Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

This follows on from my piece in the Cavan Echo of some weeks ago, called “Pop Goes the Weasel”. This was a discussion of the events leading up to and including the execution of Thomas Dunne and James Murphy for the murder of Charlotte Hinds in May 1856.

Thomas Dunne was charged with conspiracy to the murder, with aiding, abetting and procuring two others, one of whom was James Murphy, to carry out the murder. The prosecution case centered upon the evidence of one Terry Bannon or  Black Tarry, and the identification of Murphy by Miss Hinds’ driver, James McKeon.

Terence Bannon’s evidence was suspect from  the start. He had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the early stages of the investigation, and had subsequently turned “Queen’s evidence”, implicating Dunne and Murphy. There was a suspicion that he was an approver: someone attracted by the lure of the large reward established for evidence leading to a conviction. At the very least his actions were felt to be those of a man wanting to save his own skin at the expense of others.

The men’s counsel produced witnesses stating that they had been approached by Black Tarry with a view to gaining the reward by making false testimony. He had testified that he had been sent by Dunne to get weapons which were subsequently used in the murder. Yet the people from whom he was supposed to have got the weapons stated that he had never come near them for guns, and even if he had, they would have had none to give him.

As for the identification by McKeon this was was far from convincing either. Although present at the assault on Miss Hinds in Currin lane in Templeport he initially claimed to be unable to recognise any of the assailants. However Miss Hinds, who had not been killed outright, identified one of her assailants as local man Red Pat Bannon before she died. He had not been wearing any disguise. As they were practically neighbours it was felt that if she had identified him surely young Jimmy McKeon would have been able to make a similar identification. McKeon’s role in the affair was ambiguous: when the assailants first appeared he had run off, ostensibly to catch the terrified horse which had been pulling Missd Hinds’ conveyance. He had been arrested and while in prison his memory suddenly returned. He was able to “identify” one of the assailants as James Murphy. This was after Black Tarry’s “testimony” implicating Murphy in the murder.

What was the background to the murder? The Great Famine, it has always been said, had its winners and losers – far too many of the latter. Yet it might be said that anyone who survived the terrible hunger and attendant disease, as well as the trauma of those dreadful years, was a true winner.

None of the landlord class died of starvation or disease, but they had their losers too. Sometimes these were landlords who paid for their humanity during the calamity of the Famine through bankruptcy. One of these was the landlord of Kilnacrott, Pierce Morton. Those who were financially compromised ended up in the Encumbered Estates Court, where their lands were bought by wealthy businessmen, intent on squeezing every last penny of income from their lands, regardless of the pain. Those who could not or would not pay were summarily evicted. Folklore from many parts of Co. Cavan says that there had never been any evictions until after the Famine and the arrival of this new parvenu class of landlord. Yet many of these new landlords were Irish. Many too were Catholics.

The Hinds of Tubberlyan Duffin were small landlords. Richard Hinds had run into financial difficulties, landing in the Encumbered Estates Court where much of his land was purchased by his daughter Charlotte. She was determined to pursue her proprietarial rights to the last penny. This was naturally resisted by a peasantry which wondered why it should pay part of its already small income into the hands of relatively wealthy and insensitive landlords who took no interest in their welfare and who compensated their tenantry for any improvements the latter might make with higher rents. Amongs those of her tenantry whom Charlotte Hinds was attempting to evict for non payment of rent was Thomas Dunne. Yet this was no more than circumstantial evidence against him. He restated when final sentence of death was passed against him that he had never had any hand, act or part in the murder.

Were Dunne and Murphy guilty of the murder? I don’t know. All I can say is that the evidence adduced against them was far from strong. It rested on the testimony of an unreliable witness, as well as on identification which was also open to challenge and occurred some time after the event.

But yet it was all very much like Hamlet without the Prince. The one person who had been positively identified by the dying Miss Hinds as amongst her attackers, Red Pat Bannon, wasn’t in the dock. He had successfully evaded capture. 

Justice in those days was as swift as it was partial. By the anniversary of the death of Miss Hinds the two men accused of her demise were themselves in their graves.

This judicial celerity continued into our own day. I am reminded of the famous case of Derek Bentley, the 19 year old of limited intelligence hanged for the murder of a policeman, even though he had not fired the fateful shot that killed him, and had indeed been under arrest when it was fired. These events took place in the first week of November 1952. Three months later Bentley had been hanged. Fifty years later he received a posthumous pardon from an establishment that realised that his trial was a travesty of justice. What good was the pardon to him then? It was some solace to his family though.

I remember when the Guildford Four were released from prison. A journalist asked Gerry Conlon “What would have happened if they’d haged you?” Gerry responded wryly to this banal question by saying he wondered whether the British government would have employed a medium to try and deliver the news that their convictions had been overturned.