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Irish Crime and Punishment - Executions, irish justice,gallows, folk lore.

  • 19-06-2010 12:48pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭


    There are always goodies and baddies and one thing that always gets me is that Irish history always gets defined by the "struggle for independence " when there was a lot more to life.

    So after reading about the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner by firing squad in Utah yesterday made it an ideal time for a salacious themed thread about the subject.

    Its not intended to be a judgemental or even politically correct or rigidly factual so a bit of folklore and ducking stools are welome too.

    So I will kick off with a few.In 1640 the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore , John Atherton was convicted of buggery and executed under a law he had campaigned for

    220px-Atherton%2C_John_%281598-1640%29_%26_Childe%2C_John_%2816_-1640%29_-_1641.jpg
    As the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Atherton successfully campaigned for the passage of an act that instituted the death penalty for the vice of [URL="javascript:glossary('buggery','')"]buggery[/URL]. In 1640, he became one of the first men accused under this statute.
    A lawyer named Butler, involved in a dispute with the bishop over the ownership of some land at Killoges, near Waterford, made a complaint to Parliament in which he accused Atherton of committing buggery with his steward and tithe proctor John Childe. The bishop strongly denied this specific charge, but Childe confessed

    On the morning of his execution, Atherton declared himself unworthy of the Communion of the Dead, though he had written his wife that he expected to see her in Heaven. As he prepared for transport, the bishop sought to have his arms pinioned to his sides with a black ribbon, but the sheriff insisted on using the cheap cord typically reserved for common criminals.
    Atherton was hanged on Gallows Green on December 5, 1640. At ten o'clock that night, he was buried in a far corner of the yard at Christ Church in a place where some rubbish used to be cast and where no one else lay.
    His partner in sodomy, Childe, was hanged at Bandon Bridge in March 1641

    http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/atherton_j.html


    Before Stephens Green was a park it was even a leper colony. It was also a place of public execution. So who died there and why.Under what laws.

    ALL other major towns, Kilkenny, Carlow etc had executions, floggings, brandings, public amputations etc and even a Mayor of Galway is supposed to have been the hangman for his own son.


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Hangings of 4 pirates on Stephens Green in 1766 .A Nugget on Stephens Green but I seem to remember seeing something on the north side of the Green mentioning the execution of a teenage girl there for stealing a dress or something. Real bloody azzizes stuff.

    The west side of Stephen's Green, or Rapparee Fields, as it was called, was not built upon until the beginning of this century. There was a prejudice felt against it, as it was thought that at one time it was a place of execution for criminals, Gallows Hill being in close proximity to it. It would seem very doubtful that any executions took place during the latter half of the last century; as we have seen, the inhabitants of the Green were of the very upper-ten, "smart people," who would never have suffered such an indignity in their neighbourhood. [This prejudice continued until within the last thirty or forty years; the reason was forgotten, but the evil reputation still clung to the locality.] Moreover, the official "hanging-places" were either Kilmainham (where Emmet was hanged), or Baggotrath (Baggot's Castle), which then stood in the centre of pasturelands and quarries. Hither came the criminals from Newgate Prison in Cornmarket. The procession of these miserable wretches passed through Rapparee Fields, skirting the Beaux' Walk on the north side of the Green, passed the burial-ground in Merrion Row, and so reached Baggotrath, on the site of which the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy now stands, the pasturelands being converted into Baggot Street.
    [The Gentleman's Magazine mentions the execution of four pirates taking place in Stephen's Green in 1776; but this has been found to be an error, the date of the pirates' execution being 1766, and the place Baggotrath Castle" (Gaskin's "Irish Varieties"). Mr. FitzPatrick in his "Sham Squire" fixes Stephen's Green as the place of execution of Mrs. Llewellyn in 1796. This is manifestly an error. The same writer gives a list of executions said to have taken place in the Green.]
    [One of the broadsides of the day attacking the Provost of Trinity College, Hely Hutchinson, runs:
    Oh, I'll go to Stephen's Green in a cart, in a cart,
    Pressed down with age and sin,
    With a tuck beneath my chin.]

    http://www.chaptersofdublin.com/books/PictDub/picturesque6.htm


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    'The walking gallows'

    Jack Hepenstal was a lieutenent in the Irish Yeomanry, who earned himself the nickname of "The Walking Gallows" at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798. A smiling giant of a man, Lt Hepenstal would roam about the countryside seizing any stray peasant whom he suspected might be a rebel. He would take off his silk cravat, and with the aid of a companion use it to string up his victim behind his back, after which he would ‘trot about with his burden like jolting carthorse’ until the man was dead. After Jack Hepenstal's death in 1802, some wag wrote for him the following epitaph: “Here lie the bones of Hepenstal; Judge, jury, gallows, rope and all” This epitaph, used metaphorically, is still quoted today to emphasise the importance of separating the legislature from the executive.

    Following the death of Jack's brother George Hepenstal in 1805, his sister-in-law Hester Hepenstal, nee Watson, married Dr Patrick Duigenan, the Irish politician famous for his rabid anti-Catholic opinions. It is only because of Sir Jonah Barrington's reminiscences of Dr Patrick Duigenan in 'Historic Memoirs of Ireland'(1833) that we have the description of Lt Jack Hepenstal's barbaric practices at the time of the Irish Rebellion.

    Return to Heppenstall One-Name Study Main Page here

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mellor2/Lt%20Jack%20Hepenstal.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    This link here gives Gallows Hill as near Upper Baggot Street

    http://books.google.ie/books?id=WOSaTzKstL0C&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=gallows+hill+dublin&source=bl&ots=ut08uJkc69&sig=0Sfgu0kscnn4bEyFq0kLkdZPA8c&hl=en&ei=CfQcTIDiL6K60gSQromiDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=gallows%20hill%20dublin&f=false

    Does anyone know where??

    I imagine there are a few places dotted around Ireland called Gallows Hill or Green.

    I found a great link here for Dublin

    http://kilmainham.blogspot.com/2006/01/stop-1-gallows-hill-1783-1796.html

    You even had a few burnings like Mary Purfield in 1783

    Stephens Green & Newgate for the City and Kilmainham for the County


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    .

    <H2>Matts Story


    Kilkenny the medieval capital of Ireland stands in the light of the majestic Kilkenny castle. In years gone by all castles had their own mills which were served by local peasants, who would turn their crops in to their landlord in lieu of rent. These crops were delivered daily to a young miller called Matt who ran the Mill at it's present site of John's bridge.
    Now young Matt was an enterprising young lad, he kept the best of barley one side to develop his own home brew. As the years went by so Matt's brew grew stronger and more popular, and he opened his own tavern in the mill.
    Condemned men were lead to the gallows below Greensbridge, and their last stop was Matt's tavern, it was said many of Kilkenny's most infamous thieves and rogues had their last request granted of fresh fish from the adjoining River Nore, a loaf of home-made soda bread and a jug of Matt's ale.
    As the story goes twice a year the ghost of Matt is seen in the cellar bar of Matt the Millers, just to be sure the finest of brews are still being served to the condemned rogues and thieves of Kilkenny!
    </H2>


  • Registered Users Posts: 27 Eamonster


    I was looking at Rocque's map of Dublin 1759 and the gallows is at the crossroads of Baggot and Fitzwilliam street (or thereabouts).

    I must have a look for the graveyard in Merrion Row, because that's where Darkey (or Dorcas) Kelly was buried back in the 1760s.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Eamonster wrote: »

    I must have a look for the graveyard in Merrion Row, because that's where Darkey (or Dorcas) Kelly was buried back in the 1760s.

    Who was Darkey Kelly ??


  • Registered Users Posts: 27 Eamonster


    You'll find her on page 80 in this link. Not much is known about her...

    http://www.archive.org/stream/irelandbeforeurs00fitzuoft#page/80/mode/2up/search/darkey+kelly

    Darkey Kelly's Pub is built on the site of her brothel, The Maiden Tower opposite Christ Church.

    But apparantly, after she was burnt alive, her body was taken to Merrion. That could be either the Huguenot Graveyard in Merrion Row, or possibly a graveyard up in Mount Merrion.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Nice one Eamonster -

    Here is a list for cork executions in the 18 & 19th century and while some are reloatively minor like linen & stocking theft most show up what you would expect.

    http://geocitiessites.com/corklh/executions1.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    The execution of Walter Lynch by his dad the Warden of Galway.

    Maybe the word lynching came from this but tradition has it that in the year 1624 a Mayor of Galway personally hanged his own son.

    Read a penny dreadful account here

    http://www.libraryireland.com/articles/WardenGalwayDPJ1-29/index.php

    WardenGalwayDPJ1-29.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    CDfm wrote: »
    This link here gives Gallows Hill as near Upper Baggot Street

    http://books.google.ie/books?id=WOSaTzKstL0C&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=gallows+hill+dublin&source=bl&ots=ut08uJkc69&sig=0Sfgu0kscnn4bEyFq0kLkdZPA8c&hl=en&ei=CfQcTIDiL6K60gSQromiDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=gallows%20hill%20dublin&f=false

    Does anyone know where??

    I imagine there are a few places dotted around Ireland called Gallows Hill or Green.

    I found a great link here for Dublin

    http://kilmainham.blogspot.com/2006/01/stop-1-gallows-hill-1783-1796.html

    You even had a few burnings like Mary Purfield in 1783

    Stephens Green & Newgate for the City and Kilmainham for the County
    There was one in Carrick on Shannon. Think the name may have been changed due to housing development or whatever, but quiet a few men were hung there after 1798.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Murdoc3.jpg

    Murcod Ballagh was guiollotined near Merton wherever that is and I started a thread once hoping to learn more.

    Incidentally, an Irishman developed the standard drop method for execution by hanging known as the Haughton Drop and he was Samuel Haughton from Carlow.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    There was one in Carrick on Shannon. Think the name may have been changed due to housing development or whatever, but quiet a few men were hung there after 1798.

    Did we have Bloody Azzizes here ? How was criminal justice adminstered.?

    What was gaelic justice like ?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    There was more than one George Best you know and one was the Captain of a ship the Caswell on which there was a mutiny.
    There is a link here with lots of crime stuff
    http://irishcriminology.com/05a.html
    But look out for the correspondence between the Hangman William Marwood and the Governor of Cork Jail in 1876 over the execution.
    http://irishcriminology.com/05a.html
    An aside after independence there was no official irish Hangman and when an execution was to be carried out it wasusual to hire the British Hangmen and thats what happened from Independence in 1922 until the aboloition of Capital Punishment in the 1960's.
    For a country surrounded by water there is little or no theme in Irishcriminology which addresses that fact. Seldom does one, therefore, run across a murder or a mutiny that was played out on the local stage, as it were. Sea-faring murders and exploits , it seems, belong to a shadowy history that no one quite remembers past the mention of Brien Boru and the Danes at Clontarf.
    Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered this beauty in the National Archives. I felt an immediate compulsion to see it through, gather what papers there were available on it, and record it. My only regret was that the Archives could not produce the original map and sketch which was presented at the first trial; and no matter how I sought to find it – for it must be there, somewhere – nothing was forthcoming.Fortunately, as can be seen from the following extracts, an image of the real Caswell (which occupies pride of place on the book cover)as well as images of the dramatis personae, were retrievable from all kinds of unlikely places ,and with the assistance of several of those herein acknowledged.Out of small references, therefore, the story led on to two major mutiny trials in Cork in the mid-1870s – the first into the behaviour of Emmanuel Bombos, a young Greek, and, the second into the part played by Joseph Pistoria, a Sicilian. These trials afforded us some rare accounts of nineteenth century executions, and account of the attitudes of the public – the people of Cork particularly -- to the fate of the unfortunate offenders.There is no disguising the brutality of the mutiny or the ferocity of the counter-mutiny. Nevertheless, they cannot be dislocated from the prevailing attitudes of sailors at the time, or the prevailing attitudes to sailors, especially Greeks and Turkish sailors. Neither can the personality of Captain George Best be left out of the equation. In an extended Introduction I have tried to deal with the historical aspects of these ‘roles’, fully aware of the fact that words cannot replace actions.What follows here is a Synopsis, Acknowledgements, and an Introduction to the story of The Riddle of The Caswell Mutiny.
    Birching for children was still used in Ireland until at least 1943 .

    <H5>News Chronicle, London, 22 October 1943

    Four boys to be whipped - one of them twice


    Ordering four boys aged from 11½ to 13 to be birched for thefts and housebreaking at Dundalk, Ulster, yesterday, District Justice Goff directed that one lad should receive 6 strokes on each of two days, and the others 6 strokes each.
    He added: "There is a lot of spurious sympathy being spouted about birching boys. It might do good to some adults if birching was extended to them as well." As to juveniles, he suggested that the birch should be applied "fairly heavily" and that the parents and an NSPCC inspector should be present.

    Beating or birching of Children as a sentencing option on a Crimimal Conviction was on the statute books until 1997


    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_3_38/ai_n13810111/


    So what was the criminal justice system like in Ireland ???


  • Registered Users Posts: 232 ✭✭oncevotedff


    100_0583.jpg

    Marwood's business card on display in Kilmainham.

    List of executions in Ireland in the 19th century

    http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/ir1835.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    CDfm wrote: »
    Did we have Bloody Azzizes here ? How was criminal justice adminstered.?

    What was gaelic justice like ?

    Are you referring to Brehon Law? It was in common usage in Ireland until 1603 - in spite of various previous attempts to ban it. It was a system based, among other things, on paid compensation - and not prisons.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    MarchDub wrote: »
    Are you referring to Brehon Law? It was in common usage in Ireland until 1603 - in spite of various previous attempts to ban it. It was a system based, among other things, on paid compensation - and not prisons.

    So there were no prisons - was there the death penalty and how were criminals dealt with. We know there was slavery and a class system in place.

    If you had no money or goods to pay compensation with what happened?

    Were there floggings etc ?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    CDfm wrote: »
    So there were no prisons - was there the death penalty and how were criminals dealt with. We know there was slavery and a class system in place.

    If you had no money or goods to pay compensation with what happened?

    Were there floggings etc ?

    The Brehon Law system was quite an elaborate system of compensation which sometimes, in the case of unlawful murder, could stretch out into generations. The laws were not at all like the Judeo/Christian laws that we now have i.e. based on punishment of an individual: whole families could be held responsible for the crime of the criminal actions of one family member. Compensation was key to the system but if in some cases exclusion was sometimes used i.e. exclusion from the principal feasts, like not being allowed to participate in the Samain or Lunasa festivals which were central to the life of the tribe. The Brehon in charge of the case had the power to decide what the redress was to be - much more powerful and flexible than our "presiding" judges - and there are surviving documents of the lists drawn up showing the "worth" of some individuals who had committed crimes.

    I've never read of any floggings - it wasn't really in the spirit of compensation. You - and your family - were expected to "pay back" to the person whom you had stolen from or done whatever to.

    Some Brehons were permanently attached to certain upper class families, and some travelled around and were called on to address issues that might arise between people.


    The Brehon law system is not something easily explained. Fergus Kelly has done the best work on this IMO. His book "A Guide to Early Irish Law" is still the best around.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Its not an exact science -still it would be nice to build up a picture on how society operated and changed but with examples.

    I noticed that in the hangings link there were very few in Cork proving yet again the superiority of the county and its people ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    CDfm wrote: »

    I noticed that in the hangings link there were very few in Cork proving yet again the superiority of the county and its people ;)

    Or it shows their shrewd ability not to get caught!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    CDfm wrote: »
    Its not an exact science -still it would be nice to build up a picture on how society operated and changed but with examples.

    Many of the stresses between English and Irish society prior to the Reformation centred around the issue of law and consequent paying of taxes. Type or order of succession for example being one stress point. Under the old Brehon Law system, the leader of a Tuath/tribe was voted on after the death of a local king or chieftain. Whereas under English Law primogenitor was the rule and the Irish system of the Dail where the discussion and vote took place was proscribed by the English authorities.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I found this link and I do imagine the death penalty was in use and certainly I have seen stuff related to banishment or someone being put to sea in a small boat.

    So loosing rank would be fairly bad or to become enslaved. If a person got kicked out of their tribe it was bad karma and you were probably fairly in the doghouse if no one else would take you in. Sort of an outlaw.

    The nature of the society seems a bit more family & tribal based. You had feuds and wars.

    http://draeconin.com/database/celtlaw.htm

    Essentially, the ruling structure was not a nation state as we would know it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    CDfm wrote: »
    I found this link and I do imagine the death penalty was in use and certainly I have seen stuff related to banishment or someone being put to sea in a small boat.

    So loosing rank would be fairly bad or to become enslaved. If a person got kicked out of their tribe it was bad karma and you were probably fairly in the doghouse if no one else would take you in. Sort of an outlaw.

    The nature of the society seems a bit more family & tribal based. You had feuds and wars.

    http://draeconin.com/database/celtlaw.htm

    There is a strict copyright notice on this link so it doesn't allow to cut and paste. But if you go into the "Irish Law" section it does a pretty good job at explaining the compensation system for unlawful killing.
    He is using Fergus Kelly's work I think.
    CDfm wrote: »
    Essentially, the ruling structure was not a nation state as we would know it.

    Yes, it was a very different system from the feudal system that operated throughout Europe at the time - which is why early Irish Christianity did not develop like the rest of Europe either. We developed a monastic system, not an urban diocesan model. Until we were forced to that is.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm



    Here is a fascinating story on the Maamtrasna Murders in Galway. This is the backgound and verdicts are below.


    <H1>The Maamtrasna Murders, August 17 1882

    Galway Advertiser, January 28, 2010.
    21496_thumb.jpg Before the magistrates at Cong: Ten men were accused of the Maamtrasna murders

    Ronnie O’gorman
    Early on Friday August 18 1882, John Collins, a tenant farmer, having heard disturbances during the night coming from his neighbours’ house, the Joyces, went to check if all was well. He must have feared the worst because he brought with him two neighbours, Mary and Margaret O’Brien. They discovered an appalling sight. Even today, when our senses have been hardened by so many atrocities, it was a scene of savage murder that cried to heaven. No mercy was shown to this unfortunate family.
    Inside the door, which was broken off at its hinges, lay the naked corpse of John Joyce. He was shot twice in the body. Nearby on the bed his wife Bridget lay dead, her skull crushed by a blow over her right eye. Her son Michael (17 years), was lying beside her with two bullet wounds. He was choking and barely alive (he would later die from his wounds). In the inner room, lying across a bed, was the mother-in-law, Margaret. She was stripped, and dead from a deep wound on her forehead. Beside her was Peggy, in her mid teens, also bludgeoned to death. Lying beside her was 12-years-old Patsy with two serious wounds on his head, but alive. He was very frightened. The two family dogs were upset and would not leave the house. There were bullet marks on the kitchen wall.
    We can imagine the gasps, and screams of shock as the gruesome scene was revealed. The murder of practically the entire Joyce family, in their small cabin in the heart of the Mayo mountains on the shores of Lough Mask, must have rocked the local community. About 250 families endeavouring to make a living from the rocky soil, or by rearing sheep under the shadow of Connemara’s majestic Maamtrasna mountain, lived nearby. Later that day, they gathered on the hillside as the local RIC Constable Johnston (who spoke no Irish but sub Constable Lenihen acted as interpreter), and the local magistrate Newton Brady, held an inquest. The two surviving boys testified that the murders had been committed by a group of three or four men, all of whom “ had their faces blackened”.*
    The shock waves from Maamtrasna, however, were felt as far as London. On August 20 The Times commented: ‘No ingenuity can exaggerate the brutal ferocity of a crime which spared neither the grey hairs of an aged woman nor the innocent child of 12 years who slept beside her. It is an outburst of unredeemed and inexplicable savagery before which one stands appalled, and oppressed with a painful sense of the failure of our vaunted civilisation.’

    Passions were high

    The Maamtrasna Murders happened at a time of deep unrest in Ireland. Three years previously, the most effective protest against the insidious landlord domination of the vast majority of the Irish people found expression in the Land League. It was established on October 21 1879, in the Imperial Hotel, Castlebar, by a former Fenian prisoner Michael Davitt. In a sweeping revolutionary statement, the League proclaimed the right of every tenant farmer to own the land he worked on. Because of the abuses heaped on tenants by some landlords, it had an immediate impact. It also found a powerful voice in its president Charles Stewart Parnell, a Protestant landowner in County Wicklow. Parnell was initially seen as an unlikely leader of a mass agrarian movement, but Davitt declared him ‘an Englishman of the strongest type moulded for an Irish purpose.’
    Parnell’s policies were so effective that it vaulted him into the unchallenged leadership of the advanced wing of the Irish Parliamentary Party. In its time, through a series of Land Acts, it achieved extraordinary concessions for the Irish tenant, far in excess of what was ever achieved for their contemporaries working on the land in England, Scotland, or Wales.
    Parnell advocated peaceful protest, such as non payment of rent, the effective use of ‘boycott’, and solidarity and support for those who were evicted. But passions were high. Violence frequently took a vicious turn.

    Near hysteria

    Principle targets for murder were landlords or their agents, many of whom were soft targets. In January of same year of the Maamtrasna murders, Joseph and John Huddy, who worked for Lord Ardilaun,( a member of the Guinness family, a generous philanthropist who lived mainly at Ashford Castle, Cong) were murdered and their bodies dumped in Lough Mask. John Henry Blake, an agent of the despised Lord Clanricard, was shot dead in broad daylight in Loughrea in June 1882. A Claremorris landlord Walter Burke; and Ballinrobe landlord Lord Mountmorres (who was considered an enlightened man who never evicted his tenants), were both shot dead. The British government was determined to stamp out these outrages by whatever means. Parnell and other leaders such as John Dillon and Conor O’Kelly were arrested on the basis of allegedly seditious speeches. They were held, without trial, in Kilmainham Gaol.
    But what brought the country to a standstill, and near hysteria, were the stabbings in Phoenix Park, on May 6 1882, of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Chief Secretery for Ireland,** and Thomas Henry Burke, the permanent under-secretary, the most senior Irish civil servant. Draconian measures were immediately introduced giving the police increased powers of search and arrest. New three-judge courts were set up to avoid intimidation of witnesses; and compensation for murder, injury, or damage to property was to be levied on the jurisdiction in which the crimes were committed.
    Then on August 17 the so called Maamtrasna murders were committed. It was a crime that the local police dreaded not only because of its horrific nature, but because of the unlikelihood that the perpetrators would ever be found. Usually in a closeknit community, such as at Maamtrasna, the murderers would never be revealed, at least never to the police. But surprisingly, the day following the murders, Anthony Joyce (a cousin of the murdered man), with his brother Johnny and his nephew Paddy, all from the nearby parish of Cappanacreha, three miles from the murder scene, went to the police with an astonishing tale. These Joyces, known as ‘the Maolras’ Joyces (to distinguish them from the many Joyce families in the area), gave a sworn statement that they had followed a crowd of men that fateful night, they saw them joined by other men, and saw them approach John Joyce’s house at Maamtrasna. Hidden behind a bush, they heard the noise at the door, and saw some of the men enter the house, while others stayed outside. Anthony heard shouting and screeching. ‘He could not distinguish the screams of the women from those of the men.’
    He named 10 men whom he alleged were out that night as follows: Anthony Philbin, Tom Casey, Martin Joyce, Myles Joyce, Patrick Joyce, and Tom Joyce of Cappanacreha. Pat Joyce (Shanvalleycahill), Patrick Casey, John Casey, and Michael Casey.
    They were duly rounded up and brought before the magistrates at Cong, and charged.

    Next week: The blood feud among the Joyce family has tragic consequences.


    Now the article below is written by Joe Joyce and I wonder does he have any connection with either of the men on the scaffold.


    Well how many Joyces can you name from Galway, well there was Lord Haw Haw, the Seoige Sisters and this guy who loudly declared his innocence from the gallows in Irish.
    The Irish Times - Wednesday, December 16, 2009
    December 16th, 1882: Harrowing Maamtrasna executions

    JOE JOYCE
    Newspaper reports of official executions in the 19th century sometimes contained gruesome details as hangings were not always carried out as clinically as they were supposed to be. The hanging of three men in Galway jail for the infamous Maamtrasna murders, including one who was innocent, was relatively straightforward, but its description in the next day’s newspaper was still harrowing.
    WHEN THE light of coming day was yet dim Marwood [the executioner] entered the cells of the condemned. All three had spent a restless night . . . At half-past six o’clock they were desired to prepare themselves for the visit of their priest. Food was offered to them, but was in each case refused and at seven o’clock Mass was said by the Rev Mr Newell, whose presence tended to calm them . . . About eight o’clock Father Grevan administered the last sacraments of their church, and when Marwood made his appearance everything was in a state of preparedness . . .
    At a quarter-past 8 o’clock the prison doors were thrown open . . . With startled looks they marked the wild, hollow eyes, sunken cheeks, and shrunken forms of each other, but not a word passed between them. Myles Joyce came first, between two warders, bareheaded, repeating in Irish the responses to the prayers which were being read by the Rev Mr Grevan. Then came Pat Casey, pinioned, silent, and with a look of great agony on his features. Last appeared Pat Joyce, taller than the others, wearing his hat, silent, too, and walking with firm and steady step . . . In the order in which the culprits had left the cells they mounted the scaffold, Pat Joyce going up two steps at a time, and without receiving the least assistance whatever. Myles Joyce was placed to the right, Pat Casey at the left, Pat Joyce, the taller, being in the centre.
    Marwood then commenced the work of pinioning the knees, beginning with Myles Joyce . . . While upon the drop, Myles Joyce continued to speak volubly and in an excited way. It was impossible to gather the meaning of much that fell from him, even by Irish-speaking persons who were present; but the following sentences have been interpreted for me by one who understands and speaks the language thoroughly, and who was close enough to hear the greater part of what he said.
    These sentences were: “I am going before my God. I was not there at all. I had no hand or part in it. I am as innocent as a child in the cradle. It is a poor thing to take this life away on a stage; but I have my priest with me.”
    The other culprits were silent and passive, and made no statement of any kind from the scaffold. Myles Joyce, on the contrary, continued speaking rapidly, even after Marwood had drawn the white cap over his face and fixed the noose around his neck, and was, in fact, at the moment the bolt was drawn speaking . . . The instant Marwood touched the levers the three bodies instantly disappeared.
    Two of the ropes remained perfectly motionless, but the third, that by which Myles Joyce was hanged, could be seen by those who watched it closely to vibrate, and swing slightly backwards and forwards. It soon became evident, from Marwood’s behaviour, that there had been a hitch of some kind or other, and he muttered, “bother the fellow”, sat down on the scaffold, laid hold of the rope, and moved it backwards and forwards.
    As will be seen from what happened afterwards at the inquest, this incident did not pass unobserved, and it would certainly appear that Joyce was not killed as rapidly as the others, and that the man struggled for some time before succumbing


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    What can happen when 5 Guys named Kruhoor go on the lash in Glemgarrif

    Inse an t-Sagairt

    The mass rock at Inse and t-Sagairt in the town land of Innisfoyle (locally known as Slios) has for generations been a place of pilgrimage and reverence for the people of Bonane. There is a very strong folk belief that a priest was murdered while celebrating mass there during penal times.
    Folk belief has it that this event occurred in 1829. At that time there was woman in Glengarriff, known as Nell na Deataighe. Nell ran a Shibeen (Illegal pub) and a house of ill repute! It was in her house that the murder was plotted!
    There was still a price of £45 on the head of a priest and this provided an incentive, not to mention immunity from prosecution. Five men with the name Conchabhar, (pronounced "Kruhoor" meaning Con or Cornelius) plotted the murder in Nell's Shibeen. They were known by their nicknames of Conchabhar Randum, Conchabhar Raibheach, Conchabhar Clampar, Conchabhar Chuithig and Conchabhar Mhiceire.
    They became aware that mass was to be celebrated at the mass rock at Inse an t-Sagairt. They crossed the mountain from Glengarriff and made their way down a rocky ravine in the mountain, clearly visible from the Baureragh road, known as Eisc Caol. They came upon the priest while he was celebrating mass and with no chance for escape they dragged him to a fallen tree nearby where he was decapitated.
    The priest's clerk was taken prisoner and he together with the severed head was first taken to a house, no longer in existence, near Killowen, Kenmare. Blood from the head dripped on the flagstone of the door and legend has it that this stain could not be removed; even when the stone was replaced the stain reappeared!
    The clerk was taken to Dromore Castle, where he was released on the strand and two mastiffs set loose on him for the sport of his captors.
    Being a strong swimmer he took to the water where he outmanoeuvred the dogs. Grabbing a dog by the scruff of the neck with each hand he headed for the other side of the bay, some three miles away.
    Propelled by the powerful animals he had little difficulty in reaching the far shore where he disposed of the dogs before making good his escape.
    A journey to Cork by the perpetrators to claim the reward proved in vain. Catholic Emancipation had just been won so the money was never paid and the head was dumped in the River Lee


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    Not justice here, happened in Co. Tipperary and it wasn't that long ago either
    It's a long article, I won't post it all but here is the link

    http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/supernat/stories/cleary.htm

    On March 15, 1895, twenty-eight year old Bridget Cleary, a cooper’s wife, disappeared from her cottage near Clonmel in County Tipperary. Immediately, strange and lurid rumours began circulating the neighbourhood about what had happened. Some said she ran off with an egg seller, others supposed it was an aristocratic foxhunter who had taken young Bridget away. Swirling amid rumours was the barely whispered, but widely held, belief that Bridget had gone with no mortal man; rather, she had gone off with the fairies. The mystery deepened when seven days later her body was discovered, bent, broken and badly burned in a shallow grave. Within a few days, the unimaginable truth came to light: for almost a week before her death Bridget had been confined, ritually starved, threatened, physically and verbally abused, exorcised and, finally, burned to death by her husband, Michael Cleary, her father and extended family who confused her bronchial medical condition with a “fairy dart.” They had all become convinced that “their Bridgie” had been taken from them and her fairy-possed body left behind to deceive them.

    She was a stylish dressmaker with additional independent income from keeping hens, who eschewed the customary shawls and scarves of her peers for hats and cashmere jackets. Her husband was a cooper from a neighbouring town who also had a good income. That, along with their childless state, had made them relatively well-off compared to their neighbours and family. The Cleary’s were friendly with their neighbours - an “emergency man”, or caretaker for the landlord who had moved into a farm after a family was evicted during the land wars of the early 1890’s. These neighbours were shunned by a small community resentful of such opportunism. Bridget did the shopping for them and may have been the young husband’s lover. She was out delivering some eggs and hoping to get payment owed from her uncle, and caught a cold that possibly developed into TB on her two-mile trek home. Over the next week Bridget’s condition worsened, yet the doctor, a drunk, refused to come, while the priest stayed 20 minutes and merely gave the last rites. Soon Michael Cleary and Bridget’s uncle, Jack Dunne, a seanchai well versed in herb lore, began to circulate the story that Bridget had been taken by the fairies, and the woman in the bed was a changeling. Some herbal cures were prescribed and forced down Bridget’s throat - she was also manhandled and held over the fire on Thursday, March 15, while being repeatedly asked if she was indeed Bridget or a changeling. Several family members assisted, and neighbours were present the evening before her death. Several more tests were conducted by her male relatives to see if she was truly Bridget - including throwing urine and chicken droppings on her.

    By the next morning, she appeared to recover and was up, dressed and out of bed the following evening, when neighbours came at her request to verify that she was better, and not a changeling. After the neighbours left, seemingly still not convinced that she was truly his wife, Michael Cleary tried to force Bridget to eat three pieces of bread before he would give her a cup of tea- she ate two and insisted on the tea. He waved a burning stick in her face, causing her clothing to catch fire. She passed out, and he threw paraffin oil on the “changeling” and burned her to death, all the while screaming that she wasn’t his wife, that his wife would appear riding on a white horse at a ruined hill fort the following evening, when he would cut the cords that bound her with a black-handled knife. On 14 March they held her over the fire to drive the spirits out, and on 15 March Bridget’s husband set fire to her nightgown, throwing on lamp-oil to make the fire burn more fiercely. “She’s not my wife”, he told the assembled people.

    “You’ll soon see her go up the chimney”. Brandishing a kitchen knife at her brothers, he forced one of them to help him carry her to a shallow grave. Shortly afterwards, some men reported to their local priest that young Bridget Cleary, who was known to have been ill, had been burned to death by family members, including her husband, in a case of fairy exorcism. The priest in turn went to the police, who found Bridget’s charred body and arrested nine family members, neighbours and friends in connection with the incident. The subsequent trial became a weapon in the hands of Tories opposed to Home Rule for Ireland. After all, how could one grant political autonomy to a people still so in the grip of superstition? Michael Cleary was sentenced to 15 years after which he emigrated to Canada. Tom McIntyre told me an intriguing story from the Clonmel area some time ago when a young man (possibly a Canadian) was observed in the vicinity of the Cleary household only to disappear again. Did Michael re-marry and have a family?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    A fascinating story, and I had a thread on it.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055739655

    One thing is for certain -the judge did not believe the fairy defence.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    Reading that thread now, thanks

    You know if it happened in medieval Ireland I wouldn't be that shocked
    But it was 1895! :eek:

    Strange indeed


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Glad you like it. My grandparents would have been near contemporaries of theirs. Now it would take a huge leap for me to believe that they or their friends or neighbours in rural Ireland believed in fairies or banshees because they didn't.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    It's quite common though.

    Most areas have a fairy fort which the farmer simply refuses to touch, generally in the middle of a large field so in the way of machinery too.

    I often remember my grandparents talking about the scream of the banshee and someone would die that night.
    Terrible thing to tell an 8 year old, I was terrified :eek:
    hey check my username, I was scarred for life :D
    I'm not saying they believe in them but it's part of the culture and people do talk about them, this was Tipperary also

    Very detailed thread there, I'm enjoying it and will check out that book by Angela Bourke.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    A massive story and still controversial.

    But -telling an 8 year old of a boogie man when its cats or foxes mating happens in about every culture. I am sure there are a lot of mounds on farms that may be graves or whatever that people avoid ploughing for obvious reasons.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Harry Gleeson was executed for the 1940 murder of Mary McCarthy a single parent. Sean McBride (Maud Gonnes Son) and former IRA leader was a newly qualified barrister at the time and defended him.

    Years back I read that Sean McBride had misgivings about his defence of Gleeson and was convinced of his innocence.

    At the end of the interview he stood up and said:

    "The last thing I want to say is that I will pray tomorrow that whoever did it will be discovered, and that the whole thing will be like an open book.
    I rely on you then to clear my name. I have no confession to make, only that I didn't do it. That is all. I will pray for you and be with you if I can, whenever you, [Mr. Seán MacBride], Mr. Nolan-Whelan and Mr. Timoney are fighting for justice'.


    Last words of Harry Gleeson to Seán MacBride
    Tuesday, 22 April 1941

    He was hanged the next day.

    I have driven thru New Inn several times.

    I have tried to find an on-line case summary but what I did find was a board thread on the location and a TV programme from a few years back
    Brian Og wrote: »
    I am interested in finding out any information people might have (maybe family stories, rumours, etc.) about the "Murder of Marlhill" in November 1940, which a local woman, Mary "Moll" McCarthy was murdered in a field near Marlhill and her neighbour Harry Gleeson was arrested, charged, convicted of the murder and hanged in Mountjoy Jail in April 1941, in possibly the greatest miscarriage of justice this country has ever saw.

    All people directly involved with the murder are now deceased but the name of Harry Gleeson has not yet been cleared despite efforts to secure a posthumous pardon from the State by Noel Davern TD in 1995. The case has fascinated many, including barrister for Harry Gleeson, the late Sean McBride who believed in the innocence of Gleeson until his death.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=62738571#post62738571


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I spotted this picture a while back of the Pikeman being put in place in the Bull Ring in Wexford. Very like an Iranian Hanging with the crane and all.

    It was a place of execution and has featured on TV on the Lotto Show

    the%20bull%20ring%201.jpg

    as has Youghal Clock Gate

    Youghal.jpg

    Which up until 1837 was used as a gallows and jail .

    I keep waiting for Derek Mooney to say "lets play hangman byeeeee"

    So other than Papists -you really don't find details on who met their grisly ends there.

    All reference to Florence Newton the Witch of Youghal ends after she was taken to Cork.

    For Florence and a few other Witches click here

    http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=forum


  • Registered Users Posts: 232 ✭✭oncevotedff


    CDfm wrote: »
    Glad you like it. My grandparents would have been near contemporaries of theirs. Now it would take a huge leap for me to believe that they or their friends or neighbours in rural Ireland believed in fairies or banshees because they didn't.

    My parents and grandparents certainly did.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    My parents and grandparents certainly did.

    Interesting. I have no answer for that.

    But while they might have been supersticious - would they have believed enough to kill.

    You may like this link

    http://blogs.forteana.org/node/71

    I am very sceptical here.

    Here is a very interesting article called Murder & Madness and the Insanity Defence -here is an extract but it mentions a similar case to Bridget Cleary's

    The second half of the nineteenth century was a time of great political unrest and social change in the aftermath of Famine, and the era was characterized by a high degree of official control from Westminster through Dublin.3 From the beginning of the century, the problems of vagrancy and lunacy were subjected to waves of legislation to ensure control of unruly elements in society. This was due in part to the enthusiasm for Irish prison reform by two Whig politicians, Thomas Spring-Rice and Sir John Newport, and in part to the ease with which the highly centralized colonial authority exerted control over local authorities and landowners.4 As the general population decreased—falling from approximately eight million in 1841 to 6.5 million after the Famine and to 4.5 million in 1900—both the prison system and the asylum system expanded steadily.5 The expansion of the prison system raises interesting questions, as scholars debate whether or not serious crime actually increased in the second half of the nineteenth century.6 As part of the planned expansion of the asylum system, and to solve the problem of holding lunatics in an already overcrowded prison system, a special facility with accommodation for approximately one hundred people was built at Dundrum, County Dublin, for the confinement and treatment of criminal lunatics in 1850. The Dundrum facility predated the establishment of a similar institution at Broadmoor, England, opened in 1863, but it mirrored the ideological approach to crime and mental disorder evident throughout Britain and its colonies at this time.7 It was known as the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland and remains open—though there are currently plans to relocate it away from Dundrum—as the Central Mental Hospital for offenders with mental disorders.The plans for the proposed institution at Dundrum showed the influence of the largely benevolent and optimistic perspective of Dr. Francis White, the inspector of prisons for Ireland who had responsibility for lunacy. Because he saw the potential inmates as “lunatics” rather than “criminals,”White argued for a building that would be more like an asylum than a prison. In his annual report of 1847 he wrote, “It is not designed that the building should partake of the character of a prison,” noting that “it is proposed to have the structural arrangement as cheerful as circumstances will admit, so as to afford every possible facility for the recreation and occupation of the patients.”8 In spite of this positive approach, Dundrum became a place to be feared. Individuals confined there were regarded by the public as both dangerous and disordered, and were isolated from society by the physical barriers of high periphery walls and by the legal measure of indefinite sentences.Between 1850 and 1900, more than eight hundred people (646 men and 177 women) were sent to Dundrum, under laws designed to divert people with mental disorders from the prison system at different stages of judicial proceedings against them—at the time of trial, of sentencing, or of imprisonment.9 The “patients,” or “inmates,” as they were sometimes called, ranged in age from fourteen to eighty and had committed a wide range of crimes, including murder, manslaughter, assault, theft, and burglary.10 In cases of murder and manslaughter in which individuals successfully pleaded insanity, they were sent to Dundrum as criminal lunatics. In most cases of serious crime, the sentence was for an indefinite time period—officially designated as LLP, for “at the Lord Lieutenant’s Pleasure,” or HMP, for “at His/Her Majesty’s Pleasure.” Medical records from Dundrum11; convict records, court records, and crime statistics12; and a range of related official documents13 provide the primary material by which to examine these cases from a gender perspective. The medical literature of the nineteenth century also serves to illuminate the gender dimensions of these criminal cases.A number of striking patterns emerge from in the medical records of criminal lunatics sent to Dundrum for their involvement in murder or manslaughter during the period 1850 to 1900. Among women patients, the majority had killed children; a few had killed other women; and only one had killed a man. The pattern was quite different for men, among whom the majority had killed women; a substantial number had killed men; and a few had been involved in the killing of children.14 Among the most striking patterns are the high visibility of women who had killed children, and of men who had killed women. The discussion that follows considers the cases of Margaret Rainey, Hannah Sullivan, and Ellen Byrne, all young single women who killed their illegitimate babies; Sarah McAlister and Catherine Wynn, both married women who killed all of their children; Dr. Terence Brodie, James Dinneny, and Patrick Saunders, men who had killed their wives; and Allen Spiller, who killed his wife and children. Mary Rielly, the only woman sent to Dundrum as a criminal lunatic for the killing of a man, also warrants attention. Rielly’s case carries echoes of the superstitious rhetoric that surrounded the well-known murder of Bridget Cleary during the same period.15

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1472557/


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Here are a few newspaper extracts I came accross including a 80 year old convicted of murder in 1828 and other 3 executed for rape.
    In the Criminal Court at Waterford, Thomas PRENDERGAST, an infirm man, nearly 80 years old, was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged for the murder of Margaret LYONS, aged 14 years, with a hatchet, for the purpose of robbing her; He was executed on Monday. John MARKS, Nicholas CONDON and John RYAN, were tried for violating the person of Margaret BURKE, and sentenced to be executed the 28th of August


    What can happen when nuns hate you

    At the Court of Petty Sessions, this day — present, the Mayor, Sir C. MARRETT, and William ROCHE, Esq. The only case that appeared for investigation was that of a man named John MEAGHER, who was found at an unseasonable hour, last night, in the Convent of St. Clare.— This unfortunate creature was examined by the bench, and voluntarily made the followning statement:— That he was a blacksmith by trade; admitted scaling the Nunnery wall, and that his sole object in getting into the premises was the hope of being transported; that he was excommunicated about 15 months ago (for stealing a silver chalice out of the Convent Chapel,) since which period he has been refused employment everywhere he applied; is reduced to the most extreme distress; has not been suffered to enter any house; lives by begging a few potatoes and is obliged to roast them in a lime-kiln; no one, not even his brother, would know him or hold community with him; is almost in a state of nakedness and actually starving from want and misery; transportation would be a relief for him.
    This singular and lamentable detail made a considerable impression on the Court: the unfortunate wretch was truly an object of pity. The porter of the Nunnery, William O'MEALY, then swore informations against him, and he was committed to stand trial at the ensuing assizes.
    The Mayor observed, that if the prosecution failed, he might be indicted as a vagrant, and thus his wished would be accomplished.

    An engagement party in Limerick made the papers
    On Wednesday last a proclamation was issued by the Lord Lieutenant and council Proclaiming a reward for taking and apprehending Hugh Fitz John MASSY of the co of Cork, Gent, John BOUCHER Gent and Michael SCANLAN the younger of Ballykelly in the co of Limerick, James CURRANE, and Timothy CROMEEN, for forcibly carrying away of Frances INGOLSBY spinster, from the house of the Rev Thomas ROYCE of Nantenan in the co of Limerick and likewise feloniously taking several arms from said house

    Bigamy in Macroom

    Michael ANGLIM was indicted for intermarrying at Macroom, with Mary RUSSELL, his former wife being still alive. Proof was given up of both marriages, the Jury found him guilty. The Court said that he would deprive them of the society of the gentleman, and ordered him to be transported for seven years.

    1783 Oliver Twist performance in Cork
    Cork, Dec. 15, Last Saturday Richard HAWES was whipped from North Gate to South Gate, pursuant to his sentence at our Quarter Sessions, for receiving stolen goods and encouraging children to become shoplifters. The Sheriffs on this occasion saw the punishment properly inflicted, which shows their intention of fulfilling the duties of their office with a degree of justice, that must endear them to their fellow citizens.


    http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/newspaper/curio.htm
    CONVICTS IN NEW SOUTH WALES.- The Sir J. Banks, transport, has arrived in Cork, to take out the wives and children of Convicts who have been recommended to the Government for good conduct, to New South Wales.
    The Charitable and Benevolent Societies acknowledge the receipt of nineteen shillings from a person who found a pound in the street, and who paid a shilling thereout to the city bell-man for announcing the same.
    The Treasurer of the Benevolent Society acknowledges the receipt of 10s. 6d. from Mr. Edmd. Reade, a new Juryman.- Also of 10s. from a Jury, by Mr. Quinn.

    ANOTHER MURDER IN TIPPERARY- Killenaule, April 24.- I am sorry to acquaint you, that on Sunday night an aged man, of the name of David Cunningham, was waylaid by nine men near Hellenpark, who bet him in so savage a manner, that he survived but till Tuesday. After beating him so cruelly, the party threw him over a gate. An inquest has been held on the body by Mr. T.L. Baker, Coroner, and a verdict of wilful murder pronounced against some of the persons concerned. The police have already apprehended some of them.

    EXECUTION OF M. STAPLETON- On Saturday, about noon, a number of persons assembled opposite the Jail to witness the execution of Michael Stapleton, convicted at the last Assizes of highway robbery, and an assault on Patrick Ryan. He declared, that accompanied by another man, they met by mere chance the prosecutor on the road, that the moment he saw him his heart burned with revenge, as the prosecutor belonged to a party who had some time previously beaten him in an unmerciful manner, and he had still the mark of a large wound on his forehead. He stated that he instantly struck Ryan to the ground-his first intention was not murder- but he subsequently resolved to kill Ryan, and accordingly repeated his blows with stones and a stick, until he thought he was dead-he declared that he never robbed him, nor was robbery his object, and he was convinced that Ryan was not deprived of a single penny by the only person who was with him.- Stapleton was of the middle size, stoutly made, good looking, and only 28 years of age. He would read and write, and was intelligent. We sincerely trust that his unfortunate fate, as well as his solemn parting admonition will have due effect on the deluded partisans of unmeaning faction in this county.--Tipperary F. Press.

    COMBINATION-POLICE OFFICE, CORK- Charles Turner, Michael Walsh, John Rorke, jun., and John Savage, appeared before Alderman Evanson and Bagnell, charged with and infraction of the 53d of the late King, chap. 86 and sec. 6. This trial lasted from two to half-past four o'clock, and we can now merely give an outline. The prisoners, it appeared by the evidence of Mr. Samuel Dennehy, of the Constitution Newspaper Office, had been for a considerable period employed on that establishment as compositors. In consequence of the proprietors having thought proper to engage a new Forman, a native of Scotland, it was necessary to displace one of the compositors. On the 31st of March, he intimated his arrangement to Walsh, and told him he should have the notice which it was usual to give on the discharge of a printer-namely, 14 days, accompanying the intimation by telling him to work during that period at the Book-house of the proprietors. Walsh requested permission to remain in the Newspaper Office until the expiration of the notice, to which witness assented; but, in order to save the establishment the expense of an extra man, he desired another compositor, named Ford, who had been as a "supernumerary" in the office, to go to the Book-house for a fortnight, after which he should be received permanently into the Constitution Office. "O no," said Ford, "I am reluctant to be instrumental in depriving any man of his situation, and I cannot think of remaining." "Neither shall I," said Tanner; "nor I," said Rorke- "nor I," said Walsh. "Are there any more of you," said witness; "if there be, give notice." Witness immediately discharged Ford. The prisoners continued to work until about three o'clock Saturday, the 12th of April. In the afternoon of that day, witness proceeded to the Printing Office, left copy for the men with the boys; and on looking at the cases found on that at which Walsh worked, a quantity of Long Primer letter, undistributed, thus evidently intending to impede the bringing out of the ensuing publication. On Monday morning the 14th inst., witness discovered the four prisoners absented themselves, and on enquiring for Clarke, found he also had not come to work. The Boys came in late, Clarke did not work during that day, and it was with the greatest difficulty and exertion the publication was brought out the next morning. After a long investigation, the prisoners were severally convicted by the Magistrates, and sentenced to two months' imprisonment, and hard labour at the tread mill

    http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Kilkenny/1828/MAY.html

    australian transportation limk

    http://members.pcug.org.au/~ppmay/convicts.htm

    I just wonder if the criminal law in Ireland pre 1800 Act of Union differed comsiderably from that of England.

    The thing about the crimes though is that the crimes were no better or no worse than those in other countries murder, rape, robbery.

    And the penalties seem to be on par too.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I wondered where to put this link in but here is goes -take a look at the whole lot for odd facts.


    This is a strange book written just before British rule in Ireland began to come to an end. It is the memoir of a Unionist and a Protestant - yet one who avows the Jacobite cause - who falls over himself in the queue for even the whiff of royalty, a bon vivant, a man who, though born in Dublin, never really saw himself as being Irish.
    At the same time it is a remarkable link with the 19th century - he was 83 when the book was published in 1913.
    Sir Charles A. Cameron C.B., was the first employee of the Corporation of Dublin to become a Freeman of the City of Dublin. The reason for the award was simple - he did his job well. There were many other who could claim they had served the city well - but none who could boast that they had cut the death rate from one of the highest in Europe to one of the lowest.



    http://www.chaptersofdublin.com/books/cameron/cameroncontents.htm
    The Longest Murder Trial On Record In Ireland.
    On the 22nd July, 1873, J. H. Montgomery, Sub-Inspector Royal Irish Constabulary, was arraigned at Omagh Assizes for the murder of William Glass, a banker. Two juries had disagreed in previous trials, but the third found him guilty, and he was executed on the 26th August.
    Three days before Montgomery's trial commenced, James Moore was placed on trial at Maryborough Assizes charged with the murder of Edward Delany. He was found guilty on the 9th September, 14 days after the execution of Montgomery. The jury in this case were kept 46 days virtually in confinement. They were allowed a jaunt into the country under police escort, but practically they had no exercise.
    They were placed upon a good diet, a liberal supply of whiskey, and provided with packs of playing cards. It was noticed that under these conditions some of the jurors increased in weight. On their enlargement one of them found a very youthful addition to his family, another juror lost one of his. Several became bankrupt, due, they alleged, to their prolonged absence from business.
    The Crown was represented by the Solicitor-General, Mr. Hugh Law, who subsequently became Lord Chancellor; Mr. Pakenham Law, and Mr. Dames Longworth. The prisoner was defended by Mr. John Adye Curran (now a County Court Judge) and Mr. Constantine Molloy. The judge was Chief Baron Pigott.
    There were 70 witnesses for the prosecution, of whom I was one. The case was about one month going on when I was examined on a Saturday. I was tired of it, although a paid expert witness, for the atmosphere of the court was unpleasant, and I was residing at Bray at the time. I was walking on the Bray esplanade on the following day, when I saw a sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary approaching me. He informed me that soon after I had been examined, the Chief Baron wished to ask me a question, hut it was found that I had just left by train for Dublin. The next day I appeared before the Chief Baron, who mildly reproved me for departing without his leave, and made some trivial enquiry. He then informed me that my presence was necessary until the termination of the trial, as he might want to put a question to me. I had to attend every day until the end of the trial, but was not asked any further questions.
    The weather was very warm, and owing to the crowded condition of the courthouse, the atmosphere could be distinctly smelled. The Chief Baron complained of the unpleasant atmosphere, and asked me what could be done to improve it. I suggested limiting the number of persons admitted to it, but he said that the Queen's Court must remain open to all who sought admission to it. I then suggested that besides the half-hour the court was empty during the adjournment for luncheon, it would be desirable to have it unoccupied for five or ten minutes twice a day This suggestion was adopted, and the doors and windows fully opened. It helped to improve the state of the air.
    The long continuance of the trial, the unusually warm weather, and the vitiated condition of the air of the court, inspired on the average for seven hours daily, had an injurious effect upon the health of the persons engaged in it. The Crown Solicitor, Mr. Thomas Gerrard, suffered from blood poisoning. All the counsel engaged in the case were more or less affected. Mr. Adye Curran and Mr. Molloy had to go abroad to recruit their health. The Chief Baron never tried another case.
    Fifty-three days after Moore's trial commenced, and near midnight, a verdict of guilty was found, and the prisoner was sentenced to death. He made a severe, but only verbal, attack upon the Chief Baron, informing him that he would rather die a thousand deaths than be tried before him again, and, winding up, shouted to the judge that he would be dead before him (the prisoner).
    This scene seems to have had a most unpleasant effect upon the Chief Baron. I was told by Lord Justice Barry that the Chief Baron called upon the executive authorities and induced them to recommend the Lord Lieutenant to reprieve the prisoner.
    His reason for intervention was that he felt he should have told the jury that it was open to them to find a verdict of manslaughter if they so desired. The Chief Baron died soon after the trial, but Moore lived for many years a prisoner for life.
    The speeches of the counsel and the charge of the judge occupied much time. The concluding speech of the Solicitor-General went on for seven days, Mr. Adye Curran's address on behalf of the prisoner five days, and the Chief Baron's charge three days.
    I went from Bray to Maryborough every day from the 18th July, when the Grand Jury sat to hear ex parte cases, to the 9th September, Sundays excepted. The days numbered 48. The distance from Dublin to Maryborough by rail is about 50 miles, Bray to Kingsbridge 14 miles-total, 64 miles. I, therefore, travelled 128 miles daily for 48 days, or a total of 6,144 miles.
    It is a curious coincidence that whilst the trial of Moore was going on in Ireland, the longest trial in England, that of the Tichborne claimant, was slowly progressing all the time and long after.
    Death during the lat~ 39 years has removed the judge, the jury, the two solicitors, and four of the five counsel engaged in this case. Judge Adye Curran still lives, and is one of the most able of the County Court Judges.
    "A Mean Defence."
    The late Lord O'Hagan, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, when Attorney-General and in Parliament, got an Act of Parliament passed which greatly increased the number of petty jurors. The first case tried after the passing of the Act was one of attempted murder. It was held at the summer assizes in Ennis, County of Clare.
    The prisoner was charged with shooting at Mr. Creagh, a country gentleman and landowner, with intent to kill him. Mr. Creagh identified the prisoner as the man who fired at him. The gun used for the purpose exploded, and blew either a finger or a thumb (I forget which) off the assailant.
    An unusually large number of jurymen appeared, by far the greater number having only a short time previously been placed on the list of jurors. When the sheriff’s officers called out in front of the courthouse, So and so, "come and appear on pain of five pounds," many of the jurors mistook the word ''pain" for "pay," and forthwith vanished from the scene.
    There were scores remaining. Occasionally, when a juror was called, instead of proceeding to the jury-box he moved towards the dock, whereupon one of the Counsel remarked, "That is the place he is accustomed to go to." To the Crown solicitor and the prisoner's solicitor by far greater number of the new jurors were unknown. Very many of them were ordered to "stand aside" by the "Crown." An unlimited number of jurors may be directed by the "Crown" to "stand aside," and those so directed may be recalled.
    The prisoner's right is confined to "challenging" 20 jurors peremptorily, that is, without assigning any cause for the challenge, and as many more as he can show good cause for their disqualification. A small minority of the jurors wore neckties, but all who had them and were called were objected to by the prisoner's solicitor. Ultimately the jury who tried the case were wholly unprovided with neckties. Although the judge charged strongly against the prisoner, and all but gave them a direction to convict, yet the jury, after a somewhat long consultation, acquitted him. The thumb or finger lost by the man who fired at Mr. Creagh had been found, was preserved in spirits of wine, and was produced in Court. Its custodian enquired what was to be done with it, and the judge directed it should be given to its owner, the prisoner.
    Late on the day of the trial I was walking down the principal street in Ennis in the company of the Crown solicitor, the late Mr. Alexander Morphy, when we met one of the jury who had tried the case. "So you let that man off today?" said Mr. Morphy to the juror. "Well, your honour, we were nearly letting him swing." "Oh," said Mr. Morphy, "I am glad to know that you hesitated about acquitting him, for you know very well he was guilty." "It was not on that account, your honour," the ex-juror replied. "It was the mean defence his counsel set up for him."
    The mean defence was to the effect that the prisoner had no intention to kill Mr. Creagh, but wished to warn him of the danger he ran if he did not treat his tenants better. He, therefore, did not aim at Mr. Creagh. It was this defence, made by his counsel, the late Mr. Denis Caulfield Heron, K.C., which made the jury hesitate about acquitting him. If his counsel had not put forward that plea, the jury would probably have acquitted him without leaving the box


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    When the sheriff’s officers called out in front of the courthouse, So and so, "come and appear on pain of five pounds," many of the jurors mistook the word ''pain" for "pay," and forthwith vanished from the scene.

    There were scores remaining. Occasionally, when a juror was called, instead of proceeding to the jury-box he moved towards the dock, whereupon one of the Counsel remarked, "That is the place he is accustomed to go to."

    lol, funniest thing I've read all day :D


    Maryborough is Portlaoise, right?
    Even now that's quite a trek from Bray and back again every day. However, the trains were probably faster and a better service then Irish rail these days!
    The concluding speech of the Solicitor-General went on for seven days, Mr. Adye Curran's address on behalf of the prisoner five days, and the Chief Baron's charge three days.

    Now that's long winded!

    However
    His reason for intervention was that he felt he should have told the jury that it was open to them to find a verdict of manslaughter if they so desired.

    The judge was speaking for three days and still forgot this? One of the most important points when a man could be hanged???


    Love reading court reports, our local paper publishes the court reports for 50, 100 and 150 years. They generally are fighting and drinking in public and abusing the local police officer, nothing much has changed in modern Ireland....... ;)

    So show up in court for not paying your TV licence and you could be shamed in 2160 :eek:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    We had flogging after independence

    Dail Debate
    Mr. JOHNSON: That is what I am directing my thoughts to—that in view of [768] the effect of flogging it should be at least an alternative and not an additional punishment. The case that is being made by all who have spoken is that flogging was essentially a form of punishment for an exceptional form of crime in exceptional circumstances. The people had lost their balance, they had become moral wrecks and were apt to follow out this special course of crime, robbery under arms, and arson, and it was required in these special circumstances that there should be a form of punishment specially adopted in this Bill. Now, the argument was clearly made in defence of the section that the lashing, scourging, whipping, or flogging or whatever name may be given to it, was peculiarly adaptable to remedying this disease. No case was made that it should be merely an accompaniment of the ordinary method of punishment and, on the contrary, the case was made that it was to act as a deterrent. I think we are entitled to know how it is going to deter.
    ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. FitzGibbon) ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. FitzGibbon)

    ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. FitzGibbon): The Deputy is going beyond the ruling. It has been decided that flogging may be inflicted and the only question is whether it should be inflicted in addition to or in substitution for the other remedy.
    Mr. JOHNSON Mr. JOHNSON

    Mr. JOHNSON: I think I am in order in arguing that the deterrent effect did not depend upon there being imprisonment accompanying it. It cannot deter other people, except the prisoners, unless those other people are made aware in some way of the effect of the flogging upon the person who is punished, and they cannot be made aware of that if the person is detained for three years in a prison. The case for double punishment ought to be made before we are asked to agree that there will be this double punishment. The amendment is that either one or the other may be inflicted, but not both, and I think the Dáil is entitled to have some reason given to it as to why, when flogging has been imposed as a penalty, a prisoner should have three years to get over it.
    Amendment put.




    http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0004/D.0004.192307120017.html
    PUBLIC SAFETY (EMERGENCY POWERS) ACT, 1923 SECTION 5

    (4) Every male person who shall be found guilty on indictment of the offence of robbery under arms as defined at No. 6 in Part II. of the Schedule to this Act, or of the offence of arson as defined at No. 7 in Part II. of the said Schedule shall (unless the Court is satisfied that there are special circumstances in the case which constitute a mitigation of the offence, or is of opinion that, owing to the state of health or advanced age of such person, corporal punishment could not be inflicted on him without permanent injury to his health), in addition to the punishment prescribed in the foregoing sub-sections, be sentenced to be once privately whipped subject to the following provisions:—
      (
    a ) in the case of a person whose age does not exceed eighteen years, the number of strokes at such whipping shall not exceed twenty and the instrument used shall be a birch rod;
      (
    b ) in the case of any other person, the number of strokes at such whipping shall not exceed twenty-five;
      (
    c ) in each case the court in its sentence shall specify the number of strokes to be inflicted and the instrument to be used;
      (
    d ) such whipping shall not take place after the expiration of six months from the passing of the sentence;
      (
    e ) such whipping to be inflicted on any person sentenced to penal servitude shall be inflicted on him before he is removed to a convict prison with a view to his undergoing his sentence of penal servitude
      http://web.archive.org/web/20040507004035/http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA28Y1923S5.html
      .


    • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 470 ✭✭Shutuplaura


      There is a Gallows Hill in Clonmel. Its also where Cromwell set up his battery to bombard the town. It would have been the main road to fethard I think and idea also for displaying corpses on the gibbet.

      The town centre - Gladstone Street by St Peter and Paul's Church was also the site of Father Nicholas Sheehy's execution. Presumably this was where hangings occured at this time.

      When George Plant was being executed he asked for a glass of water in the minutes before he was to be shot. when he got the glass he put it on top of his hand (open palm facing down) to prove he wasn't shaking and shouted out to the firing squad - 'can any of YOU do this?' Probably didn't happen but something my father told me once.


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


      If I was to pick a # 1 Irish Martyr it would probably be this guy Oliver Plunkett

      He has it all. Good pictures and great hippy looks.

      OliverPlunkett.jpg


      Great trial with a lot of political skullduggery & being fitted up

      <H3>Saint Oliver Plunkett

      Oliver Plunkett was born in County Meath and educated by the Jesuits. He was ordained in 1654 and eventually appointed the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, by Pope Clement IX.
      In 1679, Oliver Plunkett was arrested and put on trial at Dundalk, charged with conspiring against the state by bringing in French soldiers and creating a tax on his clergy to help pay for them. Lord Shaftesbury knew that Plunkett would not be convicted in Ireland, so he had him brought to London and placed in Newgate Prison. Plunkett like many others was arrested under false testimony due to the panic that Catholicism would be brought back by the new king.
      Two years later, he was found guilty of high treason and was hung, drawn and quartered. The hangman removed his head and threw it into a fire, but it was rescued before it became incinerated.
      His body was placed in two tin boxes and buried next to five Jesuits, who had undergone execution before him. It was then moved to a Benedictine monastery in Germany and almost 200 years later, was transported back to Downside Abbey in England. The head is now preserved in Saint Peter's church in Drogheda, and as late as 1975, some of his remains were also returned to Ireland, when he was canonised as a saint.
      </H3>
      Spooky reliquaries - his charred head is on display in a church in Drogheda






      For a pic of the head go here

      http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/St_Oliver_Plunkett%27s_head_2007-10-5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Oliver_Plunkett%27s_head_2007-10-5.jpg&usg=__mJJd9LzxS43dpzGuLL24FUiDhv0=&h=3648&w=2736&sz=2084&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=ucfFv39t8VfzQM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Doliver%2Bplunkett%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D424%26tbs%3Disch:1



      He wasnt the only Irish martyr


      Forty English martyrs were canonised in 1970 and Oliver Plunkett was canonised in 1975. In 1992 a representative seventeen Irish martyrs, chosen from a list of almost three hundred who died for their faith in the 16th and 17th centuries, were beatified by Pope John Paul II. The amount of information we know about these seventeen varies. About some, such as Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley of Cashel, we know quite a lot; about others, such as the Wexford sailors, we know little more than their names and the fact of their death.

      A list and some mini bios are here

      http://www.catholicireland.net/pages/index.php?art=864


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    • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


      I'm not sure if you know the town, before the bypass you had no choice but to pass through :pac:

      The Heritage Center is excellent, a credit to the town.
      The old jail is long since boarded up and no access available to anyone. But it's in very good condition. Like a lot of jails there is a tunnel to the courthouse next door.
      The court house was renovated in the last few years, no expense spared. This was back in the Celtic Tiger era ;)

      Here is a picture of it and Banba Square, very plain looking building realy

      images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR00FQCXapW6WTtAyen4E04tAWXP5LYPJur3uicStRV0M9wCnw&t=1&usg=__2_N5JwOKyltp2zOE4qOJ9FmGzxw=
      Governers Mansions, then converted to a school
      heritage.jpg
      Like a lot of towns, Nenagh has massive derelict buildings in the town centre.
      As an another example is an area used as storage area for a hardware shop but was a Famine workhouse.
      Again it could be restored, it is mostly waste ground at the minute.

      Back to heritage centre.
      The condemned prisoners block is still open.
      In the 19th century you could be executed for:
      • Murder
      • Attempted murder
      • Conspiracy to attempt murder

      Bear in mind that Tipperary was one of the hotbeds for agitation.
      Scence of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 and of course one of most active counties in the War of Independence.

      Back to McCormack Brothers.

      Song
      The hanging of the Cormack brothers

      In the year of fifty eight, my boys, that was the troublesome time
      When cruel landlords and their agents were rulers of our isle.
      It was then that Ellis was shot down by an unknown hand.
      When the news spread round Killara that Trent's agent he was shot,
      The police were then informed and assembled on the spot.
      They searched every field and garden, every lane and every shed,
      Until they came to McCormack's house where two boys were in bed.

      They accused these boys of murder from information they had got
      From the coachman who was driving at the time that Ellis was shot.
      They said that they were innocent, but 'twas all of no avail.
      They were handcuffed and made prisoners and conveyed to County Gaol.
      At the Spring Assizes these two young men stood their trial in Nenagh town.
      By a packed jury of Orangemen, they were guilty found.
      The judge addressed the prisoners. He asked what they had to say
      Before he signed their execution for eleventh day of May.

      "In Mill Killara we were reared, between Thurles and Templemore,
      Well known by all inhabitants around the parish of Loughmore.
      We're as innocent of shooting Ellis as the child in the cradle do lie,
      And can't see the reason, for another man's crime, we are condemned to die."
      The execution it took place, by their holy priest reconciled, their maker for to face.
      Such thunder, rain and lightning has ne'er been witnessed since
      As the Lord sent down on that day, as a token of their innocence,
      That their sould may rest in heaven above as their remains rest in Loughmore.

      They were hanged from the spot where the statue is, behind this and on that level are the condemed prisoners cells.
      The red door you see is the Governers Mansion which I added picture of above

      nenagh-heritage-centre.jpg
      Directly across the road is the main Catholic church for Nenagh. As you can see lots of space for a crowd to gather.
      The Church of Ireland church is next door also.

      images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTaJHikuGVhViOc_fzY3uZTGryE22IyD2ZfetQj-JiFS1yZyCg&t=1&usg=__re24sTe2Vpq9Bn3C9P4qxS6jYjE=
      Daniel and William (Mc) Cormack of Loughmore, near Templempore, Co. Tipperary, were executed at Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, in 1858 for the murder by shooting of one Ellis. There was no evidence, beyond motive, of their guilt, and their execution was one of the prime contributory factors in the Fenian rising shortly afterward. Their remains were re-interred at Loughmore in 1910, when a huge concourse of people attended in defiance of English government, then in power. A slab on the handsome vault erected to receive the remains bears the inscription given hereunder:

      "By the Irish Race in memory of the brothers Daniel and William Cormack who, for the murder of a land agent named Ellis, were hanged at Nenagh after solemn protestation by each on the scaffold of absolute and entire innocence of that crime, the 11th day of May 1858. The tragedy of the brothers occurred through false testimony procured by gold and terror; the action in their trial of Judge Keogh, a man who, considered personally, politically, religiously and officially, was one of the monsters of mankind; and the verdict of a prejudiced, partisan, packed and perjured jury. Clear proof of the innocence of the brothers afforded by Archbishop Leahy to the Viceroy of the day, but he nevertheless gratified the appetite of a bigoted, exterminating and ascendancy caste by a judicial murder of the kind which lives bitterly and perpetually in a nation's remembrance."

      I realy am shocked by little information there is on the internet.
      There are books published on this trial and I cannot do it justice with these links.

      "I am as innocent as the child unborn"
      A scaffold speech and one well known locally.

      Buried here in Loughmore
      mccormack_monument_lge.jpg


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


      Fantastic story.

      I have come accross a few "innocence" stories - off tiopic but the most famous Michael Barrett - was the last man to be publically executed in Britain is widely believed to be innocent

      The next day the Daily Telegraph reported that he
      “...delivered a most remarkable speech, criticising with great acuteness the evidence against him, protesting that he had been condemned on insufficient grounds, and eloquently asserting his innocence”.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Barrett_(Fenian)

      There was another multiple hanging in Cork with a gallows declaration and I will try to find it.


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


      If you pop in to Pearse Street Library in Dublin and go upstairs you can read 18th-century newspapers. You will be astonished at the number of casual executions - they executed people then with the same blithe indifference with which we imprison people now, and about the same result on crime figures.


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


      ...they executed people then with the same blithe indifference with which we imprison people now, and about the same result on crime figures.

      That would be politically debatable point in my view.

      Not sure if Francis Sheehy-Skeffington would count on the list of Irish related executions - as he did not even get a trial :
      During the week of the Easter Rising, Sheehy-Skeffington, who had been living at 11 Grosvenor Place Rathmines Dublin, was concerned about the collapse of law and order. On the evening of Tuesday, 25 April, he went into the city centre to attempt to organise a citizens militia (police) to prevent the looting of damaged shops.

      He was arrested for no stated, or indeed obvious, reason while returning home, by members of the British 11th East Surrey Regiment at Portobello Bridge along with some hecklers who were following him, and, after admitting to having sympathy for the insurgents' cause (but not their tactics), he was held as an enemy sympathizer. Later that evening an Anglo-Irish officer of the 3rd battalion Royal Irish Rifles, Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst (a member of a County Cork landed gentry family), sent Sheehy-Skeffington out, with his hands tied behind his back, as a hostage, with an army raiding party in Rathmines with orders that he would be shot if the raiding party was attacked.[4]
      The former Kelly's tobacconist at Kelly's Corner, where Sheehy-Skeffington was taken

      Bowen-Colthurst sought out "Fenians". He went to the home and shop of Alderman James Kelly, at the corner of Camden Street and Harcourt Road (from which the name "Kelly's Corner" derives). Mistaking the Alderman (a conservative) for a rebel, the soldiers destroyed the shop with hand grenades. Bowen-Colthurst took captive a young boy, two pro-British journalists who were in the shop — Thomas Dixon and Patrick McIntyre — and a Sinn Féin politician, Richard O'Carroll, all of whom he had shot. Skeffington witnessed the two murders on the way to Rathmines (the journalists were killed with him the following morning). Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was never told either of his detention or death. She only discovered what happened four days later when she met the chaplain of the barracks. Bowen-Colthurst attempted a coverup and ordered the search and ransack of Skeffy's home looking for spurious evidence. This event resulted in a Westminster-ordered coverup, and Captain Bowen-Colthurst was detained in an asylum for eighteen months as a result. He would later be retired to Canada on a full pension.


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


      Here are some more for the list :


      http://www.curragh.info/articles/executions.htm
      The Curragh
      Civil War Executions

      December19th 1922
      By: A.J. Mullowney

      Eighty years ago, in December 1922, the Curragh Camp was the scene of a terrible tragedy; it was the execution, by firing squad, of seven young men in the Military Detention Barracks, now the Curragh Prison. The full story of the events of the week from 13 December 1922, when the men were arrested, to 19 December 1922, when they were executed, is not now known. All of the people involved are dead, and with them their stories. It appears that all official records of the executions have been lost or destroyed.
      The events took place during the Civil War. Successful military operations by the Free State forces had led, by the end of 1922, to the cessation by the anti-treaty side of conventional operations and they had resorted to guerrilla warfare directed against supply lines and communications. The Curragh Camp was occupied by the Free State Army while a small column of Irregulars, as those supporting the anti-treaty side in arms were termed, operated in the vicinity of Kildare town. Most of this small column were railway employees and they largely confined their operations to trying to disrupt the operation
      of the railway line in the vicinity of Kildare town. Inside the Curragh Prison

      The Leinster Leader of 23 December 1922 reported that a column of ten men had operated against railways, goods trains and shops in the vicinity of Kildare for some time. Five of them had apparently taken part in an attempt to disrupt communications by derailing engines on 11 December. Two engines had been taken from a shed at Kildare and one of them had been sent down the line into an obstruction at Cherryville, thereby blocking the line. It was also alleged that goods trains had been looted and shops robbed in the locality. The same column was also reported to have taken part in an ambush of Free State troops at the Curragh siding on 25 November. On 13 December the men were surprised in a dug-out at a farmhouse at Moore’s Bridge, on the edge of the Curragh plains, by Free State troops. In the dug-out were ten men, ten rifles, a quantity of ammunition, and other supplies. The men were arrested and conveyed to the Curragh. The proprietress of the farmhouse was also arrested and lodged in Mountjoy Prison. Controversy surrounds the circumstances of the death of Thomas Behan, one of the men. One version ha it that his arm was broken when he Wa: being apprehended and he wa~ subsequently killed by a blow of a rifl butt on the head, at the scene of the raid when he was unable to climb on th~ truck that conveyed the men to the Curragh. The official version was thai he was shot when attempting to escape from a hut in which he was detained in the Curragh Camp.


      Moore's Bridge

      Sometime between 13-1 8 December seven of the men were tried before a military court. They were found guilty of being in possession of arms without authority and sentenced to death. The day before their execution the seven men were ministered to by Father Donnelly, chaplain in the Curragh.

      The seven men executed were:

      • Stephen White (18)
      Abbey St., Kildare

      • Joseph Johnston (18)
      Station Rd., Kildare

      • Patrick Mangan (22)
      Fair Green, Kildare

      • Patrick Nolan (34)
      Rathbride, Kildare

      • Brian Moore (37)
      Rathbride, Kildare (Leader of the column)

      • James O’Connor (24)
      Bansha, Co. Tipperary

      • Patrick Bagnall (19)
      Fair Green, Kildare

      prisoners.JPG
      The execution was carried out by firing squad at 8.30 a.m. on the 19th December 1922 in the Military Detention Barracks, Curragh Camp. It was the biggest single execution carried out in the Civil War.




      May they
      Rest In Peace





      The men were allowed to write final letters the night before their execution and some of these were later published in the republican paper Eire, (The Irish Nation) of 31 March 1923. Letters written by Stephen White were not published, but one of them I reproduce here with the permission of his relatives, which is representative of the rest:

      HARE PARK PRISON
      CURRAGH
      KILDARE.
      18th December, 1922,

      Dear Father

      I am writing this letter, sorry to say it is my last as I am to die at 8.15 to-morrow, Tuesday. I am sorry I cannot see any of you before I go, but, I hope by the time you get this to be with my poor Mother In Heaven, with God’s help. I hope you will all say a prayer for me. I never saw Jimmie since the night we were arrested, but, thank God it is me instead of him that was to go. He will be more use to you than I would, and tell him if ever he gets out, which, with the help of God, he will, to start work and give up this game as it is not worth it.

      We have been treated all right since we came here and we were all with the Priest to-day, and will be with him all night. I am sorry I cannot see you all to hid you Good bye “, but, I suppose we will all meet the other side,

      I will bid you all a last “Good bye’~ and pray for me.

      GOOD BYE, FATHER.

      STEPHEN

      The men were buried in the grounds of the Detention Barracks but their remains were later exhumed and lay in state in the Courthouse in Kildare town before being re-buried in Grey Abbey Cemetery, Kildare in 1924. A gravestone was subsequently erected over their grave and a monument erected in the Market Square, Kildare.

      In August 2002 two nephews of Stephen White visited Kildare and the Curragh Camp to revisit the scenes of the episode. Stephen White, a son of the Jimmie mentioned in the letter, from England and Paul White, son of another brother, Michael, from Canada met for the first time in 50 years. They visited the Curragh Prison, Moore’s Bridge, Grey Abbey Cemetery and the monument in Kildare town square. They are anxious to make contact with anyone who has any information regarding the events of 1922 and to establish contact with any relations who might still be living in the Kildare area.

      These terrible events of the Civil War affected some local people for many years. Eighty years later it is fitting to remember the episode as a part of our history and to commemorate the seven young men who lost their lives that December day.


      Monument in the Market Square, Kildare.

      This period is also neatly encapsulated here
      The first executions and reprisals

      On 17 November, in the first use of the powers enacted under the Public Safety Act, five Anti-Treaty IRA fighters who had been captured with arms in county Wicklow were shot by firing squad in Dublin. On 19 November, three more Anti-Treaty IRA men were executed, also in Dublin. On 24 November, Robert Erskine Childers, an acclaimed author and secretary to the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations that had created the Irish Free State was executed. He had been captured on 10 November in possession of a pistol, which ironically had been given to him by the Pro-Treaty leader Michael Collins before the split in the Republican movement. Childers was the Republican head of propaganda and it was widely speculated that eight low ranking Republicans were shot before Childers so that it would not look as if he had been singled out for special treatment.[13]

      In response to the executions, on 30 November, Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the anti-treaty IRA, ordered that any member of Parliament (TD) or senator who had signed or voted for the "murder bill" should be shot on sight. He also ordered the killing of hostile judges and newspaper editors. On the same day, three more Republican prisoners were executed in Dublin.[14]

      On 7 December, Anti-Treaty IRA gunmen shot two TDs, Seán Hales and Pádraic Ó Máille, in Dublin as they were on their way to the Dáil. Hales was killed and O'Maille was badly wounded. After an emergency cabinet meeting, the Free State government decided on the retaliatory executions of four prominent Republicans (one from each province). Accordingly, on 8 December 1922, the day after Hales' killing, four members of the IRA Army Executive, who had been held since the first week of the war - Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barrett and Joe McKelvey - were executed in revenge. This was arguably an unlawful act, as the four Republicans had been captured before the Dáil passed the legislation authorising executions. Later on the same day the Dáil debated the executions and approved by a vote of 39-14.[15] One of the poignant aspects of the incident was that O'Connor and Kevin O'Higgins were formerly close friends, and O'Connor had been best man at O'Higgins' wedding just a few months previously. Historian Michael Hopkinson reports that Richard Mulcahy had pressed for the executions and that Kevin O'Higgins was the last member of cabinet to give his consent.[16]

      Seán Hales was the only TD to be killed in the war. However, Republicans continued to attack elected representatives in reprisal for executions of their men. On 10 December, the house of TD Sean McGarry was burned down, killing his seven year old son. In addition, homes of Senators were among the 192 burned or destroyed by the IRA in the war. In February 1923, Kevin O'Higgins' elderly father was murdered by Republicans at the family home in Stradbally. W.T. Cosgrave's home was also burned and an uncle of his was assassinated.[17]
      [edit] Official executions

      In all, the Free State formally sanctioned the execution of between 77 and 81 anti-treaty fighters during the war. Republican historian Dorothy Macardle popularised the number 77 in Republican consciousness, but she appears to have left out those executed for activities such as armed robbery. Those executed were tried by court-martial in a military court and had to be found guilty only of bearing arms against the State.

      After the initial round of executions, the firing squads got underway again in earnest in late December 1922. On 19 December, seven IRA men from Kildare were shot in Dublin and ten days later, two more were shot in Kilkenny. Most of those executed were prisoners held in Kilmainham and Mountjoy Gaols in Dublin, but from January 1923, Kevin O'Higgins argued that executions should be carried out in every county in order to maximise their impact. Accordingly, in that month, 34 prisoners were shot in such places as Dundalk, Roscrea, Carlow, Birr and Portlaoise, Limerick, Tralee and Athlone. From 8–18 February, the Free State suspended executions and offered an amnesty in the hope that anti-treaty fighters would surrender. However, the war dragged for another two months and witnessed at least twenty more official executions.[18]

      Several Republican leaders narrowly avoided execution. Ernie O'Malley, captured on 4 November 1922, was not executed because he was too badly wounded when taken prisoner to face a court martial and possibly because the Free State was hesitant about executing an undisputed hero of the recent struggle against the British. Liam Deasy, captured in January 1923 avoided execution by signing a surrender document calling on the anti-treaty forces to lay down their arms.

      The Anti-Treaty side called a ceasefire on 30 April 1923 and ordered their men to "dump arms", ending the war, on 24 May. Nevertheless, executions of Republican prisoners continued after this time. Four IRA men were executed in May after the ceasefire order and the final two executions took place on 20 November, months after the end of hostilities. It was not until November 1924 that a general amnesty was offered for any acts committed in the civil war.

      In highlighting the severity of the Free State's execution policy, however, it is important not to exaggerate its extent. The Free State took a total of over 12,000 Republicans prisoner during the war, of whom roughly 80, less than 1% were executed. How those who were executed were chosen from the others captured in arms is unclear, however many more men were sentenced to the death penalty than were actually shot. This was intended to act as a deterrent to anti-Treaty fighters in the field, who knew that their imprisoned comrades were likely to be executed if they kept up their armed campaign.
      [edit] Unofficial killings

      In addition to the judicial executions, Free State troops conducted many extrajudicial killings of captured Anti-Treaty fighters. Such activity was perhaps inevitable in a war that was defined by killings and reprisals on both sides. However, from an early point in the war, from late August 1922 (coinciding with the onset of guerrilla warfare), there were many incidents of National Army troops killing prisoners.

      In Dublin, there were a number of killings carried out by the new (police) Intelligence service, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which was headed by Joseph McGrath and was based in Oriel House in Dublin city centre. By 9 September, a British intelligence report stated that "Oriel House" had already killed "a number of Republicans" in Dublin. In a number of cases, Anti-Treaty IRA men were abducted by Free State forces, killed and their bodies dumped in public places; republican sources detail at least 25 such cases in the Dublin area. There were also allegations of abuse of prisoners during interrogation by the CID. For example, Republican Tom Derrig had an eye shot out while in custody.[19]

      County Kerry, where the guerrilla campaign was most intense, would see many of the most vicious episodes in the civil war. On 27 August, in the first such incident of its type, two anti-treaty fighters were shot after they had surrendered in Tralee, county Kerry. One of them, James Healy, was left for dead but survived to tell of the incident. Republicans also killed prisoners. After their successful attack on Kenmare on 9 September, the Anti-Treaty IRA separated National Army officer Tom "Scarteen" O'Connor and his brother from the 120 other prisoners and shot them dead. There were a steady stream of similar incidents after this point in County Kerry, culminating in a series of high profile atrocities in the month of March 1923.

      Also in September, a party of nine anti-treaty fighters was wiped out near Sligo by Free State troops. Four of them, (including Brian MacNeill, the son of Eoin MacNeill) were later found to have been shot at close range in the forehead, indicating that they had been shot after surrendering.[20]
      [edit] The Ballyseedy Massacre and its aftermath

      March 1923 saw a series of notorious incidents in Kerry, where 23 republican prisoners were killed in the field (and another 5 judicially executed) in a period of just four weeks.

      The killings were sparked off when five Free State soldiers were killed by a booby trap bomb while searching a republican dug out at the village of Knocknagoshel, county Kerry, on 6 March. The next day, the local Free State commander authorised the use of Republican prisoners to clear mined roads. Paddy Daly justified the measure as, 'the only alternative left to us to prevent the wholesale slaughter of our men'. National Army troops may have interpreted this as permission to take revenge on the anti-treaty side.[21]

      The following day, 6/7 March, nine Republican prisoners were taken from Ballymullen barracks in Tralee to Ballyseedy crossroads and tied to a landmine which was then detonated, after which the survivors were machine-gunned. One of the prisoners, Stephen Fuller, was blown to safety by the blast of the explosion. He was taken in at the nearby home of Michael and Hannah Curran. They cared for him and, although badly injured, he survived. Fuller later became a Fianna Fáil TD. The Free State troops in nearby Tralee had prepared nine coffins and were surprised to find only eight bodies on the scene. There was a riot when the bodies were brought back to Tralee, where the enraged relatives of the killed prisoners broke open the coffins as a statement of contempt for the Free State and its troops,[22] and in an effort to identify the dead.[23]

      This was followed by a series of similar incidents with mines within twenty four hours of the Ballyseedy killings. Five Republican prisoners were blown up with another landmine at Countess Bridge near Killarney and four in the same manner at Cahersiveen. Another Republican prisoner, Seamus Taylor was taken to Ballyseedy woods by National Army troops and shot dead.

      On 28 March, five IRA men, captured in an attack on Cahersiveen on 5 March were officially executed in Tralee. Another, captured the same day, was summarily shot and killed. Thirty two anti-Treaty fighters died in Kerry in March 1923, of whom only five were killed in combat [24] Free State officer Niall Harrington has suggested that reprisal killings of republican prisoners continued in Kerry right up to the end of the war.
      Memorial to the Republican soldiers executed by Free State forces at Ballyseedy, County Kerry.

      The Free State unit, the Dublin Guard, and in particular their commander Paddy Daly, were widely held to be responsible for these killings. They, however, claimed that the prisoners had been killed while clearing roads by landmines laid by Republicans. When questioned in the Dáil by Irish Labour Party leader Thomas Johnson, Richard Mulcahy, the National Army's commander-in-chief, backed up Daly's story. A military Court of Enquiry conducted in April 1923 cleared the Free State troops of the charge of killing their prisoners.

      It has since emerged, however, that the prisoners were beaten, tied to explosives and then killed. At Cahersiveen, the prisoners were reportedly shot in the legs before being blown up to prevent them escaping. Two Free State officers, Lieutenants Niall Harrington and McCarthy (who both resigned over the incidents) later stated that not only were the explosives detonated by the Free State troops, they had also been made by them and laid there for this purpose.[25]. Documents released in late 2008 show that the Free State Cabinet was aware that the Army's version of events was flawed. An investigation concluded that the prisoners had been killed by a party of National Army soldiers from Dublin known as the 'visiting committee' and that those at Cahersiveen had been beaten and shot before being blown up.[26].

      What exactly prompted this outbreak of vindictive killings in March 1923 is unclear. While the National Army troops in Kerry were clearly enraged by the killings of their comrades at Knocknagoshel, a total of 68 Free State soldiers had been killed in the county and 157 wounded up to that point. A total of 85 would die in Kerry before the war was over. Why the deaths at Knocknagoshel prompted such a savage response remains an open question. However, it has never been proven that the National Army atrocities of March 1923 were authorised by the Free State government or the National Army high command.

      In addition to the bloody events in Kerry, two similar episodes took place elsewhere in the country in the same month.

      On 13 March, three Republican fighters were judicially executed in Wexford in the south east. In revenge, Bob Lambert, the local Republican leader, had three National Army soldiers captured and killed.

      On 14 March at Drumboe Castle in County Donegal, in the north west, four anti-Treaty IRA fighters, Charles Daly (26), Sean Larkin (26), Daniel Enwright (23), and Timothy O' Sullivan (23), who had been captured and held in the castle since January, were summarily shot in retaliation for the death of a National Army soldier in an ambush.[27]
      [edit] The end of the war

      Even after the war had ended in May 1923, Free State troops continued killings of anti-Treaty fighters. For example, Noel Lemass, a captain in the anti-Treaty IRA, was abducted in Dublin and shot by Free State forces in July 1923, two months after the war had ended. His body was dumped in the Dublin Mountains, near Glencree, where it was found in October 1923. The spot where his body was found is marked by a memorial erected by his brother Seán Lemass - a future Taoiseach of Ireland. There are no conclusive figures for the number of unofficial executions of captured anti-treaty fighters, but Republican officer Todd Andrews put the figure for "unauthorised killings" at 153.[28]


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


      I was trying to keep Civil War Style Stuff out of this because those type really are like War Time.


      Sheehy-Skeffington was a pacifist and has always been used as a civilian example in 1916 & rightly so.

      I was thinking more innocent bystanders or wrongly convicted.

      I am really trying to approximate the conditions ordinary people lived under.

      If I was to pick an example of a grey area , I would probably run with this. There was another as well (Castletownbere???) and a guy named Sullivan declared his and his co-executed's innocence from the gallows

      http://carriganimawhiteboys.com/whiteboysinmuskerry.html

      One of those convicted was a simpleton and was not executed.Some though may have been caught up in events or coerced.

      <H1 align=center>The Whiteboys in Muskerry

      After the battle of Carriganima 14/01/1822 the crown authorities decided that the natives needed to be put in their place and that some or all of the prisoners captured after the battle. 9 men had been found guilty for their participation in the battle. Some of them had their sentences reduced. One of the men Con Buckley was sentenced to 80 lashes of the ‘cat and nine tails’ but because his lawyers argued that that number of lashes would endanger his life it was divided into two sessions one on the 1st March consisting of 45 lashes at the flogging post in North Main Street and the other 3 on the 1st of November at the same venue.
      Another man named Jeremiah Hurly was recommended to mercy, being a simpleton. While some say that nine Clondrohid Whiteboys were executed, it would appear as if only four eventually faced the gallows. In all thirty-two men were sentenced to death by Baron McClelland by February 22, but some of the sentences were altered to transportation. All executions were ordered to be carried out in public and at the place where the crimes had been committed. Thus they were to serve as examples of all evildoers.
      </H1>
      Here is details of the execution and anyone familiar with the area would be familiar with the story of the black balls in Macroom.
      On Wednesday February 227, 1822, at noon, a gruesome party left the Cork County Gaol. Nine men sentenced to be hanged four at Carriganima and five at Deshure were placed in a long, black, closed car, which had been specially built for the purpose. Four horses pulled it. Inside the car was Daniel Croneen [These men were all native Irish Speakers and when asked his name he would have said Croinín. To the scribe writing in English this would have sounded as Croneen…]. Denis Murphy, Timothy Hallahan, Richard Drummy and Edward Breen, five men who had taken part in the Deshure affray, except for the last named who was captured at Keimaneigh. They were all to be executed at Deshure crossroads. Also in the car were the four men to be hanged in Carriganima – Daniel Murphy, Patrick Lehane, Thomas Goggin and Cronelius Lucy. Inside the car with them travelled Fr. Horgan, a man who had been parish priest in Clondrohid for fifteen years up till then; he was especially grieved at the situation as he himself was born in Carriganimma and he knew the doomed men personally. With him was Fr. Ryan of Macroom, while two other clergymen travelled in a chaise. A Company of the Dragoons accompanied them. A few miles outside Macroom the Muskerry Cavalry met them. The roads were lined with people all the way from Cork, who prayed and wept as the grisly cortege passed. On reaching Macroom the prisoners were kept there for the night. They were lodged in the Bridewell where they remained overnight while a gallows was being erected at Carriganima. They were attended by Fr. Horgan and spent their whole time in prayer. When left to themselves for any length of time they were always found upon their knees, making the most eloquent appeals to Heaven for mercy and grace. They received some refreshments provided for them with thankfulness and ate with their usual appetites. The father of one of the men, Cornelius Lucey, wished to see his son to give him some instructions concerning his family, and was allowed into the cell early in the morning, just a few hours before the executions were to take place. “Father, set your heart upon God” said the son. “Depend upon it, I do” said the father. At the battle, Lucey had taken refuge in a house. He hid himself in a bed concealed by tables, chairs and a number of spinning wheels. However, one of the Carbineers, having seen a man enter the house, “was induced to search it, and thrust his sword into the bed where he was. Lucey got out and made a prod of a pitchfork at him, which he carried, and struck him on the back of the head, and took him.” The house in which he was taken was immediately on the spot where the battle took place, and through the yard of which a great number of his comrades had retreated.
      Daniel Murphy spent the night in the Bridewell awaiting the same fate as his friends. Like Lucey, he too had taken shelter in a house when the Rifle Brigade pursued him in the hills. Richard Harding, who was accompanying the latter, caught up to him. “Murphy had a scythe and made a stroke at him, and drove into the house. He then made him prisoner.” Patrick Lehane had been captured fleeing through the hills. John Borlase Warren had accompanied Hedges Eyre on the road running north from Bridgemount. He afterwards went up the hills on the left of the road to join Colonel Mitchell. “The insurgents moved from hill to hill, Shots rang out from the road below, Suddenly some of the rebel party came running towards the Rifle Brigade. Two of the men, who were then caught between two lines of fire, turned and ran through some swampy ground. Warren fired a shot at Lehane, “pursued and on catching up to him, found him so frightened as to induce him to take him as a prisoner” Lehane had no weapon at all.
      On the morning of February 28, the four condemned men were taken from the Bridewell on their final journey. As the grisly cortege made its way towards Carriganima, people wept at their doorsteps, as it passed. It moved through Clondrohid, then Bridgemount. Apart from Cornelius Lucey, Daniel Murphy and Patrick Lehane, Thomas Goggin was the fourth of the quartet to be executed. As they travelled north his house could be seen “on the high road” (where Dan Joe Kelleher, LTV, now lives) but he was so engaged in prayer that he never once looked towards it. His head was bent down and he was consoled spiritually by a priest
      .

      In the case of Thomas Goggin -he was given no leniency even though his Landlord and the Rector of the Parish appealed on his behalf.

      On the occasion of his trial before Baron McClelland at the Courthouse in Cork, Thomas Goggin had pleaded that he had never been out before and that he had been forced there on the day of his arrest. Richard Ashe spoke favourably on his behalf. He was sure “from the previous good character of some of them (the prisoners) that they must have been present from terror or compulsion.” He named Goggin, who lived only a mile and a half from where he was captured as being one. The Revd. Robert Kirchhoffer also spoke as a defence witness for Goggin. He had lived in the neighbourhood of Clondrohid of which he had been Rector for thirteen years. He knew Goggin “and from his good character would sooner have suspected any man in the parish of being concerned in such offences.” He added, “he was a quiet, peaceable and well conducted man, and a comfortable farmer.” He also voiced his opinion that he had not joined the others on his own accord. He was “not aware of any person so decent as Goggin having been engaged in these outrages and many, a great many, were brought into them by compulsion.” Townsend, a member of the Bridgemount family, stated that he had known “Goggin’s family these thirty years.” They were, he added, “tenants to his father and brother for many years, they held grounds from them at a very high rate and paid with the utmost punctuality to the very farthing they had contracted for. The man at the bar was a most correct and proper man – industrious and honest.” However, these words on his behalf, were to prove fruitless, as along with nine others he was found guilty and sentenced to death

      So this type of event in West Cork would no doubt have influenced those joining or supporting the West Cork Brigade 100 years later.



      Anyway who was John Mahoney a/k/a Capt Fearnought the Highwayman

      Here is an extract from a list of other Ordinary Decent Criminals.
      1785
      Dermod Madden Highway robbery
      John Hymud Horse-stealing
      John Looney Murder of Timothy Donovan
      Hugh Lawler Cow-stealing
      1786
      John Mahoney otherwise Capt. Fearnought Burglary and felony

      Edward Hourahan Murder of Mr. Jackson
      William Barry Burglary and felony
      1787
      Denis Organ Burglary and felony
      James Driscoll Burglary and felony
      Denis Reilly Burglary and felony
      Patrick Powell Murder of John Curran, his wife and 2 children
      John Casey Highway robbery

      http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/cork/xmisc/executions.txt


    • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,420 ✭✭✭Dionysus


      CDfm wrote: »
      Anyway who was John Mahoney a/k/a Capt Fearnought the Highwayman

      I wonder was 'Captain Fearnought' a common name towards the end of the 18th century. In Meath there still exists a detailed account of the trial of one 'Captain Fearnought', John Tuite. He was a leader of some 300 United Irishmen on the borders of Meath during the 1798 uprising. In the spring assizes of 1799 he was brought to Trim courthouse and by the end of it he was sentenced to death by hanging. A very detailed eyewitness account of his trial was printed in 1820 and it provides invaluable information about the organisation of the United Irishmen in Meath during 1798, and the interaction of many United Irishmen (including Tuite) with The Defenders organisation.

      http://tinyurl.com/3484cjw


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


      You may have a point

      Carrick had an even greater breakthrough when he learned that Capt. Fearnought (one of the principal leaders of the Whiteboys in the attack) had been arrested in Dublin and was in Newgate Gaol there. His true identity was revealed to be Arthur Doyle of Dungarvan and he was said to be 'son of a person of considerable property in the county.' He was first arrested for debt but his real identity became known only after he had tried to escape. The Earl immediately ordered that he be returned to Kilkenny to stand trial at the August Assizes. However, when his case was called he requested that his trial be postponed to the next session. He offered the sum of £12,000 bail but it was refused and he was remanded in gaol. 8 others who had been arrested since the last Assizes in connection with the attack were released on bail. In refusing bail to Doyle the magistrates were probably taking into account the fact that Patrick Shee, who had never recovered from the ordeal of the attack, had died on July 24th; thus adding to the serious nature of the assault.

      http://homepage.eircom.net/~duchas/steeples/SteepleVol1/whiteboys.htm


    • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 470 ✭✭Shutuplaura


      CDfm wrote: »
      ........

      One of those convicted was a simpleton and was not executed...........

      Sorry this just reminds me of something I heard about the first hangings in Melbourne in the 1830's. Of course the first pair to be hung were aboriginal people and its generally reckoned that they probably didn't fully understand what was going on during the trial and sentencing. They were basically given their first lesson on European justice on the scaffold. If anyone is ever in Melbourne, the site is at the top of Russell St outside the Old Melbourne Jail (which wasn't there at the time).


    • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


      I have seen a reference t9o an execution by drowning in Ireland as late as 1777 here. Anyone ever hear of such a thing.

      http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Capital+Punishment&offset=0


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