It was 223 years ago this month that Patrick ‘Staker’ Wallis was executed in Kilfinane for his part in disturbances that led to the 1798 rebellion.
He was hanged on 5th July 1798, and his head displayed on a spike in the square. A sculpture in his memory stands in Kilfinane today.
A contemporary account from The Belfast Newsletter tells us that, on 4th July, ‘Patrick Wallis was yesterday convicted on the most unequivocal testimony of raising a subscription to pay for assassination of Charles S. Oliver Esq., and conspiring against the life of – Barrett… '
'He is to be hanged tomorrow at Kilfinan, and his head to be affixed on one of his own pikes, and placed on the castle of Kilfinan’.
Captain Charles Silver Oliver was an English landowner and sheriff in Kilmallock.
Staker Wallis was publicly …
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