Note 697 — Chapter XXI · ARMSTRONG AND THE SHEARESES—GENERAL LAWLESS
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Brutal and bungling as all this was, it would appear that, from the first, it was designed that a cruel butchery should desecrate their death. The original warrant for their execution orders that:—
'They, and each of them, be hanged by the neck—but not until they be dead—for whilst they are yet alive, they are to be taken down—their entrails are to be taken out of their bodies, and, whilst they are yet alive, to be burned before their faces; their heads are then to be respectively cut off; their bodies to be divided into four quarters, and their heads and bodies to be at His Majesty's disposal.'
The above death warrant, with written directions from Mr. Cooke, as to the troops to attend at the scaffold, is addressed to Alderman Archer, High Sheriff for Dublin in 1798, and is now preserved by his grandnephew, Rev. Thomas Gray, M.A., F.T.C.D.