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WILLIAM ORR.

Twelve months before Wolfe Tone expired in his prison cell, one of the bravest of his associates paid with his life the penalty of his attachment to the cause of Irish independence.  In the subject of this sketch, the United Irishmen found their first martyr; and time has left no darker blot on the administration of English rule than the execution of the high-spirited Irishman whose body swung from the gallows of Carrickfergus on the 14th of October, 1797.

William Orr was the son of a farmer and bleach-green proprietor, of Ferranshane, in the county of Antrim.  The family were in comfortable circumstances, and young Orr received a good education, which he afterwards turned to account in the service of his country.  We know little of his early history, but we find him, on growing up to manhood, an active member of the society of United Irishmen, and remarkable for his popularity amongst his countrymen in the north.  His appearance, not less than his principles and declarations, was calculated to captivate the peasantry amongst whom he lived; he stood six feet two inches in height, was a perfect model of symmetry, strength, and gracefulness, and the expression of his countenance was open, frank, and manly.  He was always neatly and respectably dressed—­a prominent feature in his attire being a green necktie, which he wore even in his last confinement.

One of, the first blows aimed by the government against the United Irishmen was the passing of the Act of Parliament (36 George III.), which constituted the administration of their oath a capital felony.  This piece of legislation, repugnant in itself to the dictates of reason and justice, was intended as no idle threat; a victim was looked for to suffer under its provisions, and William Orr, the champion of the northern Presbyterian patriots, was doomed to serve the emergency.

He was arraigned, tried, and convicted at Carrickfergus on a charge of having administered the United Irishman’s oath to a soldier named Wheatly.  The whole history of the operations of the British law courts in Ireland contains nothing more infamous than the record of that trial.  We now know, as a matter of fact, that the man who tendered the oath to Wheatly was William M’Keever, a well-known member of the society, who subsequently made his escape to America.  But this was not a case, such as sometimes happens, of circumstantial evidence pointing to a wrong conclusion.  The only evidence against Orr was the unsupported testimony of the soldier Wheatly; and after hearing Curran’s defence of the prisoner there could be no possible doubt of his innocence.  But Orr was a doomed man—­the government had decreed his death before hand; and in this case, as in every other, the bloodthirsty agents of the crown did not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.