The Black Donnellys

Every place in the world, no matter how lame, has its local folk anti-hero. In Chicago it's Mrs. O'Leary's cow. In the actual London, it's Jack the Ripper. In London, Ontario, it's the Black Donellys.

FYI: They were not actually black.

Here's the story of the Donnellys as told to me by my grandmother (with a few additions by Basil the tow-truck driver who once saved me when I was stranded on the side of the road in Exeter, which is about 25 miles north of London):

The Donnellys came over from Ireland, where they had a long-standing feud with another family that also had members in the area. They moved to Lucan, Ontario, which is just north of London. There they established a stagecoach line that ran between Lucan and London.

The Donnellys didn't make themselves very popular in Lucan. I've heard that they did everything from taxing people who went down the Roman Line (the road they lived on) from cutting the tongues out of their competitor's horses. Whatever the reality was, a band of local vigilantes decided that it was bad enough to warrant killing the whole lot of them.

So, on February 4, 1880, a bunch of dudes got together and marched over to the Donnelly house, which they promptly burnt down. Everyone inside died except for a neighbor boy who found somewhere fireproof to hide. Not all the Donnellys were present to be murdered, however, and when the vigilantes were found not guilty (despite the fact that everyone knew they did it), one of the sons made a point of attending all of their funerals and cackling, which seems only fair.

There are several books about the Donnellys, but I've never felt the need to read any of them. There's something appealing about hearing this story from people like my grandmother, who's own grandmother watched the vigilantes being carried to their trial in a horse-drawn wagon (they had bags over their heads, apparently, even though everyone knew who they were), and Basil the tow truck driver who grew up in Lucan (where it only recently became socially acceptable to mention the Donnellys at all). I like the idea of folklore as oral tradition, and I think that facts and research sort of get in the way of that.

One thing that is undeniably true, however, is that the Black Donnellys are the coolest thing about London. How many towns have a mass-murder story where the guys who did it totally got away with it, despite the fact that they were super guilty and everyone knew it? I mean, without the mafia. This story's so cool that there are songs about it (none of which are locatable on the Internet, sorry), a TV show named after it (created by Paul Haggis, who is from London), and an episode of one of those ghost hunting shows about the house built over the old Donnelly homestead (also not locatable on the Internet).


This show had exactly nothing to do with the actual Donnellys.

For those of you who have been paying attention, this brings the grand total of cool things about London up to 1, which is quite the achievement. Good job, London.