On Monday, the 4th of March, 1822, four men entered the bedchamber of Honorah Goold, beneath her mother’s roof in the county of Cork. The girl, aged some sixteen years, was in bed. They demanded whether she were the eldest daughter. She answered that she was not. Let her take no alarm, said they: it was not she whom they sought. They went downstairs, only to return a few minutes later. This time, they answered their own inquiry: she was indeed the eldest. They bade her rise.
John Walsh, who would stand trial under the name of John Cussen, caused his companions to withdraw that she might dress herself. He then took her up in his arms, bore her out of doors, and placed her before a man on horseback. This man was named Browne; Honorah had never set eyes upon him. In the pitch-black night, she could not tell the hour. She would reckon twelve souls, all mounted, in the troop that carried her away against her will. As they drew near the dwelling of Daniel Browne, the man’s father, a pillion was brought out for her behind the saddle. The young girl besought Browne to let her go. He refused. She was seated behind him, and a man’s coat was cast over her shoulders, for she had fetched no cloak.
They rode throughout the night. At Freemount, the abductors halted to seek sustenance, but found none. Honorah fell several times from the horse. At an inn, a woman heard her weeping and asked her name. One of the men, Guerin, offered to strike her for that inquiry. Cussen and Daniel Doody were among the five who entered with Browne. Later, the troop reached the house of David Leahy the elder, where Honorah was placed beside the kitchen hearth. James Leahy told her not to weep: she ought rather to rejoice, he maintained, for the gentleman who had carried her off was an educated man, no worthless scoundrel. She answered that she would never consent to marry him.
She was presently conducted into another chamber, where Leahy’s wife and a young woman, Mary Cahill, were seated. Honorah asked leave to sleep beside Mrs. Leahy. On that Tuesday morning, after their arrival, Browne lingered near her during breakfast. When the others quitted the room, she sprang up and ran towards the door. He barred her passage. Borrow records that he attempted to tear off her clothes; she cried aloud for succour. He then sought to force her to bed, threatening to expose her to those who waited outside. At this juncture, the printed report curtails her testimony. It resumes with the forced removals imposed upon the girl, from shelter to shelter, without restoring her liberty.
On the Wednesday evening, she was conveyed to a neighbouring cabin, and brought back on the morrow to the Leahys’. There she remained until three o’clock in the afternoon, before being removed to the house of Maurice Leahy, some two miles distant. Browne went with her. She slept in that house; she declared that Browne had lain with her. After a day and a night, she was taken to the house of a man named Lane, and thence to Mahony’s. Every transfer prolonged her separation from her mother and placed her under the watch of other members of the faction. She affirmed that all these wanderings were suffered against her will.
On the Sunday following, she was brought back to David Leahy’s house. James Leahy and Browne were present. She remained there until the Tuesday night, the 12th of March, and was subsequently taken through several cabins, returning each time to the Leahys’. These nocturnal removals succeeded one another without restoring her to freedom. On Thursday, the 14th of March, she was conducted once more to David Leahy’s. Her deposition then makes mention of a certificate, without specifying the precise day on which she drew it up. In the presence of David Leahy, James, and Browne, she wrote this paper, declaring that she had resided with the Leahys of her own free will. At the trial, she admitted having written the document, but explained that she had done so under the dominion of terror, and in the fond hope of being restored to her family. The signature was of her hand; the consent, she swore, was not.
The flight of the abductors before the military did not bring an end to her captivity. Daniel Riedy took her to a cabin whilst the soldiers were in the vicinity. He discharged a pistol in their direction, and then led her up into a mountain. Honorah stated that she remained there half an hour before he conducted her back to the cabin where Browne awaited her. She was once more transferred to the house of another Leahy. Throughout these weeks, she saw firearms among the men; of the prisoners at the bar, she specified, Riedy alone had fired a pistol. She was at last abandoned in a cabin by the roadside, on Sunday, the 24th of March. The army found her there, her captors having fled.
William Allen, a magistrate for the county of Cork, discovered her near Abbeyfeale, so greatly debilitated that she could neither walk, sit, nor stand upright. It took seventeen hours to convey her a distance of thirteen miles, partly in a cart and partly upon a litter borne by men. His deposition affords a tangible measure of what that narrative of abduction had cost the girl whom they had pretended to lead to the altar.
The Crown did not rest its case upon the word of Honorah alone. William Connell related that he had seen the girl at Maurice Leahy’s at about three o’clock in the afternoon. The family had announced on the preceding eve that she was expected. Upon her arrival, she was addressed as “Miss Goold”; she wept bitterly. Connell advised Maurice Leahy to call in the military and restore her to her kindred. Leahy bade him mind his own business. That evening, he made ready his own horse, borrowed another for Browne and Honorah, and sent them toward Lane’s house. Connell stated that he had exhorted Browne to treat her tenderly. Browne replied that the more hardship she endured, the sooner she would yield.
Honorah identified Cussen, Doody, James, and David Leahy; Connell distinguished the actions of Maurice; Allen described the pursuit and the wretched state in which he had found her. The indictment embraced seven prisoners, arraigned for aiding and abetting the abduction and attempting to compel Honorah to marry Browne. Borrow records that the defence called witnesses who depicted the Leahys as respectable men, and urged the terror inspired throughout the mountains by the insurgents. The jury deliberated for about ten minutes, and returned a verdict of guilty against all the prisoners.
The chapter does not record the sentences pronounced following this verdict. Yet at the bar, Honorah had been able to answer the writing produced against her. She did not deny the penmanship: it was indeed her own. But she denied that that could be called consent which she had written only to see her family once more. Maurice Leahy had saddled his horse and borrowed another for Browne and Honorah; under the Leahys’ roof, they had even obtained a declaration of voluntary stay. Before the jury, the young girl set behind those empty words the barred door, the menaces, and three weeks of captivity. The signature remained. It no longer availed to efface the force that had extorted it.