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Blood Pact
Framed and glazed, signatures of William Smith O'Brien and dated on October 21st, 1848 and Thomas Francis Meagher, dated October 23rd, 1848, in their own blood, while incarcerated in Clonmel Gaol.
Framed and glazed, signatures of William Smith O’Brien and dated on October 21st, 1848 and Thomas Francis Meagher, dated October 23rd, 1848, in their own blood, while incarcerated in Clonmel Gaol.
This framed and glazed blood pact between William Smith O’Brien and Thomas Francis Meagher was signed in Clonmel Gaol on 21 October 1848. O’Brien was elected MP for Ennis in 1828 as a Tory, but gradually drifted towards the anti-Union position, and led the 1848 Young Ireland rebellion for which he was imprisioned along with Meagher. Both were exiled to Tasmania. Meagher escaped to the United States and went on to lead the Irish Brigade in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
This blood pact was donated to the Ennis Municipal Museum in the 1960s by Mrs Mary Maguire, Royal Spa Hotel, Lisdoonvarna, where presumably it hung on a wall there for some time.
In 2022, the document received conservation treatment and it was discovered that the original colour of the paper upon which the signatures were written was pink.
Collection: De Valera Museum
Category: Communication Equipment