William Orr - Legacy

Legacy

The sentence was hardly passed on William Orr when regret was to seize on those who had aided in securing that verdict. The witness Wheatly, who subsequently went insane, is believed to have died by his own hand, made an affidavit before a magistrate admitting that he had sworn wrongly against Orr. Two of the jury made depositions stating that they had been “induced to join in the verdict of guilty while under the influence of drink”; while two others swore that they had “been terrified into the same course by threats of violence.”

These particulars were placed before the Viceroy, but Lord Camden, the Lord Lieutenant, was “deaf to all appeals.” “Well might Orr exclaim within his dungeon” he said “that the Government had laid down a system having for its object murder and devastation.”

Orr was hanged, in the town of Carrickfergus though his execution was postponed three times on the 14 October 1797, surrounded by an extra strong military guard. It is said that the population of the town, to express their sympathy with the “patriot” being “murdered by law,” and to mark their repugnance of the conduct of the Government towards him, quit the town on the day of his execution.

His fate “excited the deepest indignation throughout the country;” and it was commented on “in words of fire” by the national writers of the period, and for many years after the rallying cry of the United Irishmen was: “Remember Orr.” The journalist Peter Finnerty, who published an attack on Yelverton and Camden for their conduct in the matter, was later convicted of seditious libel, despite an eloquent defence by Curran.

Orr is regarded as the first United Irish martyr.

William Drennan the United Irishmen poet wrote, on Orr's death:
hapless land!
Heap of uncementing sand!
Crumbled by a foreign weight:
And, by worse, domestic hate.