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Irish Crime and Punishment - Executions, irish justice,gallows, folk lore.
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19-06-2010 11:48am#1There 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
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.Tagged:1
_%26_Childe,_John_(16_-1640)_-_1641.jpg)
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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
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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.0 -
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Marwood's business card on display in Kilmainham.
List of executions in Ireland in the 19th century
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/ir1835.html0 -
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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
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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.
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 succumbing0 -
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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
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.0 -
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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
as has Youghal Clock Gate
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=forum0 -
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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
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!
HoweverHis 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:0 -
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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.
Great trial with a lot of political skullduggery & being fitted up
</H3><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.
Spooky reliquaries - his charred head is on display in a church in Drogheda
Reliquaries are containers built to hold objects of special religious significance, such as the foot of a saint, or the skull of a king. The art of European reliquary making reached it's zenith in the Middle Ages when craftsman created fantastic objets d'art for cathedrals and monasteries in the form of caskets, bodily appendages, and freestanding holders built to visually display occasionally gruesome bits of the venerated individual. The layperson had access to reliquaries as well, typically in the form of small lead crosses worn around the neck, containing pieces of bone or one of the ubiquitous fragments of the True Cross. Reliquaries are not unique to the Christianity, but can also be found in Buddhist and Islamic tradition.
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
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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
Governers Mansions, then converted to a school
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.
SongThe 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
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.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
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Here are some more for the list :
http://www.curragh.info/articles/executions.htmThe 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.
This period is also neatly encapsulated hereThe 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]0 -
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