A Poem about Kevin Barry written by a Comrade

To commemorate the anniversary of the execution of Kevin Barry in November 1920, this is a poem written by Dan Tynan who spent time in a British prison and fought alongside young Kevin. 

 

Ireland's Biggest Funerals

Ireland’s funeral traditions have been well documented and in modern times some of Ireland’s most famous citizens have been honoured with very large funerals. Today the ceremony and reverence displayed at a state funeral is often conveyed on television and with access to instant media, the large funerals of the latter part of the 19^th century and early 20^th century have become less common. This is a list of thirty of the largest funerals ever seen in Ireland.

To attract an attendance of over 15,000 at your funeral in 1729 was a remarkable achieved both to your status and the efforts of those to attend in an era when transport options were limited. This though is the esteem to which William Connolly, known as The Speaker Connolly was held when he died in November 1729. Born in Ballyshannon the son of an innkeeper, Connolly rose to become the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and a popular politician. Once in charge of the Revenue Commissioners though his position as the Speaker he was the de facto PM in Ireland. His legacy was to build the impressive Castletown House as the family residence which can still be seen today.

In the mid-19^th century with a growing sense of Irish nationalism in the face of the worst famine to hit the country, the funeral of the nationalist Daniel O’Connell was bound to draw a large crowd. O’Connell, after whom the main thoroughfare of our capital is named, died in August 1847 in Genoa, Italy and his body returned to Ireland for burial. According to the London Times 100,000 lined the streets of the city to bid farewell to the native of County Kerry.

In March 1861, the Evening Post reported that on a desperately wet day, over 20,000 people attended the funeral of Captain John Boyd O’Neill. O’Neill was Captain of HMS Ajax and had lost his life heroically saving others as a storm raged in the Irish Sea. He was buried in St. Patrick’s Catederal.

In November 1861, Fermanagh born Young Irelander Terence Bellew McManus died in San Francisco and his body transported to Ireland for burial. He had taken part in the 1848 Rebellion and having been convicted was sent to Van Diemen’s land. He escaped from Australia after three years and made his way to the United States. His funeral to Glasnevin cemetery according to the ‘The Nation’ newspaper was watched by over a quarter of a million people on the streets of Dublin. Of that total 50,000 marched behind the coffin as it made its way through the city.

When the Most Reverend Daniel O’Connor, the Bishop of Saldes died at the Augustinian Friary at John’s Lane Church in July 1867, fifty thousand Dubliners lined the cortege route from Thomas Street to Glasnevin Cemetery. Born in 1786, he joined the priesthood in 1810, he spent many years on the missions in India. He returned to Ireland suffering from ill health caused by the extreme tropical conditions to continue as a popular bishop in Dublin for over twenty years. These years included the worst of the famine years and the political upheaval caused by the growing rebellious movement across Ireland against British rule. He passed at the age of 81.

In May 1876, The Nation newspaper reported that a crowd in excess of 20,000 ‘sombre souls’ lined the funeral route for Joseph P Ronayne in his native Cork City. Born in 1822 the son of a Cork glass maker he made his name as a civil engineer especially through the expansion of the railways in Munster. He was elected as a Cork member of Parliament for the Home Rule League in a 1872 bye election, retaining the seat in the 1874 General Election. He died in Queenstown and in an obituary he was described as being ‘endeared by all, by a noble generosity, a genuine spirit of self-abnegation, a modesty that could conseal neither his remarkable powers not the brillancy of his wit. A gracious manner, open handed charity and a kindly heart.’

In October 1891, Dublin would witness one of the biggest funerals ever seen in the city, even to this day. Even at the relatively young age of 45 at his death, Charles Stewart Parnell left a lasting impression on his nation and a legacy that helped Ireland achieve independence. Born in Avondale, Co. Wicklow he was elected to the British House of Commons in April 1875 as a nationalist MP. His Home Rule party, The Irish Parliamentary Party struggled for the morale high ground with revolutionary nationalists like the IRB but his party in 1885 held the balance of power in Westminster and his support of the Liberal Government was conditional on Home Rule being adopted for Ireland. At the height of his success, a personal scandal when it was revealed that he was having a longtime affair with a married woman Kitty O’Shea and had fathered a number of his children irrevocably damaged his reputation and career. When he died in 1891 after a gruelling election campaign when he was already in ill health took his life, nearly a quarter of a million people lined the streets of cold snowy Dublin to bid farewell to the Irish patriot and statesman.

In a new century in March 1903, one of the old guard of Irish nationalism Charles Gavan Duffy died in France. His body was returned to Ireland where the Freeman’s Journal reported in excess of 20,000 on the streets of the capital to watch his coffin being transported from the docks to the Pro Cathedral and onwards to Glasnevin Cemetery.

One of the biggest funerals ever witnessed as an orchestrated piece of nationalist theatre. When the elderly leader of the IRB, Jerimiah O’Donovan Rossa died in New York, his body was transported back to Ireland in July 1915 for a stage managed funeral to Glasnevin which will historically be remembered for Patrick Pearse’s graveside oration which included the famous quotation, ‘they have left us our Fenian dead, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’. The rallying cry was the opening verbal shots of the 1916 Easter Rising. Twenty thousand marched behind the hearse from the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street to Glasnevin with the streets lined by over 150,000 according to Irish Independent and the Freeman’s Journal.

As the green fields of France turned crimson red with blood, a German U boat off the coast of County Cork caught the ocean liner The Lusitania in its torpedo crosshairs. On May 5^th 1915, as she reached the conclusion of her cross Atlantic crossing from New York to Liverpool with 1,962 guests and crew on board she was sunk by German torpedoes. 1,198 people lost their lives in the icy waters off the Cork Coast. Bodies that were recovered were taken to Queenstown (Cobh) where a mass grave was prepared long before a DNA service could identify those who had no personal belongings to repatriate them to their families. According to British Pathe over 10,000 lined the route as one hundred and forty-eight unidentified victims were taken to a small cemetery the crowds made up of locals and military personal based in Cork.

The most deaths the following year was those executed in the aftermath of the Rising but they were not accorded a normal burial instead buried by the British in then unmarked graves. In September 1917 more than forty thousand lined Dublin streets in defiance of the British authorities to witness the funeral of Thomas Ashe who had died following complications in Mountjoy Prison when he was force fed by the prison authorities after being on hunger strike. The British in their clumsy attempts not to create another martyr for Irish nationalism offered the perfect patriot for a huge funeral on the streets of battle damaged Dublin.

Outside the capital, in Cork in November 1920 the Mayor of Ireland’s second largest city Terence McSwiney died on Hunger Strike at Brixton prison in England after 74 days on strike. Future Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh who was in London at the time of McSwiney’s death remarked, ‘a nation that has such citizens will never surrender’.  After the murder of his mayoral predecessor Thomas McCurtain on March 20^th 1920, McSwiney was elected mayor. He was arrested by the British military forces on August 12^th and sentenced to two years in prison following a court martial charged with having seditious material. Thirty thousand filed passed his coffin at St. George’s Catederal in London. Fearing a massive Republican funeral in Dublin, the British forced his family to take his body directly to Cork. Despite heavy and at times brutal security arrangements put in place by the British, over 15,000 attended the funeral in Cork where McSwiney was laid to rest in St. Finbar’s Cemetery.

The politician who would deliver the graveside oration for Terence McSwiney would be the recipient of the next big funeral in Dublin in August 1922, when Arthur Griffith died. Griffith had headed the delegation that attended Downing Street for the Treaty negotiations at the end of the War of Independence. He worked tirelessly and even though ill continued a heavy workload leading to his collapse and death on a Dublin street on August 12^th 1922. According to various newspapers reports of the day over 100,000 people lined the streets of Dublin from the Pro Catederal to Glasnevin cemetery four days later. One of the most high profile mourners was Michael Collins who would replace Griffith’s as the de facto head of state.

Collins himself morbidly would be the next big funeral in Dublin. Ten days after Griffith’s death, while touring his native County Cork, Michael Collins’s motorcade was ambushed near Beal na Blath outside Macroom. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, the Free State forces transported Collins’s body via ship from Cork to Dublin where his body lay in state at City Hall. The funeral mass was celebrated by the Archbishop of Dublin Rev. Byrne along with 300 priests. A gun carraige drawn by six black horses carried the coffin and fourteen further cars were required for the wreaths. To allow as many as possible to witness the occasion, the cortege left the Pro Cathederal and headed down Gardiner Street, over Butt Bridge onto Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street), around Merrion Square, onto St Stephens Green, down Grafton Street, through O’Connell Street and onto Glasnevin via Dorset Street taking over four hours to pass any one point on the route. A half a million people paid their respects to the fallen leader followed by a graveside oration delivered by General Richard Mulcahy before internment.

 In April 1932, one of the largest funerals for a woman took place when the mother of the executed 1916 leader Patrick Pearse, Margaret passed away. Having lost two sons to the executioner’s bullets in 1916, Patrick and William, Margaret continued to be a political activist for the rest of her life. In 1921 she was elected as a Sinn Fein MP but having taken the anti-treaty side during the subsequent debates in Dail Eireann she left with DeValera. She helped DeValera found Fianna Fail and also strived to keep open her son’s school St. Enda’s in Rathfarnham raising thousands to keep it going.  Her funeral, soon after Fianna Fail and DeValera had taken power for the first time was a propaganda coup for the new Government. An estimated 40,000 filed passed her coffin laying in state in City Hall and over 100,000 lined the four mile route from Westland Row to Glasnevin where DeValera delivered the graveside oration.

One of the saddest funerals in Dublin was that of three firemen Thomas Nugent, Peter McArdle and Robert Malone of Tara Street station who were killed as they fought a fire on Pearse Street in October 1936. Led by Eamon DeValera and members of the Government, along with the families of the fallen firefighters and colleagues from Dublin, Ireland and further afield, the cortege travelled from the con-celebrated Mass in Westland Row to Glasnevin watched by what the Irish Press estimated as 100,000 people but other sources put the total nearer 40,000, still an impressive turn out in tribute. A volley of shot was fired over the graves by colleagues of Robert Malone, who had served alongside DeValera in Boland’s Mill during the Easter Rising.

In November 1960, Ireland was taking its place amongst the nations of the world and lending its weight to UN peacekeeping missions around the world but events in the Congo would according to the Irish Independent bring 300,000 Irish citizens onto the streets of Dublin to pay tribute to 9 Irish soldiers murdered at the Niemba ambush in the Congo. Those who died were Kevin Gleeson and Michael McGuinn from Carlow, Hugh Gaynor, Peter Kelly, Liam Dougan, Matthew Farrell, Thomas Fennell, Anthony Browne and Gerard Killeen all from Dublin.

In the days before the Easter Rising, former British diplomat Roger Casement was arrested for treason for his contacts with the Germans as he attempted to land arms off the coast of Kerry. He was secretly transported to London where he was tried and executed at Penteville Prison. In accordance with most execution he was buried within the prison walls in an unmarked grave but as relations between the two islands thawed, Roger Casement’s body was returned to Ireland for burial at Glasnevin cemetery in March 1965. According to the Evening Herald 30,000 lined the streets of the capital as the cortege passed the GPO on its way to the northside burial grounds.

Dublin born Sean T. O’Kelly became Ireland’s second President in June 1945 and served two terms. A veteran of the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, he served in various roles including Sinn Fein’s envoy to the US after the Civil War and in various Fianna Fail cabinets after 1932. He passed away in November 1966 with the Irish Press reporting 30,000 lining the streets of the capital to bid farewell to the former President.

As 1969 arrived the troubles in Northern Ireland intensified and in September 1971 the death of a fourteen year schoolgirl shot dead in Derry brought 10,000 out onto the streets of the Maiden city for her funeral. Annette McGavigan was caught in crossfire between an IRA unit and British soldiers near her home in the Bogside. She became the 100^th civilian to be killed since the start of the troubles and her memory remembered in the ‘Death of Innocence’ mural in the Bogside where she is depicted in her green school uniform. Civil rights leaders including Ivan Cooper and John Hume attended the large funeral.

One of the survivors of the Easter Rising and a man at the heart of Irish history for over a quarter of a century Eamonn DeValera died aged 92 years in August 1975. His wife of 65 years passing away earlier the same year. Having cheated the executioner bullet after the Rising, he would go on to lead the anti-treaty forces during the Civil War and in its aftermath found a new party Fianna Fail who came to power in 1932. He led the Government until 1959 when he became President of Ireland serving two terms in Aras An Uachtarain. Over the first weekend of September, his casket lay in State at St Patrick’s Hall in Dublin Castle and according to the Irish Examiner more than 100,000 filed through the great hall to pay their respects. More than 100,000 lined the streets of Dublin as the cortege travelled up O’Connell Street passed the GPO and onto Glasnevin for burial.

One of the few sportsmen to make the list is the great Cork hurler Christy Ring. When he died in March 1979 he was a legend in the GAA. Just 58 years old when he suffered a massive heart attack as he walked along the streets of his beloved city, Christy’s prowess as a centre forward earned him nine Munster titles, eight All Ireland titles and eighteen railway cups hurling with Munster. In 2000 he was named as the right wing forward on the team of the millennium. The former Taoiseach and fellow Cork native Jack Lynch said upon his passing

‘As long as young men will match their hurling skills against each other on Ireland's green fields, as long as young boys swing their camáns for the sheer thrill of the feel and the tingle in their fingers of the impact of ash on leather, as long as hurling is played the story of Christy Ring will be told. And that will be forever.’

Two years later saw one of the biggest funerals ever seen on the island in May 1981. Following sixty six days on hunger strike at the Maze prison also known as the H-Blocks, twenty seven year old Bobby Sands died. During his strike and incasaration he was elected as a British member of parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Sands became the first of ten Reublican prisoners to die during that period as the Brotosh Government refused to give into the demands of the prisoners who were seeking political status rather than. Over 150,000 people lined the streets of Belfast as Sands was buried in the Republican plot at Milltown Cemetery.

In June 1996, as IRA subversives attempted to rob a cash in transit van in Adare, Co Limerick, the gang opened fire on two Garda special branch detectives who were protecting the delivery. Garda Jerry McCabe was shot dead, His funeral was attempted by in excess of 40,000 shocked locals lined the funeral route through Limerick City with mourners led by his wife Anne. Four IRA men were subsequently convicted of manslaughter of the Garda.

The sudden passing of motor cycling superstar Joey Dunlop following an accident in Estonia drew in excess of 50,000 to the small town of Ballymoney Co. Antrim. It took the hearse bearing the sports stars body who had made the famous Isle of Man TT races  over an hour to travel the single mile from his family home to the local church for the funeral service.

1917 What was on Easter 1917

One year on from the momentous events of the Easter Rising and Dublin was still recovering, the centre of the city still a bomb site. April 9^th was Easter Monday and Dublin was cold, windy with snow and sleet, a far cry from the sunny climate of Easter week. The British authorities had taken no chances and banned all outdoor gathering and processions to ward off trouble. The First World War continued and throughout 1917, Irishmen were still joining up. Many of those arrested after the Rising were still in prison in Britain and Ireland was suffering from rationing, job losses and steep increases in both food and alcohol prices.  Ireland though is changing as the radical nationalism of Sinn Fein begins to replace the moderate Nationalism of Redmond’s Home Rule party.

The main page of the Sunday Independent barely mentioned Ireland and its only reference was to possible nationalisation of the Liquor industry in Britain and Ireland due to wartime conditions. This was also leading to concern as many jobs were being lost at breweries and distilleries especially in Dublin as restrictions on production was imposed. Much of the news columns covered America’s declaration of war on the German Empire on April 6^th. The Easter weekend had been a period of religious reflection with many businesses closed for the Holy Week.

The ban on meetings did not apply to indoor events and so the Dublin GAA annual convention went ahead as planned in the Mansion House. There was plenty of sport to occupy the mind but weather conditions reduced the attendance numbers at most events, which was a bonus on the Monday for theatres and cinemas.

The Grand National went ahead at Faiyhouse where Pay Only picked up the first prize of two hundred pounds. Second place despite all their efforts only won twenty pounds. There was whippet racing at Shelbourne Park, hockey in the Phoenix Park, soccer matches in the Leinster Senior League and club GAA matches at Croke Park and Ringsend Park.

The back page of the Freeman’s Journal on Monday along with actions photos of the Louth v Wexford GAA match was the news that the eldest son of British Prime Minister Lloyd George, Major Richard Lloyd George had got married. But as the year anniversary arrived on Easter Monday the theatre and cinemas were busy.

The D’Oyly Carte theatre company whose run at the Gaiety Theatre had been shut down as events unfolded on O’Connell Street and nearby St Stephen’s Green, were once again opening at the Gaiety with their production of The Gondoliers. The Theatre Royal’s acts on Monday night included Miss Marie Loftus, opera singer, George Forde, ventriloquist and Fred Curran, comedian who would become the opening act for Harry Houdini. The Abbey Theatre was performing G B Shaw’s ‘ John Bulls Other Island’ with Fred Donovan playing the role of Father Keegan. The Empire show was headlined by Miss Victoria Monks, while the Tivoli had Cooper and Lait topping the bill with comedian J B Strain. At the Queens the play ‘Under Two Flags’ was being performed.

Cinema was also growing rapidly although many of the cinemas in the centre of the city had been destroyed during the Rising bombardment. The Grafton Picture House

was showing ‘The Majesty of the Law’ accompanied by a performance by a visiting Russian violinist. The Pillar Picture House had Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Pawnshop’. Across Ireland various Chaplin movies were on Easter Monday. At Mullingar you could have caught his film ‘in two parts’ The Fireman while Police was being shown at the Coliseum in Cork City.

On Easter Monday just before midday a crowd gathered outside the ruins of the GPO and a rebel flag was hoisted on a temporary flagpole at the corner of the building. It was lowered to half mast the stroke of one. As the police attempted to arrest those with flags, they were attacked and stones thrown gathered from the rubble of the street. There were a number of baton charges on O’Connell Street and Eden Quay with skirmishes continuing into the afternoon. The newspapers reported that a heaviy snowfall just after 10pm cleared the street of the ‘rowdies’. The only mention in Monday’s paper of any republican activities was a gathering of about a hundred ladies in Glasnevin where they laid wreaths on the graves of Volunteers killing during the Rising.

One strange quirk of the weekend in Dundalk related to the merging of Irish time and London time in October 1916 when Catholic churches in the town advertised Mass in Irish Time while the Protestant services were advertised in the new time leading to confusion in the town.     

1917 The Banned Movie

British sensitivities were still on heightened alert as 1917 began. In January 1917 a film opened to packed houses in the Rotunda Picture House. ‘Ireland A Nation’ had been shown to and passed in December 1916 by the censor

The film itself had actually first been shown in 1914 and was made by the Gaelic Film Company. A silent movie it told the story of Ireland from the time of the 1798 rebellion, Robert Emmet in 1803 and up to the planned arrival of Home Rule, itself having been put on the back burner in 1914. It used dramatic scenes and screen titles to tell its story.  The film website IMDB described the film as,

‘The story of Ireland and her fight for Home Rule, as seen through the experiences of Father Tom Murphy, a patriot with a price on his head, and the famous Irish leader Robert Emmet.’

The film was produced by Lismore, Co Waterford born Walter McNamara. McNamara who according to the magazine ‘Moving Picture World’ was a vice president of the Gaelic League and one of the founders of the Irish Club in London. He had been educated in Wales before heading to the United States and became involved in the silent movie business.

The movie had its exterior shots filmed on location in Ireland including at Glendalough and the Vale of Avoca in Wicklow. The interior shots were filmed at  Ec-Ko Studios at Kewbridge in England which led to many continuity errors which was perhaps the least of its problems as it was often factually inaccurate as well. It starred Barry O’Brien as Emmet. O’Brien was an actor born in London in 1893, passing away in 1961.  Dominick O’Reilly played the role of Napoleon Bonaparte with supporting cast including Patrick Ennis and Barry Magee. Interviewed by George Blaisdell, McNamara spoke about his time in Ireland making the movie.

“Did I have any difficulties finding locations? Yes in one instance when I tried to find a mud hut and failed. Parnell wiped those out. I did though get some wonderful backgrounds.  We had a fort built by Oliver Cromwell and to this day no real son of the old sod passes it without spitting, that’s the only way they can adequately express his feelings for the builder. Were obstacles placed in my path in the making of Ireland a Nation? Yes indeed by the soldiers. Sometimes we would start a scene with not a soul in sight. It seemed sometimes that in two minutes soldiers would come from everywhere and demand to see a permit. The military tried in every way to handicap us. That’s why we were five months over there. The Nationalist Party gave us unofficial sanction.”

When he arrived in Ireland he was arrested by the British on suspicion of importing arms illegally but these weapons were discovered to be props for his film. McNamara was released but his props were not returned to him.

Even though the censor passed the film, he did so with some cuts to the original. Scenes including the interruption by British soldiers of a hillside Mass being celebrated by a Priest and the execution of Robert Emmet plus some of the intertitles were cut including one that told viewers that ‘a price of £100 dead or alive on the hed of every priest’.

On Wednesday September 23^rd 1914 it had its premiere at the 44^th Street Theatre in New York and played to big audiences in New York and Chicago despite being panned by most critics.

The tag line for the movie on its release was

‘Made in Ireland by Irish Actors, 116 years of Irish History in 5000ft of film’

Shown twice a day, tickets cost the movie goer either 25c or 50c.

A copy was being sent to Ireland for showing in May 1915 but it was on board the Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine. The intervention of the Easter Rising prevented another copy arriving and so it was January 8^th 1917 before the Irish public got to see the film although with cuts to the original implemented by the censor. Newspaper advertisements called the film "The Greatest Patriotic Picture Ever Screened".  The Rotunda’s 1500 seats were sold out for two consecutive nights but when reports after the first couple of nights that audiences were cheering the death of British forces in the film’s depiction of the 1798 rebellion and roaring ‘up the Republic’ during some scenes, the military authorities banned the film.

The film would not be seen again in Irish cinemas until 1922 when extra scenes of the aftermath of the Rising, the War of Independence and DeValera’s visit to the United States were included.

Bibliography

 ‘A Special Relationship, Britain Comes to Hollywood’ by Anthony Slide

IMDB

Trinity College Archives

New York Tribune

Silentera.com

1917 Ireland's Top Sportsman

In 1917, Wexford won the All Ireland Football Final which Dublin secured the title in Hurling. In soccer Glentoran won the double taking both the League and the Cup, while for a number of months Ireland was the only place in the British Isles to the support the sport of Kings, horse racing but the most famous Irish sportsman in the United States at the time played none of these sports.

Bernard Michael Riley was born in 1891 in Ballinamore, County Leitrim before his family immigrated to the United States. By eighteen years old he was known as ‘Irish Mick’ or ‘The Wild Irish Rose of Skidom’ as Barney as he was now known became the US National Amateur Champion Ski jumper.

The Riley family had settled in Coleraine, Michigan an area of the US where many Scandinavians settled and they brought their tradition of snow sports to the North East of the continent.  And while names like Solberg, Bergensen, Olsen and Jensen dominated the ski slopes in the US, an Irishman would break their stranglehold.

In February 1910 Riley was crowned US National Champion in front of 6,000 spectators setting a world record jump on his way to the title. He defended it successful y the following year and I 1911 even won the prestigious Nor Trophy, a competition set up by and dominated by Norwegians who had like Riley found a new home in the United States. He also picked up the $300 defeating a future Olympic bronze medallist Anders Haugen who competed for the USA despite being born in Telemark, Norway.

The newspapers of the day reported

‘At the Norwegian games he (Riley) was the possessor of enough medals to decorate a German prince, all won by his skills on the skis’

In 1913 Riley turned professional and toured the growing and successful skiing circuit. The First World War would intervene and Riley joined the US Army in 1917 being posted to France when that nation entered the war, serving as a railway engineer in France. Riley entry into the US Army made headlines on the sports pages of late 1917 as his fame as a ski jumper had continued to expand.

After the war he returned to ski jumping and his Irishness was trumpeted in advertising for various metes including the 1924 inaugural event at the Chester Bowl in Duluth, Minnesota, the state that Riley now called home. He won the inaugural event with a jump of 137 feet. He would later exchange holder of the ski jump world record with Anders Haugen at one tournament out jumping the Olympic medallist with a jump of 154 feet only to fall on landing. He would never again hold the record.

Barney Riley died in February 1939 when he suffered a heart attack and died as he was moving his car from his garage at home. In 2011, the ‘Wild Irish Rose of Skidom’ was inducted into the American Ski Jumping Hall of Fame.      

Reis's Chambers, The 1916 Rising, the Execution of Francis Hynes and Charles Reis - Part Two

Continued 

James Caffrey, the second in charge of the protection party stated that there was no one in the billiards room when they got there which would have been the correct procedure as the jury were to have no contact with other members of the public while they were on the jury. George Strong reported that there was one man in the billiard room apart from Mr. Martin but then Jury member Edward Hamilton stated that when they walked into the billiard room there were two members of the public but that they left as the group walked in but that two more men entered shortly after. These men were Major Wynne and Doctor James Cusack and that Charles Reis introduced Major Wynne to the others. Reis and Wynne then played a game of billiards while more drink was ordered. With the order was placed an order for cigars but after lighting one up, Reis seemed unhappy with the quality and rang the service bell and complained. The porter fetched more cigars but shortly after Reis rang the bell again but when the porter arrived Reis said firstly that he had not rang the bell and that his complaint did not matter now and the porter was sent off much to the quiet amusement of some of the other men in the room.

Shortly before 9.30p.m. James Campbell returned and inquired of his son who had a drink in his hand, if all was fine and after satisfying himself there he went up to the dining room and checked with the other guards on the rooms floor and left again. As Campbell was arriving night porter Robert Ennis was coming on duty. He found it strange and questioned Campbell junior whether members of the public should be socialising with members of an active Jury. Campbell said that his boss and his father were upstairs and he had said that it was fine. At 11p.m. waiter Patrick Tobin delivered another round of drink to the billiard room with drink now being ordered for the non hotel guests. The drinks list for the billiard room was as follows

William Barrett              2 Glasses of Sherry

Charles Reis                 2 Glasses of Brandy and Soda

William Wardropp        2 Half Glasses of Whiskey

William Gibson             2 Glasses of Beer

11.45p.m.

The Billiard Room, Imperial Hotel

 Charles Reis is by now showing the effects of the alcohol he has consumed in what was by now a very long eventful day. He leaves the room without intervention and sits on a seat in the hall of the hotel opposite the constable on duty outside the door of the billiard room George Strong but he is approached by the Hall Porter Francis Brady who explains to the juror that it is against hotel policy to smoke in the hallways that there are rooms including the billiard room provided for smoking. Reis tells Brady to mind his own business and

            ‘you would do best to keep your eyes shut’

The protection detail also continued to drink as they were served supper.

George Strong              A pint of Ale

James Caffrey               A pint of Ale

James Donnelly             A pint of Ale

Robert Young               A pint of Ale

Michael Carey              A pint of Ale

                                                               Friday August 11^th 1882

Green Street Court House, Dublin

After a coroner’s inquest by Mr. John Frost in Ennis and an investigation by Captain Hamilton RM, Francis Hynes was charged with the murder of John Doolaghty. He would be tried under new legislation enacted by the House of Commons, The Prevention of Crime Act that allowed for major criminal cases to be transferred from the court jurisdiction of the crime to a special court in Green Street, Dublin. The British authorities believed that in the climate in the rural parts of Ireland and the nationalist fervor being whipped up that they would get a better chance of an impartial jury in Dublin away from the country courts. The Nationalist and Catholic leaders rallied against the legislation and believed that Juries were being loaded as they called it that only Protestants were being selected to try the cases giving the Crown a better chance of conviction on limited evidence. It was here on Friday 11^th August 1882 that the trial of Francis Hynes began in front of Mr. Justice James Anthony Lawson. This new legal system would see nine trials completed in ten days within the courts. Two hundred business men and merchants with property and assets in excess of fifty pounds were called and forty nine of them were assigned to this murder trial. Of twenty challenges to jury members allowed to the defense they only used up eleven. They prosecution then used their unlimited amount of challenges to object to twenty six more potential jurors until there were twelve men sitting in the jury box. They were then escorted to a room at the back of the court room and a jury foreman was elected. All except Charles Reis, a Scottish born Grafton Street jeweler were Church of Ireland, Methodist or Presbyterian. Reis was Jewish.

The Attorney-General of Ireland, Mr. Peter O’Brien MP, Queens Council, and Mr. Sullivan, instructed by Mr. Murphy, the Crown Solicitor for the County Clare, prosecuted the case against Hynes. Mr. McDermott QC, and Mr. John Roche, instructed by Messrs Walton and Frost solicitors of Ennis, defended for the accused. Much of the case hinged on the testimony of Hugh McTernan and a dying man’s declaration. The defense brought up the timing issue and the Prosecution organised a runner by the name of Fitzmaurice to run the distance between the crime scene across the fields and along the stream to Hassett’s Pub to show that he had time to get to the pub after committing the crime. There was no gun found matching the weapon that killed the farmer. The three men in the bar swore that they were with Francis Hynes struggled under cross examination admitting that they were under the influence of drink and the prosecution claimed that this influence would not allow them to accurate about the timings. Much of the defensive evidence challenged by the prosecution brought a smile to the Judges face who seemed intent on hindering the defense case at every opportunity.  There was a sense of sympathy illicited for the dead man when he was described in court as having a large family and that he was sixty years old and was attacked by the much younger athletic Francis Hynes. The fact was that John Doolaghty was only forty four when he was killed and in excellent physical health. There was no weapon found that matched the gunshot used. There were no witnesses to the crime. There was doubt about the dying declaration whether Mr. Doolaghty was in any condition to make an identification and if he did was he just naming someone he knew he had trouble with on the assumption that it was Francis Hynes. The gunman would have leapt quickly from his hiding place and startled Doolaghty on the quiet road and he fired instantly hitting Doolaghty in the eyes almost certainly blinding him. It was a summer’s day and the sun was in Doolaghty’s face as he walked home also hindering his identification of a suspect. With the RM giving evidence of a dying declaration and the arrest of Francis Hynes, the investigation stopped.

                                             Third Floor of the Imperial Hotel, Sackville St.

Margaret Walsh who was in charge of the bar that evening closed it for the night much to the annoyance of the jury members still in the billiard room and they begin to voice loudly their annoyance. After being refused more drink Charles Reis asked for a deck of cards but he was told that none were available. Fifteen minutes later the last of the men would leave the billiard room and make their way up the two flights of stairs to the bedrooms. William Gibson and William Wardropp were the first to make their way up to the bedroom where they would be sharing number eighteen. As the remaining four men made their way up, James Campbell Junior met Mr. Barrett and said                                                                                         

‘Mr. Foreman will you see these men to bed before you turn in’                                            ‘

Yes sir off course I will’ he replied.                                                                                   

As was normal practice in Hotels in 1882, the jurors had placed their boots outside their room doors for the hotel staff to clean during the night and Reis and Maconchy ran up and down the hall kicking the boots outside the doors and mixing up the rooms that the boots should be located outside.                                                                                       

The men were in loud jovial humour laughing and joking as they went to their various bedrooms. Reis then in search of a single room as he refused to stay in a double room opened the room door of William O’Brien but after striking a match to light his way realized his mistake and left the room. He also opened the door of Gibson and Wardropp but apologized and left the room quickly banging the door on his way out. William O’Brien rang the bell for the night porter and he made a complaint about the noise in the hallway. Margaret Walsh was making her way to her room at the stairwell at opposite end of the hallway when she was spotted by some men in the hallway who ran at her ‘menacingly’. She immediately made her way quickly to her room and locked the door. Reis began to roar on the corridor for someone to bring him a pair of slippers and Elizabeth Carberry complained that someone had been banging loudly on her door to gain entrance but she refused to get out of bed.                              

When no response was forthcoming Reis moved to the edge of the stairs and shouted louder to get the attention of the staff. Having heard the commotion waiter Patrick Tobin made his way to the floor and found Reis and Barrett in the hallway. When he reached the corridor his colleague Elizabeth Ennis, a housekeeper was already attempting to placate Mr. Reis. She had been to the floor delivering a mattress for one of the constables who would be sleeping in the corridor to make sure that the Jury would not be disturbed or interfered with. Patrick Tobin attempted to persuade Reis to retire to bed but Reis asked for a deck of cards and his slippers. Having found a room he returned to the hall in his stocking feet and with a candle in one hand offering light to a dimly lit passageway, Reis knocked over a table with an empty basin for washing and the basin crashed to the floor. Reis picked it up but it fell again cursing rather loudly at the fallen object but Constable Donnelly moved in and picked it up and put it out of reach so that it would not fall again. Shortly after one o’clock in the morning there was silence.

                             7 a.m. September 11^th 1882, Limerick Gaol,  Condemned  Cell

A large crowd begins to gather outside the walls of Limerick Gaol in the cold early morning where Francis Hynes awaited his fate knowing that all calls for clemency had been ignored by the Lord Lieutenant. As the crowds began to gather in the early morning air a large group of policemen under Sub Inspector Henry Wilton and troops of the 70^th Regiment arrived and began to patrol the outer precincts of the prison. Another fifteen constables under the command of Constable Kavanagh protected the approach roads to the prison. In the early hours of Saturday morning about 1.45a.m., the executioner William Marwood had arrived in the city and met by a large detail of constables and taken to the prison where he stayed making arrangements for the Monday morning execution. The crowd, unlike the rowdy days of the public execution, were mute and all that could be heard were prayers for the young Francis Hynes.   

William Marwood (1820 – 1883) was appointed executioner in 1872 and referred to his work as a science stating that, 

'having studied my profession that a man dies at my hands with as little pain as I give myself by touching the back of my hand with my finger.’ 

He was a small man just five feet seven and many who attended his executions commented on his restless eyes.   

                              9a.m. August 12^th 1882 The Dining Room of the Imperial Hotel

 The jury were awoken by the hotel staff and were all present in the dining room for breakfast at nine a.m. After breakfast had been consumed the William Barrett locked the dining room door and the discussion of the merits of the case began in earnest. While the door was locked the protection detail had their chance to have breakfast but while the jury members had just tea and iced water with their food, the Bailiffs and Constables took a different approach on their last hour in the Imperial Hotel Along with their breakfasts came

John Williams               A Glass of grog*

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

Robert Young               A Glass of Whiskey

(Grog was a naval term for Rum)

One commentator after being informed of the amount of alcohol consumed in the Imperial Hotel noted

‘If the published accounts in more than one paper of the amount of alcoholic liquors that jury consumed are correct' and the jurors were not drunk, then' they must be the most seasoned' liquor drinkers in the whole world’

 7 a.m. September 11^th 1882, Limerick Gaol, Condemned  Cell

While awaiting his final fate Francis Hynes wrote a poem about his impending demise     

’Within my prison cell I sit penning down those saddening lines,
My age is scarcely twenty-four, and my name is Francie Hynes.
For the awful crime of murder, I am condemned to die,
But I will meet the scaffold without a sob or sigh.
I know that tears of sympathy from many an eye shall fall,
But one request I have to ask of friends and brothers all,
Let no man call me murderer of friends I humbly crave,
When I am cold and silent within my prison grave.
A Dublin Orange jury on that Memorial Day, mad drunk and blind with fury,
they swore my life away,
But I’m prepared to meet my fate, no tear will dim mine eye,
I never injured any man,
I swear by God on high.
My friends, they sought for my reprieve, but eloquence could not avail,
They will hang me in the morning in Limerick County Jail.
I give my blessing to my friends who beside me stood,
There’s no more hope, they’re thirsting for my blood.
My mother who watched me in my tender years,
Oh, joy she’s gone before me,
Her form, it now appears as if in childhood’s happy day,
she did me fondly clasp,
Little she thought she reared me for the hangman’s grasp.
But I’m prepared to meet my fate,
No danger will I falter
For innocence will triumph o’er bloody hitch and halter,
                                And when the star of peace will shine again as in the good old times,                            

Let Irishmen remember the fate of Francie Hynes

Hynes had got up according to the prison staff at five in the morning and donned a borrowed tweed suit. He ate a hearty breakfast and was then greeted by the prison chaplain Reverend James McCoy who celebrated mass in his cell. At 7.30a.m. the Sherriff of County Clare entered his cell and informed Hynes that the appointed hour had arrived. Five minutes later Marwood appeared at the door of the cell and pinioned the prisoner. At a quarter passed eight the procession to the gallows formed with two priests leading the way Reverend McCoy and local curate Reverend McNamara. Following behind them was Hynes with a warder on either side responding to the prayers of the clergymen in front of him.  Behind them followed the Governor Mr. Edgar and deputy Governor of the prison. They moved out into the courtyard where the scaffold had been erected. Hynes ascended the couple of steps and saw the treacherous rope hanging from the crossbeam.  Hynes stood calmly on the trap door and the rope was placed around his neck. He then pulled a white cap over the condemned man’s face and tried his legs together. Hynes clasped a crucifix in the middle of his tied hands.

The resident of the Imperial Hotel, William O’Brien was no ordinary guest.                    

                          ‘Home was a back bedroom on the top floor of a Dublin hotel’ 

the Imperial hotel since his release from prison a year earlier on compassionate grounds following the death of his mother. He had been in Kilmainham prison with Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon. William O’Brien was born in Mallow County Cork in 1852 and became a journalist after failing to graduate from legal studies in University. After initially working for the Cork Daily Herald he moved to Dublin and joined the staff of the Nationalist Freeman Journal. In 1878 he met Charles Parnell at a Home Rule meeting and despite an offer of £600 a year to staff at the journal he joined Parnell’s United Irishman paper as editor earning £400 per annum. After his release from prison he drafted ‘The Land War No Rent Manifesto’ and was a vociferous supporter of the actions of the peasants and evicted tenants. The introduction of the Coersion Act in the aftermath of the Phoenix Park murders pitted O’Brien directly against those in charge in Ireland. He commented that the British authorities were                                                                                ‘scouring the country for suspects, manufacturing a hideous race of informers by offering rewards for evidence regardless of its character, trying victims of the delatores by ruthlessly packed juries of ‘loyal Protestants’ in Dublin. Convicting by hook or crook.’

Having just been released from prison and a number of libel suits pending against his editorials in the United Irishman, O’Brien thought it would be better to write his letter of complaint to like minded editor Edmund Gray at the Freeman Journal. William O’Brien had unsuccessfully run in the General Election twice in Ennis, the home of Francis Hynes who also had attended a number of Parnell rallies. On both occasions he had lost narrowly in 1879 by just six votes.

Ireland in 1882 was a hotbed of unrest, violence and various nationalist factions with independence as their ultimate aspiration. On May 4^th 1882, Liberal party British Prime Minister William Gladstone appointed John Poyntz Spenser known as the ‘Red Earl’ on account of his distinctive red beard as the Queen Victoria’s representative in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant. Earl Spenser and his newly appointed Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish traveled to Ireland the next day to be greeted by the Permanent Under secretary in Ireland Thomas Henry Burke. On May 6^th after only one day in Ireland Cavendish who was related through marriage to Gladstone and Burke went for a walk through The Phoenix Park from the Lord Lieutenants residence the Vice Regal Lodge. As they walked they were attacked by members of a Fenian breakaway organization called the Invincibles and were both stabbed to death. On the day of Lord Cavendish’s funeral the legislation was rushed through the House of Commons in attempt to arrest the violence that was menacing Ireland. The Act would allow extra measures for the police in search and seizure and allow for the holding of trials without juries although this was never used but the legislation was used to load empanneled juries. Although Parnell came out against the murders which made him popular in both Ireland and Britain, the brother of the slain Cavendish, Lord Harrington who had also been a member of Gladstone’s cabinet split from the British Liberal party over the introduction of Parnell’s much cherished Home Rule Bill and voted it down on two occasions. William O’Brien also came out against the murders but the resultant legislation caused him more anxiety the way in which the Irish poor tenant Catholic population were being treated.   

After the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief secretary and the Under secretary in Ireland, the affairs of the nation were put before the Privy Council, a sort of cabinet with the Chief Secretary as Prime Minter to the Lord Lieutenant. One of the members of Earl Spenser’s Privy Council was Mr. Justice James Anthony Lawson. Justice Lawson was the second highest rank judge in Ireland after the Lord Chief Justice Michael Morris.

Saturday August 12^th 1882, Special Commission Court, Green Street, Dublin

The Jury and their escorts were taken by carriage back to the Green Street Courthouse and once again sat in the wooden jury box watching Mr. Justice Lawson open proceeding with the prisoner Francis Hynes in the dock. The foreman of the Jury requests that the Reverend Loughnane be called to the stand to give evidence with regard to how much of the act of contrition given to the dying John Doolaghty was able to follow. Neither the prosecution nor the defense had called the clergyman to the stand to give evidence and neither had James Lynch been called to the stand to give credence or disprove the prosecutions alleged motive for the murder. After the Reverend had completed his evidence, the jury went to consider their verdict. Less than an hour later the jury foreman was on his feet and when Justice Lawson asked for the verdict                  ‘Guilty’ came the reply.

 8.10a.m. September 11^th 1882, The Courtyard of Limerick Gaol

The bolt was drawn quickly and the body of Francis Hynes fell through the trap door. A master of the long rope technique, the prison doctor quickly pronounced the prisoner dead and the sentence of the court had been carried out. Outside the walls the prayers of a crowd of now over two thousand people continued and a black flag was slowly hoisted on one of the flag poles indicating that the execution had been carried out. William Marwood remarked after that “I never executed a finer man, nor a man with so much nerve. He walked to his doom with the utmost composure and I cannot but admire him”. Marwood quickly left Limerick being escorted from the Gaol to the railway station and boarding a train for Dublin.

August 16^th 1882 Green Street Courthouse The Sentencing of Edmund Grey

William O’Brien wrote a letter to the editor of the Freeman Journal newspaper Edmund Gray a former Mayor of Dublin and currently High Sherriff and therefore ultimately responsible for the actions of juries in his jurisdiction. William O’Brien was a guest in the hotel that night and wrote of the jury’s drunken behaviour and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the verdict and therefore the sentence of death. The Freeman Journal in publishing the letter brought a swift reaction from the legal system and Edmund Gray now found himself before Mr. Justice Lawson on a charge of contempt. No jury was summoned for the trial of Mr. Gray. The jury foreman was brought before the court and he swore that there was no drunken behaviour at the hotel by the jurors. Gray also a Member of Parliament pleaded his case but it fell on deaf ears. Mr. Justice Lawson took a dim view of his publishing the letter and the editorial comment that went with it saying that Catholics had been rigorously excluded which was against the law and the direction of the legal powers in London. . Mr. Justice Lawson sentenced Mr. Gray MP to three months imprisonment in Richmond, and to pay a fine of £500; also at the end of the three months, to give bail for his good behavior - himself in £5,000, and two sureties in £2,500 each.

 December 12^th 1882 Ennis Court House. Compensation

 For the loss of her husband Eliza and her seven children sought compensation of three thousand pounds under the Crimes Act. At a sitting before Mr. Monaghan QC she said that after the conviction and execution she was shunned and boycotted by neighbours and shopkeepers making it almost impossible to live in her native Clare even her son was unable to get work. The Crimes Act was compensation given with the payment recouped from the local rate payers hoping that this would dissuade someone from committing a crime. There was no report if she received the entire three thousand pounds but when she used some of that money to pay for the family’s passage to a new life in Australia on March 3^rd 1883 arriving in Dunedin New Zealand on June 2^nd 1883. The Mercury newspaper in Hobart reported that she had received £154 from an appeal in the Mail newspaper and a further £50 from a Clifford Lloyd.

Some years later a Royal Irish Constable who was stationed in Ennis at the time believed that Francis Hynes was innocent. He recounted a different tale to the one that was both related in court and in the newspapers of the day. He stated that instead of lying by the roadside, or in the schoolhouse or being brought home immediately that John Doolaghty was taken by car to the local hospital. He was visited there by the local RIC Inspector Colonel Turner and it was he who identified Hynes as the killer by asking Doolaghty to squeeze his hand as he mentioned a number of suspects. There were other suspects including Francis Hynes brother but that Francis faced the hangman to save his married brother and allow his young family he have a father. Another suspect was a worker at the railway station in Ennis who had a run in with another member of the Doolaghty family.

Another prime suspect was a harness maker from Ennis who it was rumoured was paid five pounds to kill the farmer as part of the intimidation that was associated with the Land League. Immediately following the murder, this man fled the country to the United States. An anonymous letter also appeared in the Freeman Journal which is printed below with intimate details of the crime.

Reis's Chambers, The 1916 Rising, the Execution of Francis Hynes and Charles Reis - Part One

5.30p.m. Friday August 11^th 1882

Green Street Special Court, Dublin

Mr. John Walton, a respected solicitor from Ennis, County Clare sat down on the wooden bench after informing Mr. Justice Andrew Lawson that he had concluded the case for the defence. The judge smiled yet again, reached under his red robes and then took out his pocket watch at the end of the silver ornamental chain and opened the lid.

            ‘Members of the Jury it is late and I am instructing the Sub-Sheriff to take you for the night to a Dublin hotel perhaps I can recommend the Gresham, I have dined there often myself and it would be in keeping with the standard of gentleman serving on today’s jury’

The court rose to its feet, the Judge left and the prisoner taken down to the cells underground. The twelve men of the jury filed out and into a sparsely decorated jury room. The men patiently waited for a couple of minutes when the door opened and James Campbell, the Sub Sheriff under the Dublin City’s High Sheriff Edmund Gray MP, entered the room.

            ‘Honourable Gentlemen I am charged with your protection and to provide repose and refreshments for tonight at the direction of His Honour. I can offer you the fine facilities at The European Hotel or the Imperial Hotel’

            ‘But Mr. Justice Lawson recommended the Gresham’ interjected the jury foreman, forty year old businessman and merchant William George Barrett of Kingstown*.

(* Kingstown is now Dun Laoghaire)

A number of the men spoke against staying at the Imperial Hotel as they believed that it was frequented by the rebellious nationalists and supporters of the Charles Stewart Parnell Roman Catholic dominated Irish Party. They suggested as did Mr. Justice Lawson the Gresham Hotel on Upper Sackville Street* or the Shelbourne Hotel located on St. Stephen’s Green. Some of the jurors even suggested that they would rather spent the night in the court house as was with previous juries than go to the Imperial Hotel. But with the introduction of the Prevention of Crime Act and the moving of cases such as murder cases from the assizes in the country outside Dublin, juries were being afforded better treatment in a belief that they would be more conducive to giving the prosecution the desired result. After some heated discussion, Campbell ended the chatter.

            ‘Alright Gentlemen of the Jury as you have rejected the European, I will be taking you to the Imperial.’

The Imperial Hotel was located on Sackville Street and the European Hotel was located on Bolton Street.

(* Upper Sackville Street is now O’Connell Street)

The twelve unhappy men were transported by horse drawn coaches accompanied by Mr. Campbell, two bailiffs John Williams and George Strong and four Dublin Metropolitan Police constables James Caffrey, James Donnelly, Robert Young and Michael Carey. Also with the protection detail was James Campbell Junior son of the Sub Sheriff although not officially court appointed. The coaches traveled along the River Liffey quays as far as Carlisle Bridge* and turned right down Sackville Street passed the recently completed statue of the Emancipator Daniel O’Connell. The coaches stopped in front of the Imperial Hotel that overshadowed all of the buildings on that side of the street. Opposite the hotel was the façade of the General Post Office and between the two on the central meridian named Gardiner's Mall was the impressive one hundred and thirty four feet high Nelson’s Column granite and stone structure. The twelve men and their escorts entered. The men many of them wearing black frock coats, while others wore three piece suits topped with tall hats and walking sticks entered the lobby and waited to be taken to the floor that was assigned to them although there was no room assignments.

(*Carlisle Bridge is now called O’Connell Bridge)

The Imperial Hotel itself was located on the upper floors over McSwiney’s and Delaney’s Mart*, one of the first purpose built shopping malls in Europe opened in 1853 in time for the Dublin Exhibition. It was an impressive four storey structure modern for its day. In 1882 the Hotel was operated by William Lawlor. When James Campbell arrived at the hotel reception he spoke to the manager whom he had dealt with in the recent past. He told the manager that a floor should be cleared for them and that food should be provided for the jury and their protection. He also informed the manager that drink could be served in moderation. This would be good business for the hotel.

(*McSwiney’s and Delany’s Mart is today Cleary’s Department Store)

The jurors were taken to the third floor where all the rooms had been cleared but for two guests William O’Brien and Elizabeth Carberry. It was just after six p.m. and after freshening up, the jurors traveled back down one flight of stairs to a dining room to have pre-dinner drinks.

1881

Lissane and Knockaneane, Ennis County Clare

For a number of years John Doolaghty had worked as a herdsman for the Hynes family on their seventy acre farm but in post famine Ireland and at the height of Land League efforts to get a fair deal in rents paid by native Irish to Landlords, the Hynes family struggled to keep their farm financially viable. In 1878, the Hynes family rented out the grazing parts of their farm to James Lynch of Lissane. Head of the family John Hynes, a solicitor in Ennis in an attempt to keep the family from being evicted resorted to criminal activities and after being suspected of forgery fled the country leaving his wife and sons to look after the homestead. In 1880 the Hynes family were evicted from their farm and it was sold to James Lynch.

Francis Hynes took particular offence to this loss of the homestead even though he would not have been the beneficiary of the land as it would have gone to his married brother William and especially when he discovered that John Doolaghty had decided to stay on the farm as a herdsman for the new owner. Francis Hynes was a twenty three year old, six foot three fit young man who felt hard done by when Doolaghty would not agree to a boycott of the James Lynch farm. On February 4^th 1881, young Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Captain Hugh McTernan when he was accused of intimidating and attempting to bribe the Doolaghty family. These events followed a meeting in the town of Ennis addressed by the Nationalist MP Charles Stewart Parnell.

On taking over the farm James Lynch whose fortune was someone else’s misfortune had driven twenty three cattle onto the land and the Hynes brothers arrived and drove the cattle onto the road and threatened to take them further if there was no settlement with Doolaghty with regards to him quitting the employ of James Lynch. James Lynch although now in receipt of the farm had no quarrel with the Hynes family as they had proved honest and fair in their dealings with him in the previous years and they had prior to that been good neighbours.

Despite being bound over to the peace, Francis Hynes was suspected of being in a party that attacked the Doolaghty home and fired bullets into a cabinet shattering a number of plates. On another occasion, the grass on Lynch’s farm was cut in the middle of the night and stolen and in October 1881 shots were fired at Lynch himself as he herded some cattle through a field.

On Sunday July 9^th 1882, John Doolaghty and his wife Elizabeth known locally as Eliza left their home and attended Mass in Ennis. After Mass, Eliza went to visit the local convent while John set off on the walk home on that bright summer’s day.

 7p.m. August 11^th 1882

Dining Room, Imperial Hotel, Sackville Street.

Having made the arrangements with the manager and given details of where the invoice should sent, Campbell left for his own home on Rutland Place to have his dinner leaving John Williams and his son in charge of the members of the Jury.

The jury chosen for this case were forty year old William G Barrett a Distiller and mineral water merchant from Kingstown* who was chosen as the jury foreman. Forty five year old Royal Bank, Smithfield branch bank manager Richard Barbor from Rathmines and member of the Church of Ireland. The oldest member of the jury selected was Richard Carey of Lansdowne Road a retired gentlemen who professed to be a Protestant. Church of Ireland members William Gibson of Ormond Quay, fifty one year old plumber William Macklin of Kingstown and James Maconchy of Rathgar. Also selected was Dominic Street based Land Agent resident of Rathgar Edward C Hamilton. He was thirty five years old and a member of the Church of Ireland congregation.  Twenty eight year old Ephraim Phillips was a draper and hosier of Grafton Street a Methodist who would later become a rates collector in the city. John Beatty, forty one years old and a carpet manufacturer with a shop on Grafton Street and a Presbyterian. He was the co-founder of ‘Millar and Beatty, Carpet and Oil Cloth Warehouse’ who also had an office at Number Five Grafton Street. Grave E. Seabright, fifty four of Pembroke Road, Church of Ireland and William Wardropp of Great Brunswick Street* a Presbyterian. Wardropp was involved in building materials and construction sales who resided at Hamilton House on Ailesbury Road. The twelfth and final member of the jury was Scottish born Charles L Reis a jeweler on Grafton Street who was of the Jewish faith.

Charles Lionel Reis was born in Liverpool in July 1849 eldest son of Jonas and Elizabeth Reis. He married his first cousin Elizabeth in 1872 but she would pass away in 1915 after producing nine children, eight of whom survived. In June 1916 he married Christine McKay in Glasgow. In the 1870, Reis came arrived in Ireland having opened stores in Glasgow, Sheffield and Birmingham. He opened his first Dublin store on Westmoreland Street before moving to 115 Grafton Street and opening a second store at 6 Lower Sackville Street which would be vacated for the Dublin Bread Company and Reis’s moving to the corner of Lower Abbey Street. Reis’s company would also open a shop at 85 Patrick Street, Cork City. Reis’s business was destroyed in Dublin and he would pass away in Glasgow in 1927. For the duration of his time in Dublin, Reis lived at 1 Ailesbury Road in the affluent leafy suburbs of Ballsbridge and Mount Merrion.

Of the twelve members of the jury three did not drink whether by choice or belief, Ephraim Phillips, Richard Carey and William Macklin. The group gathered in the dining room and pre dinner drinks were delivered but it was not just the jury having a drink but all their guards would be consuming alcoholic beverages. It was the first opportunity for the gentlemen to get to know each other socially. They formed into small groups, some talking about their business, others about their personal lives and others discussing the case.

The pre-dinner drinks consisted of the following,

William Barrett         Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor        Glass of Wine

William Gibson         A half glass of Gin and Bitters

James Maconchy     Glass of Sherry

Charles L. Reis        A half glass of Gin and Bitters

Grave Seabright       A half glass of Sherry

William Wardropp   A half Glass of Gin and Bitters

None of the other members of the Jury had a drink before dinner. But the jury were not the only ones having drinks before dinner. The men of the protection detail were also drinking as they took it in turns of three to eat while the others watched the jury members. The drinks served to the protection detail were as follows

John Williams               A half glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A half Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A half glass of Whiskey

Robert Young               A half glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A half glass of Whiskey

The conversation was light hearted and warm as they sat around the table and sipped their drinks as they prepared for the evening meal. Most of the men were business men and discussion often veered towards their various occupations and perhaps what they could do for each other once the trial was over.

2.30pm July 9th 1882

The Road at Knockaneane

John Doolaghty attired in his Sunday best tweed suit was walking along the country road home when he met local man Cornelius McCormack who walked and chatted with him between Rossleven Cross and Guaria Cross where they parted and John Doolaghty continued alone along the road home. Suddenly from the bushes jumped a gunman in front of a startled Doolaghty and fired a gun at closed range into his face with the shot damaging much of the left side of his face and some shot penetrating his left eye and penetrating his brain. He collapsed on the road. Doctor Daxon, a doctor at the Clare County Asylum was first on the scene driving on his way home and moments later from the opposite direction came local butcher Michael Considine. They attempted to treat the wounds of the injured man at the side of the road. Shortly after 2.30p.m. Eliza was making her way home when she met a young man running along the road fetching water who informed her that he husband had been shot. She hurried along to the scene of the crime and knelt beside her injured husband cradling his bloodied her in her lap.

She immediately demanded that a priest be summoned. At 3.20p.m. Doctor Daxon left to fetch local curate Reverend J. Loughnane who returned with him and had obtained a flask of whiskey which he brought with him from the rectory. With some water Eliza wiped the blood from her husbands face and a small amount of whiskey was placed on the lips of the injured man but he had problems swallowing. She later recounted to the investigating magistrate that she asked her husband who shot him and she said that he had said ‘Francy’.

Reverend Loughnane began to give the dying man the last rights. He said in court that the man seemed to follow the act of contrition but that he was struggling in and out of consciousness. The priest believed under oath that the man was in a coma. After delivering the priest Doctor Daxon left again for Ennis and informed the local police of the incident. A large force of policemen headed for the scene of the crime.

First on the scene was Constable Richard Doyle followed shortly after at 4.30p.m. by Captain Hugh McTernan RM, sub Inspector Croghran and police surgeon Doctor William Cullinan. According to early reports when Constable Doyle arrived they moved the injured man into the nearly National School of the road and out of the elements and that is where the injured man was when Captain McTernan arrived. But in a number of court appearances the Captain would under oath claim that the injured man was still by the side of the road and that he ordered the constables to break in the door of the school only to fetch a pen and paper for a dying declaration. McTernan said that he asked who Doolaghty who had shot him and that he replied ‘Francy Hynes’ and that he asked ‘was it Francy Hynes who shot you?’ and Doolaghty replied  ‘yes’ this despite both Doctor Daxon and Reverend Loughnane stating that Doolaghty was both incoherent and unconscious.  McTernan swore that he wrote a dying declaration on a piece of paper for Doolaghty. “I John Doolaghty believing that I am dying, declare that Francis Hynes killed me by firing shots at me” and that when he repeated the declaration and showed it to Doolaghty that he replied ‘yes’.

The injured man was then taken home where he was tended to by Dr. Cullinan and his family. He succumbed to his wounds and died on Monday night at 10.15p.m.

July 9th 1882

Hassett's Public House, Barefield

Constable Doyle was despatched to arrest Francis Hynes whom they were informed could be found in Hassett's public house in the nearby village of Barefield. Constable Doyle said that he found the suspect eating outside the bar and that he seemed to him to be intoxicated. Francis Hynes was twenty three years old and athletic in build in his six foot three inch frame. The son a local solicitor who had himself ran foul of the law on charges of forgery. They owned a farm at Drumdoolaghty but it the tough economic times of post famine Ireland and at the height of the land leagues battle for fair rents for tenants, the family let out the grass on their farm to James Lynch in 1878 and 1879. The following year financial matters overtook the Hynes family and they were evicted from their farm in 1880 for non payment of rent. The farm was then sold to James Lynch who maintained the employment of the herdsman James Doolaghty much to the displeasure of the Hynes family. In February 1881 Francis Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Hugh McTernan for twelve months for intimidating and attempting to bribe James Doolaghty. The intimidation included the cutting and stealing of the grass on the farm in the middle of the night and the opening of gates and allowing Lynch’s cattle to roam free on the roads.  In September 1881 a group of armed men including members of the Hynes family raided the Doolaghty family home on the farm and fired a number of shots in an attempt to get Doolaghty to boycott the employment of Lynch. Even the sound of shattering delph did not stop Doolaghty faithfully serving his master as he too had a large family to feed and needed the work. In October 1881 shots were fired at James Lynch as he herded his cattle from a field. Much of the Hynes’s frenzy was whipped up following an impassioned speech in Ennis by the leader of the Irish party Charles Stewart Parnell.

When he was searched he found some gun powder and buck shot in his pocket and a pair of dry socks. He claimed that in appearance that his boots were grey as though they had been through water and his socks seemed wet and were up over the bottom of his trousers. Hynes immediately denied any hand or part in the shooting and that he could not have done it as he was in the bar at the time of the shooting and that from the time of the shooting to the time he arrived in the pub he would not have had the time to make the four mile journey. The police claim that there was a stream between the scene of the crime and the place of arrest and that it why his boots looked wet that he made his escape through the stream.

The landlady of the house and three customers claim that Francis was drinking with them at the time of the murder. He claimed that at the time given for the murder he was entering the bar and would not have had the time to make it from the scene of the crime to the pub in the allotted time. Francis Hynes was taken to the police barracks in Ennis. 

7.30p.m. August 11^th 1882

The Dining Room of the Imperial Hotel

The jury were eating dinner and another round of drinks were served while they were eating. There was sherry, whiskey and a bottle of Claret served. The drinks orders were as follows

William Barrett              A Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor             A Glass of grog

John Beatty                  One and a half Glasses of Sherry

William Gibson             A Half Glass of Sherry

Edward Hamilton          A Glass of Whiskey

James Maconchy          Two Glasses of Sherry

Charles Reis                 Three Glasses of Claret

Graves Seabright          A half glass of Claret

William Wardropp        A Glass of Sherry and Three quarters of a glass of Whiskey

The other three jurors only had water with their dinner.

The protection detail also ordered drinks with their meals as follows

John Williams               A Glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A Bottle of stout

Robert Young               A Glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A Glass of Whiskey

After the plates were cleared another round of drinks were ordered by some of the jury members and Charles Reis ordered a bottle of champagne and four glasses for himself, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Maconchy and Mr. Wardropp. He tells his fellow jury members that having a bottle of champagne after his lunch was a regular occurrence if he were at home. William Gibson ordered a glass of beer and Graves Seabright had another glass of Claret. Some of the men began to smoke cigars and there was discomfort amongst some of the older members and the non smokers as the room quickly resembled a harbour fog scene. As chairman of the jury, Mr. Barrett asked the guard at the door if there was somewhere else the men who wished to smoke could go. After some discussion and a suggestion from Charles Reis, six of the jury, half of them, were escorted down one floor to the hotel’s billiard room by two constables and a bailiff. On duty in the room was the hotel’s Billiard Marker Alfred Martin.

Four jury members remained talking in the dining room and Richard Barbor and William Macklin retired to bed early at 9.45p.m. and 10p.m. respectively. Mr. Barbor spent his time after dinner reading a copy of The London Times and retired to bed when a member of his family had delivered his nightclothes to the reception of the hotel and they had been passed onto him by one of the Constables. At 9.30pm Mr. Campbell arrived in the dining room and passed the remark to Mr. Beatty that jurors now had so much liberty compared to olden days when they would have been locked up in the sparse and unaccommodating surroundings of the Green Street Courthouse.