Hanged for Murder
Hanged for Murder

Author: Tim Carey

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 2013-09-15

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 1848898185

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Between 1923 and 1954 the Irish state executed twenty-nine people convicted of murder. Almost all executions were carried out in the hanghouse of Mountjoy Prison by members of the Pierrepoint family. The often shocking and fascinating stories of these men and one woman have been largely forgotten. Their remains lie behind prison walls as strange testaments to an abandoned form of punishment. Among those buried in Mountjoy are Bernard Kirwan, convicted of killing his brother, though a body was never conclusively identified. Kirwan's presence in Mountjoy Prison and his execution inspired Brendan Behan's play 'The Quare Fellow'. Also there lie Henry McCabe, convicted of killing six people in a house in Malahide, and Annie Walsh, convicted of murdering her husband for compensation money. Few had ever been convicted of a crime before each was convicted of the most serious of all. The voices of some seem to whisper from the unmarked graves that it was not they who carried out the crime as doubts remain about the safety of some of the convictions. 'Hanged for Murder' tells their stories, some in graphic detail, for the first time.

The Framing of Harry Gleeson
The Framing of Harry Gleeson

Author: Kieran Fagan

Publisher: Gill & Macmillan Ltd

Published: 2015-04-20

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1848899084

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In November 1940 the body of Moll McCarthy, an unmarried mother, was found in a field in Tipperary. She had been shot. The man who reported the discovery was neighbour Harry Gleeson. Although Harry had an alibi, he was swiftly convicted and hanged. This travesty of justice suited the parish priest, the Gardaí, and respectable families whose sons, brothers and husbands had fathered Moll's seven children. The investigation was hijacked and the defence compromised. Neighbours and friends felt intimidated. Moll's daughter Mary, approaching death over fifty years later, became upset and said to a nurse 'I saw my own mother shot on the kitchen floor, and an innocent man died'. Somewhere in the grounds of Mountjoy Jail lies the body of Harry Gleeson, posthumously pardoned by the State in 2015. This is the story of how and why he was framed and who the guilty parties were.

Capital Punishment in Independent Ireland
Capital Punishment in Independent Ireland

Author: David M. Doyle

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1789620279

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This is a comprehensive and nuanced historical survey of the death penalty in Ireland from the immediate post-civil war period through to its complete abolition. Using original archival material, this book sheds light on the various social, legal and political contexts in which the death penalty operated and was discussed. In Ireland the death penalty served a dual function: as an instrument of punishment in the civilian criminal justice system, and as a weapon to combat periodic threats to the security of the state posed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Through close examination of cases dealt with in the ordinary criminal courts, this study elucidates ideas of class, gender, community and sanity and explores their impact on the administration of justice. The application of the death penalty also had a strong political dimension, most evident in the enactment of emergency legislation and the setting up of military courts specifically aimed at the IRA. As the book demonstrates, the civilian and the political strands converged in the story of the abolition of the death penalty in Ireland. Long after decision-makers accepted that the death penalty was no longer an acceptable punishment for 'ordinary' cases of murder, lingering anxieties about the threat of subversives dictated the pace of abolition and the scope of the relevant legislation.

Seán MacBride
Seán MacBride

Author: Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1846316588

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One of Ireland's most abidingly controversial political figures, Seán MacBride (1904-88) was a youthful participant in the Irish Revolution and an active member of the Irish Republican Army, rising through the ranks to occupy a leadership position for fifteen years. Seán MacBride is the first book to focus exclusively on MacBride's republican activities, on which his controversial reputation in Irish and British political circles rests. With extensive use of recently released archival material, including Department of Justice records and Bureau of Military History witness statements, this book combines a biographical focus with wider assessments of the important themes, including the persistence of republican opposition to the state after the Civil War and Ireland's ambiguous experience of World War II.

Justice, Mercy, and Caprice
Justice, Mercy, and Caprice

Author: Ian O'Donnell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-11-02

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0192519441

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Justice, Mercy, and Caprice is a work of criminal justice history that speaks to the gradual emergence of a more humane Irish state. It is a close examination of the decision to grant clemency to men and women sentenced to death between the end of the civil war in 1923 and the abolition of capital punishment in 1990. Frequently, the decision to deflect the law from its course was an attempt to introduce a measure of justice to a system where the mandatory death sentence for murder caused predictable unfairness and undue harshness. In some instances the decision to spare a life sprang from merciful motivations. In others it was capricious, depending on factors that should have had no place in the government's decision-making calculus. The custodial careers of those whose lives were spared repay scrutiny. Women tended to serve relatively short periods in prison but were often transferred to a religious institution where their confinement continued, occasionally for life. Men, by contrast, served longer in prison but were discharged directly to the community. Political offenders were either executed hastily or, when the threat of capital punishment had passed, incarcerated for extravagant periods. This book addresses issues that are of continuing relevance for countries that employ capital punishment. It will appeal to scholars with an interest in criminal justice history, executive discretion, and death penalty studies, as well as being a useful resource for students of penology.

Murder at Toureen Wood
Murder at Toureen Wood

Author: J Murphy

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2017-01-17

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 1326921452

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Account of the murder of Constantine Maguire in Co Tipperary in 1834 composed thirty years after the event by Limerick historian, Maurice Lenihan. Includes note on Maguire, Lenihan, and transcript of trial.

A New History of Ireland Volume VII
A New History of Ireland Volume VII

Author: J. R. Hill

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-08-26

Total Pages: 2025

ISBN-13: 0191615595

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A New History of Ireland is the largest scholarly project in modern Irish history. In 9 volumes, it provides a comprehensive new synthesis of modern scholarship on every aspect of Irish history and prehistory, from the earliest geological and archaeological evidence, through the Middle Ages, down to the present day. Volume VII covers a period of major significance in Ireland's history. It outlines the division of Ireland and the eventual establishment of the Irish Republic. It provides comprehensive coverage of political developments, north and south, as well as offering chapters on the economy, literature in English and Irish, the Irish language, the visual arts, emigration and immigration, and the history of women. The contributors to this volume, all specialists in their field, provide the most comprehensive treatment of these developments of any single-volume survey of twentieth-century Ireland.