Mary Hammond (Tuam)

Mary Hammond (Tuam), Protestant refugee, fl. 1641-1642.

Mary was the wife of William Hammond, Prebend and Clerk of Killabegs in the Diocese of Tuam. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, attacks were made by the Gaelic Irish upon the English settlers, which swiftly led to all the English being driven from Tuam. Her husband had gone ahead and made it to the safety of the fort at Galway. Mary was left behind to take care of the household goods and her own safety, despite been within two weeks of childbirth.

A week after Christmas 1641, having already had household goods stolen from her by Redmond Burke (Tuam), she sent three horse loads on the Galway road, only to have them stolen by Riccard Bourke of Ballinderry. She was obliged to remain in the town for a further ten days after this incident.

Eventually, knowing that birth was near, she set off on horseback to Galway. She was assaulted at Belclare and taken from her horse. Recovering and going away, she was met by a Patrick Higgins of Liskerry "with his skeyne naked in his hand ... [which] made her, not without danger, leap from her horse as soon as he came at her, but then hee, for her husband's sake (as he sayd) did her no other harm."

Two or three miles further, two men and a woman attacked her, and were in the act of stripping her when two men named Joyce, of Galway town, rode up and intervened. After this, two other Irishmen attacked her. She was forced to sit "in ye rayne till wett to ye skinne before she was delivered from them by one James Lally (that knew her) accidentally coming that way."

At Claregalway she was beaten on the street by Irish pikemen. Calling for help, once again the two Joyce's came to her rescue. They gave the men a shilling to disperse and drink; she was given no shelter by the people of the town, so the Joyce's escorted her "wet, dirty, weary and bruised ... a good way though the dirt to a poore Irish house, where the Joyces left her and bade the man of ye house take some care of her."

Mary then went into labour. While the man of the house went in search of a midwife, one of her previous tormentors arrived and stole her mantle. She was in labour from Friday night till about eight or nine on Sunday evening, "at which time she was delivered of a dead child; [which] she verily believes was kild by ye ill useage she had received [sic]." On Monday she was brought to Galway "in a carr and kish."

References

• The N17 in the Seventeenth Century, Michael Reynolds, The Great Tuam Annual 3, 1992