Youghal's Dark Past - Father O'Neill

On the landing of the steps there used to be a flogging frame – this is where Father O’Neill of Ballymacoda was flogged and then transported for seven years in 1798 – during the Rebellion, they say the steps were red for years there were so many people flogged on this spot. They tied the man on to a triangular frame. Then two soldiers would whip the prisoner, every second turn. If the prisoner did not suffer enough they had a second set of whips, these ones had little bits of metal in them to rip the flesh. Doctors were on hand to revive the prisoner if he became unconscious. They showed Fr. O’Neill two bodies hanging in the wind from a makeshift gallows – he thought they were wearing red clothes – they weren’t ! The skin had been whipped off their back! And from the windows over there people used to be hanged. If they were in a rush they would simply put a spar from a ship between the window of the Clock Gate and the upstairs window of a house. Rebel Irish people who were executed would have their head cut off and put on pikes and displayed to everybody coming into town. Pirates who were caught were first hanged and then the body hung in chains as a warning to others. It is not a happy place. We now head up the Main Street to the Red House which has a most wonderful ghost.