Maolra Seoighe — The Innocent Man Sentenced To Death — nobetterdan.
In 1882, when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, a local family (John Joyce, his wife Brighid, his mother Mairéad, his daughter Peigí and son Micheál) were found murdered in Maamtrasna. The village lay on the border between the Counties of Galway & Mayo. Authorities thought that the murders occurred over a local feud to do with sheep hustling and the Land War
8 men in total were convicted for the murders, including one man named Maolra Seoighe (Myles Joyce in English).
Out of these 8 men, three were condemned to death. Maorla (who was a father of five), Pat Casey and Pat Joyce.
The London-based magazine, The Spectator, wrote the following on the events:
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.
The Case Goes to Court
The court proceedings happened within Galway itself — in a language that the convicted men did not understand (English). And with a solicitor from Trinity College, Dublin, who did not speak Irish.
The three men were executed by hanging in Galway by William Marwood (a British executioner who would also develop the “Long Drop” method of hanging. Wherein the condemned person’s neck would break, killing them by asphyxia while unconscious. This was seen as the more “humane” method).
Well over 100 years later, a researcher named Seán Ó Cuirreáin was looking through the British archives. He stumbled upon a startling discovery:
John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, who at that time was the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was found to have “compensated” three witnesses. The three received the sum of £1,250 — ~€161,000/~$187,000 in 2020 rates.
This fact has now made modern scholars believe that this was a miscarriage of justice.
Maolra Seoighe Receives a Pardon
On the 4th of April, 2018, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on the advice of the then-government, issued a pardon to Maolra Seoighe — some 136 years after his death.
President Higgins was quoted as saying:
“Maolra Seoighe was wrongly convicted of murder and was hanged for a crime that he did not commit.”
This became the first Presidential Pardon to happen for a crime that had occurred before the foundation of the Irish State in 1922. Only the second pardon to happen after someone was executed.
Originally published at https://nobetterdan.com on January 27, 2022.
