Bare knuckle Boxer Joe Riley from Ballyhaise
Times Past columnist Jonathan Smyth looks brings us the story of the famous bare-knuckled fight in 1864 between Ballyhaise boxer Joe Riley and Englishman Tom Foster in Nevada City...
When going through old newspapers, unique accounts often pop-up and the curious inevitably take a second glance. In the following account, I look back at some interesting reports from the year 1864.
On September 24, 1864, The Montana Post reported on the great bare-knuckle fight that took place between Cavan’s Joe Riley and Tom Foster for $750 a side, to be paid in gold dust. The fight was held in Nevada City. Riley, aged 21 years, was from Ballyhaise and stood at 5 foot 9 ½ inches and weighed 145 pounds. His record so far looked encouraging, a year earlier he fought Billy Monaghan in Sierra County, whipping him in 22 rounds. The next bout against Pat Berry, in 1862, saw Riley come off victorious after seven rounds. Joe’s training had been under the care of Con Orem, a celebrated boxer, famed for his 185-round fight against Hugh O’Neill at Leviathan Hall, Virginia City, in 1865.
Riley’s opponent, Tom Foster, came from ‘the land of John Bull’, and first saw light in Nottingham, birthplace of Bendigo, and the then champion, Bob Brettle. Aged 30 years and weighing 140 pounds, height 5 feet 7 ½ inches, he was trained by ‘Sailor Jack’. The ring was set up outdoors in a ‘corrall’ above Virginia City, on Sunday September 18, 1864. The weather was fine with clear blue skies and, if anything, there was a little too much sun. The ‘corrall’ was nice and flat and in its centre a substantial ring was formed. The gravel would prevent slipping, noted the newspaper, but should they fall there might be pain; while the ropes, which were a little high, were adjusted. The odds appeared to favour Foster.
Stepping in the ring, Joe Riley appeared in green with the stars and stripes tied around his waist. Foster wore blue stripes on white, with blue and red spots. After a fast 26 rounds in 20 minutes, Riley whipped Foster to win the fight. However, Foster had used one or two underhanded tactics, which the referee also took into consideration. The paper said of Joe: ‘If Riley should continue his present career, he will in five or six years, be an ugly customer to contend with in the ring’.
Toasts, songs and celebration followed, and it was generally supposed that Riley eventually made it to his bed that evening.
GARDENER’S WOUND
In the wrong hands, sharp-edged garden clippers may prove fatal, as was seen in the case of the killing of John Hart. The trial, as reported in the Cavan Observer on March 5, 1864, necessitated the swearing in of a ‘petit jury’. The accused Luke Gibney stood undefended and pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the offence. First sworn in and examined was John Gaffney who, when questioned by Mr Henderson QC, said that he and Hart were clipping laurel hedges that day for the Honourable Richard Maxwell, at his Fortland home, in Mountnugent. Both men had a pair of shears each with Hart at one side of the hedge and Gaffney on the other.
Luke Gibney, having no business to be there, strolled across the well-clipped lawn towards Hart, and addressed him in a manner as one would do to a female of ‘bad repute’, as the Cavan Observer put it. Gaffney said that the prisoner was nicknamed locally as ‘Luke the Lady’, which he interpreted to be a ‘joke of sorts’.
After a verbal exchange in the garden, Hart gave a kick and a push to the accused and then ran away. Gibney, in mortification, grabbed the shears and flung it after Hart, wounding him on ‘the calf of the leg’. Hart managed to stop the bleeding with his hands, while Gibney added pressure placing a stone on the laceration. Someone sent for Dr Mawhinny. Having been patched up, Hart was permitted to remain at Maxwell’s house for 10 days. But a deterioration in his condition required that him to be moved to Cavan Infirmary.
Prior to the jury being asked to consider the prisoner’s guilt, Richard Maxwell sent word to the court that Gibney, in his view, as a person of good character. The judge requested a verdict from the jury who remaining in the box found the man guilty. All the same, they did request mercy, believing John Hart’s death to have been what modern-day law might call ‘misadventure’.
It was made clear in court that ‘no animosity’ ever existed between the deceased and the prisoner and both their families were on the ‘best of terms’. Good natured tomfoolery had gone horribly wrong. In summing up, the judge believed Gibney had no ‘malice on his part’, however, he felt ‘it was condemnable for persons to use weapons of formidable nature on a slight provocation’, and he did not feel it in anyway ‘too slight’ a punishment to sentence him to serve one month’s imprisonment.
BLANKET ON THE GROUND
On January 27, 1864, an ‘unfortunate girl’ going by the name of Margaret O’Reilly was charged by the guardians at Cavan workhouse for the destruction of a blanket, the property of the Cavan union. The accused was admitted as a ‘nightly lodger’ when she said that she was travelling from Ballyconnell to Belfast. However, later she admitted she was from no further than Stradone. The probationary ward was overseen by Jane O’Brien who confirmed the girl’s admittance on the date. It was Jane too, who discovered the blanket on the following day, sliced into strips. No other person was on the ward that evening and suspicion therefore fell firmly on the young lady.
Finlay the porter, counted each strip, 11 in total. He told the court that, ‘persons of the class of the prisoner were in the habit of coming into the workhouse purposely to destroy the blankets and convey them away’, and he recalled that several blankets were already destroyed in a ‘similar manner’.
Questioned as to why girls did this, Finlay quietly told the room, he believed the girls needed cloth ‘to make lining for their hoops that they might swell themselves out’. The woman received a month in gaol before owning up to the damage. When led away she shouted that ‘she would be revenged of the ward woman’, as soon as she got out.
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