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Dublin’s darkest deeds

Thursday, 10 July 2008

A NEW book written by a historian who specialises in crime and military history, takes a look at murders, robberies, riots, frauds and libels that have taken place in Dublin over the last 300 years.
Dublin is described as a city of “paradoxes, opposites and conflicts” in ‘Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Dublin’, by author Stephen Wade, who deliberately leaves out crime related to political upheaval and dissensions.
However, there is still a long and fascinating tale of crime in the story of what Wade describes as “a wonderful, energetic and cultural city”.
The case of ‘Murder and Mayhem in Malahide’ deals with the discovery of six bodies in a burning house, known as ‘La Mancha’, in 1926.
Suspicions were quickly aroused regarding the man who first discovered the fire, gardener Henry McCabe.
It became obvious that the bodies inside the house bore dreadful wounds.
It was also ascertained that someone maliciously started the fire and an empty can of paraffin was discovered.
Henry McCabe was arrested and tried for the crimes. It took a jury just 50 minutes to find him guilty as charged and the death sentence was passed for December 9, 1926.
However, there was a desperate last minute appeal that was heard on November 23, 1926, but it came to nothing and hangman Thomas Pierrepoint executed Henry McCabe.
Samuel Beckett later fictionalised the murderous exploits of the gardener in his book, ‘More Pricks Than Kicks’, in 1934.
‘A Fight Over A Play’ concerns the staging of John Synge’s ‘Playboy of the Western World’ in the Abbey Theatre in 1907 that resulted in the audience rioting.

On the opening night, there was some hissing and booing among the audience and on the second night the police were called to the theatre to keep an eye on things.
However, people were infuriated with Synge’s comment on morals in the West of Ireland at the time and riots actually broke out in the theatre that resulted in up to 500 police being called to quell the situation.
The police present were reported as being “as thick as blackberries in September”.
‘The Lord Santry Trial’ details the events that took place in 18th century Dublin at the Hell Fire Club.
The club had acquired the name, ‘The Devil’s Kitchen’, and the rascals associated with it were called ‘bucks’.
They were often the bored sons of the aristocracy who engaged in drunken sexual orgies.
One of the leading lights of the Hell Fire Club was Lord Santry, a 29-year-old infamous aristocrat. He caused an outrage when he stabbed a servant, Laughlin Murphy, to death with his sword.
Following the incident, Santry simply tossed the landlord of the tavern - where the incident occurred - a coin and implied that the whole thing was better hushed up.
But that didn’t happen. Santry was tried for the death of Murphy and found guilty by his peers, causing a major scandal in those times.
However, Santry never went to the scaffold; he was awarded a full pardon.
The Duke of Devonshire, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had been largely responsible for petitioning King George 11.
If Santry had gone to meet his death, it would have been a beheading. Instead he lived to carry on his rakish life.
He was attainted, which meant he had to forgo his estate, but that was returned to him after the pardon in 1740.
A year after his pardon, Santry travelled to see George 11 in person and thanked him face to face.
On Lord Santry’s death his title became extinct.
‘Liberty And Ormond Boys’ – The Liberty Boys were a gang gathered from the weaving community that was based around the Coombe area of Dublin.
Another gang, ‘The Ormond Boys’, was involved in the butchering business and hailed from around the Ormond Market area.
The two gangs were extreme and zealous enemies and involved in many vicious and murderous gangs fights around Dublin during the 18th century.
One of the most intense and violent periods for these clashes was in 1748 when there were fights every night in the Aungier Street and Phoenix Park areas.
On one occasion in the Phoenix Park, the Liberty Boys captured a butcher and a report of the time states that the victim was “hacked in so terrible a manner that he is past giving any further disturbance to the public”.
But as with all gang warfare there was vengeance and the Ormond Boys slammed a weaver on a meat hook on St Audeon’s Gate as an act of revenge.
Some of the gang members made their way to England where they displayed a similar fondness for violence.
One of the leaders of the Dublin riots, Thomas Quinn, a buckle-maker, joined a London gang, became involved in major crime and was eventually hanged at Tyburn Gallows.
‘Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Dublin’ by Stephen Wade is published by Wharncliffe Books and priced at £10.99 sterling.
For further information visit www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

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