[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]
	Statutes of Northern Ireland
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Statutes of Northern Ireland >> URL: http://www.bailii.org/nie/legis/num_act/uoa1810237.txt

[New search] [Help]

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810 - LONG TITLE

An Act for the more effectually preventing the administering and
taking of unlawful Oaths in Ireland; and for the Protection of
Magistrates and Witnesses in Criminal Cases.{1}
[20th June 1810]
WHEREAS divers wicked and evil-disposed persons have from time to
time attempted to seduce several of His Majesty's subjects in
Ireland from their duty and allegiance to His Majesty, and to
associate them under the pretended obligations of oaths unlawfully
administered:[

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810 - SECT 1
Penalty on persons in Ireland administering or taking oaths for
seditious purposes.

1.] Any person or persons who at any time after the passing of
this Act shall administer or cause to be administered, tender or
cause to be tendered, or be present aiding and assisting at the
administering or tendering, or who shall by threats, promises,
persuasions, or other undue means cause, procure, or induce to be
taken by any person or persons in Ireland, upon a book or
otherwise, any oath or engagement importing to bind the person or
persons taking the same to be of any association, brotherhood,
committee, society, or confederacy whatsoever, in reality formed or
to be formed for seditious purposes, or to disturb the public
peace, or to injure the persons or property of any person or
persons whatsoever, or to compel any person or persons whatsoever to
do or omit or refuse to do any act or acts whatsoever, under
whatever name, description, or pretence such association, brotherhood,
committee, society, or confederacy shall assume or pretend to be
formed or constituted, or any oath or engagement importing to bind
the person taking the same to obey the orders or rules or commands
of any committee or other body of men not lawfully constituted, or
of any captain, leader, or commander (not appointed by or under the
authority of His Majesty, his heirs and successors), or to assemble
at the desire and command of any such captain, leader, commander,
or committee, or of any person or persons not having lawful
authority, or not to inform or give evidence against any brother,
associate, confederate, or other person, or not to reveal or
discover his or her having taken any illegal oath, or not to
reveal or discover any illegal act done or to be done, or not to
discover any illegal oath or engagement which may be administered or
tendered to him or her, or the import thereof, whether such oath
shall be afterwards so administered or tendered or not, or whether
he or she shall take such oath or enter into such engagement or
not, being by due course of law convicted thereof, shall be
adjudged guilty of felony and be transported for life; and every
person who shall take in Ireland any such oath or engagement
importing so to bind him or her as aforesaid, and being by due
course of law thereof convicted shall be adjudged guilty of felony
and be transported for seven years.

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810 - SECT 2
Necessity shall justify offenders, provided they give information to
a justice in time and manner herein mentioned.

2. Provided always, that any person or persons who may have been
compelled by inevitable necessity to commit any of the offences
aforesaid, upon proof of such inevitable necessity, shall be excused
and justified: Provided that no such inevitable necessity shall
justify or excuse any such person or persons, unless he, she, or
they shall within ten days, if not prevented by actual force or
sickness, and then within seven days after such actual force or
sickness shall cease to disable him, her, or them from giving
information of the same, disclose to one of His Majesty's justices
of the peace in the county in which he, she, or they shall then
be, by information on oath, the whole of what he, she, or they
know touching the compelling him, her, or them to commit any such
offence, and of the person or persons by whom he, she, or they
were compelled to commit such offence, and who were present at the
time such offence was committed, and of the place where the same
was committed: Provided however, that no person shall be so excluded
from the defence of inevitable necessity who shall be tried for the
said offence within the said period of ten days from the commission
of such offence, or of seven days from the time when such force
or sickness shall cease as aforesaid.

S.3 rep. by 1967 c.18 (NI) s.15(2) sch.2 Pt.II

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810 - SECT 4
Purport of oath sufficient in indictment.

4. And it shall not be necessary in any indictment to be found
against any person for administering, tendering, or taking such oath
or engagement to set out the words of such oath or engagement and
that it shall be sufficient to set forth therein the purport or
object of such oath or engagement.

UNLAWFUL OATHS (IRELAND) ACT 1810 - SECT 5
Informations of persons who shall lodge examinations, and shall be
murdered or maimed, or kept by force from trials, shall be admitted
as evidence.

5. And whereas it has happened that persons who have given
information against persons accused of crimes in Ireland have been
murdered before trial of persons accused, in order to prevent their
giving evidence, and to effect the acquittal of the accused: if any
person who hath given or shall give information or examination upon
oath against any person or persons for any offence against the laws
hath been or shall before the trial or trials of the person or
persons respectively against whom such information or examination hath
been or shall be given be murdered or violently put to death, or
so maimed or forcibly carried away and secreted as not to be able
to give evidence on the trial of the person or persons against
whom such information or examination was given, the information or
examination of such person so taken on oath shall be admitted in
all courts of justice in Ireland as evidence on the trial or
trials of the person or persons respectively against whom such
information or examination was given: Provided always, that the
information or examination of a witness secreted shall not be
evidence, unless it shall be found on a collateral issue (to be
put to the jury trying the prisoner), that the person so secreted
was secreted by the person then on trial, or by some person or
persons acting for him or her, or in his or her favour.

S.6 rep. by SLR (NI) 1954. S.7 rep. by 1865 c.33 s.4. Ss.8, 9
rep. by 1978 c.23 s.122(2) sch.7 Pt.I. S.10 rep. by SLR 1894