Wildgoose Lodge Murders

The Wildgoose Lodge Murders refers to the murder of eight people by burning in Wildgoose Lodge, County Louth in 1816. This event inspired works by William Carleton (1794–1869) in a short story from 1830, and by other authors.
Summary
The Wildgoose Lodge was a farm building in the parish of Tallanstown-Reaghstown in Co. Louth. On the night of 29–30 October 1816, eight people were killed there by burning to death. Those killed included a five-month-old child. Eighteen men, many of them innocent, were executed for this crime.
William Carleton's account
In 1817 William Carleton went to Killanny, Co. Louth, and for six months acted as tutor in the family of a farmer, Piers Murphy. He then stayed with a parish priest. During this period he came upon the gibbeted corpse of Patrick Devan, the leader of the murderers, a fact that so shocked him that he determined in later life to write an account of the Wildgoose Lodge murders.
William Carleton...