Maolra Seoighe (English: Myles Joyce), was an Irish man who was wrongfully convicted and hanged on 15 December 1882. He was found guilty of the Maamtrasna Murders and was sentenced to death. The case was heard in English without any translation service, though Seoighe could only speak Irish. He was posthumously pardoned in 2018. [1] [2]
Maolra Seoighe was the most prominent figure in a controversial trial in 1882 that took place while Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Three Irish language speakers were condemned to death for the murder of a local family (John Joyce, his wife Brighid, his mother Mairéad, his daughter Peigí and son Mícheál) in Maamtrasna, on the border between County Mayo and County Galway. It was presumed by the authorities to be a local feud connected to sheep rustling and the Land War. Eight men were convicted on what turned out to be perjured evidence [3] and three of them condemned to death: Maolra Seoighe (a father of five children), Pat Casey and Pat Joyce.
Covering the incident, The Spectator wrote the following:
The Tragedy at Maamtrasna, investigated this week in Dublin, almost unique as it is in the annals of the United Kingdom, brings out in strong relief two facts which Englishmen are too apt to forget. One is the existence in particular districts of Ireland of a class of peasants who are scarcely civilised beings, and approach far nearer to savages than any other white men; and the other is their extraordinary and exceptional gloominess of temper. In remote places of Ireland, especially in Connaught, on a few of the islands, and in one or two mountain districts, dwell cultivators who are in knowledge, in habits, and in the discipline of life no higher than Maories or other Polynesians. [4]
The court proceedings were carried out in a language they did not understand (English), with a solicitor from Trinity College Dublin, who did not speak Irish. [3] The three were executed in Galway by William Marwood for the crime in 1882. The role of John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, who was then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, is the most controversial aspect of the trial, leading most modern scholars to characterise it as a miscarriage of justice; research carried out in the British archives by Seán Ó Cuirreáin, has found that Spencer "compensated" three alleged eyewitnesses to the sum of £1,250, equivalent to €157,000 (by 2016 rates). [3]
To date, the Spencer family and the British government have issued no apology or pardon for the executions, though the case has been periodically taken up by various political figures. The then MP for Westmeath, Timothy Harrington, took up the case, claiming that the Crown Prosecutor for the case George Bolton, had deliberately withheld evidence from the trial. In 2011, two sitting members of the British House of Lords, David Alton and Eric Lubbock from the Liberal Democrats, requested a review of the case. Crispin Blunt, Tory Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Prisons and Youth Justice, stated that Seoighe was "probably an innocent man", but that he would not be seeking an official pardon. [3]
On 4 April 2018 Michael D. Higgins, the President of Ireland, issued a pardon on the advice of the government of Ireland saying "Maolra Seoighe was wrongly convicted of murder and was hanged for a crime that he did not commit". [5] It is the first presidential pardon relating to an event predating the foundation of the state in 1922 [6] and the second time a pardon has been issued after an execution. [5] The case of Maolra Seoighe is not an isolated one, and there are strong similarities with the case of Patrick Walsh who was hanged in Galway jail on 22 September 1882 just three months before Maolra for the murders of Martin and John Lydon. The same key players and political factors were active in both cases and his conviction is just as questionable as that of Maolra
In September 2009, the story featured on RTÉ's CSI programme under an episode entitled CSI Maamtrasna Massacre. [7] A dramatised Irish-language film regarding the affair, entitled Murdair Mhám Trasna, produced by Ciarán Ó Cofaigh was released in 2017. [8] [9]
The Phoenix Park Murders were the fatal stabbings of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, on 6 May 1882. Cavendish was the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland and Burke was the Permanent Under-Secretary, the most senior Irish civil servant. The assassination was carried out by members of a republican organisation known as the Irish National Invincibles, a more radical breakaway from the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
William Marwood was a British state hangman. He developed the technique of hanging known as the "long drop".
David Milgaard was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.
Lough Mask is a limestone lake of about 83 km2 (32 sq mi) in Counties Mayo and Galway, Ireland, north of Lough Corrib. Lough Mask is the middle of the three lakes, which empty into the Corrib River, through Galway, into Galway Bay. Lough Carra flows into Lough Mask, which feeds into Lough Corrib through an underground stream which becomes the River Cong.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
Timothy Charles Harrington, born in Castletownbere, County Cork, was an Irish journalist, barrister, nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party he represented Westmeath from February 1883 to November 1885. In 1885 he was elected for the new constituency of Dublin Harbour, which he represented until his death in 1910. He served as Lord Mayor of Dublin three times from 1901 to 1904.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
Albert Pierrepoint (1905–1992) was the most prolific British hangman of the twentieth century, executing 434 men and women between 1932 and 1955. This table records the locations of each of the executions he participated in, the numbers in brackets being the number of executions he was assistant executioner at, the other numbers are those in which he officiated as chief executioner.
Edward 'Doc' Byrne was a journalist and newspaper editor, fl. 1880–1884.
The murders of John Lydon and his son Martin Lydon occurred in Letterfrack, County Galway, Ireland during the Irish Land War.
Tadhg S. Seoighe was an Irish writer.
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Ciarán Ó Cofaigh is an Irish film director and producer.
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Events during the year 2018 in Ireland.
The Lough Mask Murders were the murders on 3 January 1882 of Joseph Huddy and his grandson, John Huddy, in the townland of Upper Cloghbrack, County Galway, on the southern shore of Lough Mask in the west of Ireland. Joseph Huddy was the bailiff for Arthur Guinness, Lord Ardilaun, a major landlord in a region where agrarian disturbances of the Land War were prominent. The victims' bodies were weighed down and concealed in the lough itself. The controversial lack of credible witnesses led to four well-publicised trials of the accused in December 1882.
The New Zealand Criminal Cases Review Commission is an independent Crown entity that was set up under the Criminal Cases Review Commission Act 2019 to investigate potential miscarriages of justice. If the Commission considers a miscarriage may have occurred, it can refer the case back to the Court of Appeal to be reconsidered.
Events during the year 2021 in Ireland. As in most of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated events in Ireland during this year.