fell on 6 April, which confirms the date.
PLACE. Gallows Green, Cork, was the city's place of execution in the 18th century; the area was renamed Greenmount in 1852 (askaboutireland.ie).
USE IN THE TREE. These people are linked to the Hurley tree only by surname and county. No connection to the Ballinacarriga Hurleys, or to any other family in this tree, has been shown. Do not link them until a record connects them.
SOURCES: Fitzgerald, The Cork Remembrancer (1783), pp. 158-159 and the list of mayors and sheriffs; Edwards, Edwards's Cork Remembrancer (1792), pp. 150-151 (abridged entry); Journals of the Irish House of Commons, returns of transported convicts and vagabonds, 1737-1743 (Ulster Ancestry transcription); Triskel Christchurch, "Terry Vault"; askaboutireland.ie, "Gallows Green"; Wikipedia, "Irish Famine (1740-1741)".