The Ballad of Eva Brown

Times Past with Jonathan Smyth.

In the early 1980s, the pop group, Adam and the Ants sang the lines ‘stand and deliver’, the notorious words used by the pistol carrying highwaymen of the 18th Century who demanded at gunpoint, the handover of possessions from wealthy travellers. Ireland too, had its own highway robbers, just as England had its Dick Turpin and John Falstaff, although both those characters are heavily romanticised.

Handsome

Francis Dhú, the masked, horse-riding anti-hero of our tale was a Donegal man whose derring-do earned him a trip to Cavan jail. However, this handsome swashbuckler was a ladies’ man and while behind bars, won the heart of a Cavan woman. That may have been fine and dandy, but for the fact that she happened to be the jailer’s daughter. A ballad came to be written about Eva Brown and her mysterious love interest; the highwayman whom she helped escape her father’s prison.

Francis Dhú’s name was used to scare children when it was time for bed or if they were misbehaving. The story goes that Francis Dhú once put a child down a chimney in Strabane to get the wee boy to rob the house. As a result of the tale, the old people could put the wind up the young folk by frightening them that the Dhú was about to appear in the fireplace.

Who was Dhú?

Dhú alias Proinsias Dubh, was Francis McHugh. His birthplace was near Pettigo village that lies on the Donegal and Fermanagh border. Many of his exploits happened in Donegal and Fermanagh, and his nickname Dhú meaning black, was in reference to his very black hair. Dhú's family had their land taken away during the plantation and he was resentful of the landlord to whom they now paid rent to work their own farm. Francis led a gang of men, all former Jacobites who robbed the rich. The marauders lived by a code of behaviour and Dhú emphasised one important rule, that was, they must never show physical or verbal abuse towards women when robbing the travelling coaches and landlords' homes.

Legend has it that Dhú, like Robin Hood, stole to give his ill-gotten gains to the poor. The other notable thing about him was his striking good looks which broke hearts as we shall see.

Jail bird

This eighteenth-century wild man constantly ran the danger of falling into the authorities' hands and eventually did. Dhú got arrested and they threw him in Cavan jail to await trial. The book, ‘Around Trillick Way’, by Michael McAughey suggests that Francis Dhú might have spent time around Grousehall, Co. Cavan before his imprisonment. However, the Grousehall associated with Dhú was in fact in Donegal. The prison in Cavan was well guarded as the jailer was familiar with the antics of Dhú's gang and the slightest chance they’d get to free him would surely have been taken.

Everything changed, on the day that the jailer's daughter came by the prison, accompanied by her father, she saw Francis Dhú for the first time as he hopelessly languished behind bars, her heart stirred, and she fell madly in love with the wicked libertine. The tale of Eva Brown’s infatuation for the highwayman was later preserved in a ballad based on the encounter. The song begins by telling us:

‘Come all ye love-lorn damsels who dwell about the town

Till I tell ye the story of the lovely Eva Brown,

Who lov’d a bold highwayman whose name was Francis Dhú.

That robbed the rich and fed the poor and to his friend was true.

Eva Brown, the jailer's daughter, was just 22 years old when she first saw the highwayman whom she thought to be extraordinarily beautiful. Francis Dhú was taking air in the exercise yard that day as part of the jail’s daily exercise routine. She then began making regular visits to the jail until she finally got a chance to speak to Dhú as he walked away from the other prisoners. She told him of her love for him and how they both might flee the prison. The highwayman asked her if she realised what she was doing and how her fortunes would change if she joined him. Was she prepared to become his highway woman? But she was determined to have him freed so that they could both be married. The ballad tells us that she asked him his name and then agreed to give him money when she released him.

Escape

Eva kept her word. Late one night she arrived at the Dhú’s prison cell and gently opened the door. She quietly told him that her father was gone on business and the guards had fallen asleep. She handed her beau new clothes which he quickly put on. The final lines of the ballad speak of Francis Dhú’s escape from Cavan’s crowbar hotel:

Not a single word was spoken till Dhú was newly dress’d,

When in his hand a purse of gold the maiden softly press’d;

Then walking side by side with him, her fair cheeks deathly pale,

She said goodbye to Francis Dhú on the steps of Cavan jail.

A very short time pass’d away from Dhú had been set free

When Eva Brown left Cavan town and sail’d across the sea;

And her memory liv’d long after, and her story it was told

Around the big turf fire by young as well as old.

Conclusion

Dhú was captured a short time later and put to death upon the giblet and no word was ever heard afterwards of Eva Brown’s life in America.