The Stage, the Pub, and the Black Donnelly’s Vengeance

In later years, the family ran a successful stagecoach line, but again, came into conflict with their rivals. Barns burned, coaches were destroyed, and horses died. It was a bloody feud, with neither side innocent.

The Black Donnellys reputation for fighting and lawlessness only grew in the years after James Sr. returned home. It is suspected that one of the first things the family did when he got out of jail was ride over to a neighbouring farm and light the barn on fire. The farmer had testified against Jim at his trial.

When not farming, the Donnelly boys were often out drinking and fighting and generally causing mayhem.

Accusations and criminal charges followed the boys throughout the years after their father’s return. In 1869, William Donnelly was charged with larceny, but never convicted. Shortly after, he and James Jr. were charged for robbing the post office in nearby Granton. Again, they were acquitted.

Despite what some may have claimed, the Black Donnellys were not the only ones causing trouble in the area. In 1870, the family barn burned down, likely the result of arson by one of their enemies.

By the early 1870s, however, it started to look like the boys were settling down. Several got married and started ‘honest’ livings. In 1873, William Donnelly, the brains of the family, decided to enter the stagecoach business. He ran the stage with several of his brothers, working the routes between London, Exeter, and Lucan.

The stage was the best way to get around in the Lucan area at the time and business was good. Of course, with business comes competition, and the Donnellys were fierce competitors.

Within months, the pressure had become too much for the owner of the other stagecoach and he sold his business to Patrick Flanagan. Flanagan was a big Irishman and he had no fear of the Black Donnellys.

A battle for the Roman line soon erupted between Flanagan and the Donnellys. Called the Stagecoach Feud by the people at the time, it was an extremely violent period, with arsons, fist fights and attacks on each other’s animals.

The Stagecoach feud came to its worst one morning a couple years later. Late one night, someone snuck into Flanagan’s barn. They sawed up his stage, completed breaking it apart, and they attacked his horses. When Flanagan went to the barn the next morning, he found his stage in ruins and his horses mutilated.

It wasn’t long before a lynch mob, with Flanagan at the head, showed up at the Donnelly barn. They approached, ready to take revenge on Will and anyone else they found with him. When they approached, however, they got more than they bargained for.

James Sr., with the rest of the boys behind him, burst from the farm armed with clubs. They were still outnumbered 3 to 1, but that didn’t matter. The Black Donnellys laid into the would-be lynchers with a vengeance, beating them mercilessly. In short order, the Donnellys emerged victorious, their foes broken and bloody on the ground before them.