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

CDfm wrote: »

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

What was gaelic justice like ?

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 ?

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

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?

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."

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.

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.

• Murder
• Attempted murder
• Conspiracy to attempt murder

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.

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."

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


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.

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]