Irishcriminology.

com

(Cursai Coireolaiochta Na h-Eireann)

Created By

Seamus Breathnach

10. A Short History Of

Capital Punishment
In
Ireland

Studies In Irish Criminology:

Books 8 -13

10.) Capital Punishment

= = =
10. Capital Punishment

10.a. Bk.8: Last of the Betagii

10.b. Bk. 10:A Short History of Capital Punishment in Ireland:

Vol. 1: The Evil That Men Do

10.c. Bk.11: A Short History of Capital Punishment in Ireland:

Vol. 2: The Nineteenth Century Female Calendar

10. d. Bk. 12: A Short History of Capital Punishment in Ireland:

Vol. 3: Petty Traitors

10.e. Bk. 13: A Short History of Capital Punishment in Ireland:

Vol. 4: Infanticide Or The Mercy Miracle

10.f. Bk. 9: A Short History of Capital Punishment in Ireland:

: The Penology of Samuel Haughton

== = = =

Sile, Sean and Seamus

Sean: I think there has been some confusion under the heading of
Capital Punishment. Could we straighten that little matter out
before we proceed with WebPage 10?

Seamus: When one is doing research things have a habit of

rambling. I can’t remember when I stopped researching stuff on the
topic of Capital Punishment in Ireland. A few years ago I was to
give a lecture in Criminology at a conference held in Seoul – I
chose to lecture on the execution of Mary Daly in 1903. She was the
last Irishwoman to be hanged under the British Administration.

2
Elsewhere I have carelessly referred to this case as the last hanging
in Ireland. What I meant to say was the ‘last hanging in Ireland
under the British Administration.’

Even though the tour was postponed, I continued to develop the

inquiry and it spread from the 1903 case, to all or most of the cases
in the twentieth century. And then, since I had researched the
nineteenth century, I took it up again, and so on in an expanding
fashion. Having gathered the notes together, I decided to write a
history of Capital Punishment, but what I had was not really a
‘history’, and yet it had to be something like a history. So, I called it
A Short History Of Capital Punishment In Ireland.

And I am not sure it is even that. What I am sure of is that the

notes now extend to some six works. In the series of Studies they
extend inclusively from Book 8 to 13 and are entitled as set out
above.

Sean: All six deal with a different aspect of Capital Punishment.

The Evil That Men Do clearly deals with the male gene, the
aggressive gene according to Dr. Dawkins. Is that the line you take
in the book?

Seamus: Partially. The business of compiling stuff in Ireland takes

up most of one’s energies. Long before one can get to the plateau
from which one can make social or criminological statements, much
too much effort has gone into the business of collecting the data –
data, which one might imagine, the Department of Justice should
have on tap! (Bk.10): The Evil That Men Do, therefore is an
account and an analysis of twentieth century male executions. The
executions here are so numerous that they could well be extended
into two volumes, but for fear of absolute mayhem, it will remain as
one volume.

Sean: How many executions are we talking about anyway – from a

historical viewpoint, that is? By what degrees has the use of
execution as a means of social control diminished in the armoury of
the state?

Seamus: Much depends on asking more precise questions. At this

stage the numbers ascribable to capital punishments in Ireland is
very much like the business of accountancy. If you want to see our
social values set out as in a Balance Sheet or the Trading profits,
you may examine ‘Garda Statistics’; but be prepared for the
discretion of ‘creative’ accountants in churning out whatever they
feel you ought to know. It all depends upon the questions you ask
and how precisely you ask them. So, could you ask me again?

3
Sean: I asked you how many executions there were in Ireland?

Seamus: When? For the Nineteenth century?

Sean: No, for the Twentieth century.

Seamus: You mean for the whole century? Or do you mean either
for the North or the South? Or do you mean North and South
combined after as well as before 1922…

Sean: OK. I get your meaning.

Seamus: So, do you want to rephrase your question? Or, maybe it

might be better if I made a few preliminary remarks. We are mostly
interested in the Twentieth Century – by which we mean, not just
the incidence of execution, but the incidence of murders, capital
sentences, and then commutations and executions in respect of the
three periods 1900 – to 1921/22; 1924- 1954; and the Interregnum
period of the War of Independence and the Civil War. Having said
that, I should also say that we are interested in judicially and civilly
determined cases – not military ones.

Sean: I suppose one has to be conscious of Northern Ireland as

well?

Seamus: Again, whether to include the figures for Northern Ireland

or not comes into play, as well as whether, again, borderline
military (IRA) executions should be included.

Sile: I suspect you have to make provision for men and women.

Seamus: Actually that is the easiest part, if you remain with the
executions themselves. When you venture into collecting the
numbers of sentences and commutations, then things are a bit
more difficult.

I suppose the best introduction to the question of capital

punishment – at least in so far as it concerns us presently -- is to
regard it through the historical aspect. There is the broad estimate
that there have been some five and a half thousand executions in
the British Isles since 1800 up to the time of their abolition. This
figure, it seems to me, is a reasonable guesstimate taken from the
following very useful website
:
http://www.geocities.com/richard.clark32@btinternet.com/irel
and.html

4
 We have no general dispute with the figures given for Ireland
and we highly recommend the website as informative and for the
most part accurate. If we find fault, then the faults we find are
more matters of detail and lack of content rather than with anything
declared. That said, however, one should remember that we intend
a much more social analysis than that which passes off as a string
of names and dates of executions.

These details have been taken no doubt from institutions that

scan the digitised press for information as well as from government
and other educational organisations which work to make these
figures available. The problem for us is the contribution made by
the Irish to these figures.

Sile: Of the 5,508 executions for the British Isles, how many people
do you say were executed in Ireland?

Seamus: Since the 1800 we believe the Irish contribution to the

five and a half thousand has been in the order of 2,000 as
computed below.

5
Sile: So, some 1,500 males and 19 females were executed in
Ireland in the first 29 years of the nineteenth century. Is that a
guess?

Seamus: It is an estimate, but one badly compiled from press

cuttings. It is therefore perfectly inaccurate, but at the same time it
is inaccurate in a very calculated way. In other words, it awaits
improvement by others and I would expect such amendments to be
minor rather than major. The figures for the period 1830-50 are
much the same, but at the same time tend to be more reliable and
accurate. And the figures for the period 1850-99 are, again, more
reliable accurate.

Sean: This brings us into the twentieth century, during which you
say there were some 47 cases, 17 before 1922 and 30 between
1924 and 1954. Is this not a very low figure as representative of
what actually happened? I mean… everybody knows that the
Provisional Government in the Interregnum of the Civil War
executed at least 77 persons. So how do you come by a mere 47?

6
Seamus: Our concern (except for stated cases) is exclusively
concerned with cases that have been judicially tried in a civil court.
We are not unduly concerned with military or quasi-military affairs.
Put it another way, we believe the military cases should receive a
mention, but they distort the judicial magnitudes that we need to
unearth first of all and then analyse exclusively as judicial and civil
cases.

Sean: Still, there are some good Web-Sites out there at the
moment, and one of them enumerates some 164 cases for
twentieth century Ireland.

Seamus: Quite correct, and I highly recommend such sites. But if

you look at the citation to which you refer, it states unequivocally
that ‘There were 164 executions in Southern Ireland during the
20th century’.

Sean: If I understand this computation correctly, there are 165

persons executed and they computed herein.

Of the 102 persons executed and bracketed above, it is interesting

to note that 91 were shot and 11 were hanged. But my primary
question remains: How does your number of 47 cases square up
with this overall figure of 165?

Seamus: Our concern – as already stated -- is for judicially

adjudicated cases. Why? Because the weight of reasoning behind a
court civilly constituted interests us more from a social and a
sociological standpoint. When people are at war, passions and
propaganda are spread like flying locusts. By definition sides are
already assumed, and the combatants already know for themselves
who is right and who is wrong. Between combatants at war, the
object is simple; each side wishes to destroy the other. They hold
no great rationale for us, no sustained discourse and no
criminological persuasiveness as regards the civil social aspect. You
could get the same results by watching a cockfight. Admittedly, with
the modern military the technology is infinitely more sophisticated –
one has only to think of WW1 and WW2 --, but from a criminological
viewpoint, the antagonists at war have declared their aims and their
ends from the outset. Consequently, any question of further guilt or
propriety can have little or no social significance. And this is why we
are not so concerned with military or non-civil, non-judicially-
determined cases. Moreover, amongst those cases that are civilly
tried, our preference is for cases tried by way of judge and jury.

Sean: OK. So, which of these figures would you be concerned with?
Take the first entry. Dennis Baker says categorically: ‘twelve men

7
and one woman were hanged under British civil jurisdiction between
1900 and 1911’. Do you agree or disagree?

Seamus: I agree and disagree.

Sean: Not again!

Sile: Please explain.

Seamus: Between 1900 and 1911, there is no ‘ Southern Ireland’ –

at least not such that it makes any political sense to talk about it.
We therefore prefer to talk about the period 1900 to 1921/2.

Sile: So, you are saying that your tables concede that there were
twelve men and one woman – that is, thirteen people -- executed
between 1900 and 1911.

Seamus: Yes, thirteen and more. We calculate that there were 17

executions between 1900 and 1922 and they all occurred between
1900 and 1911.

Sean: Why do you say that they occurred between 1900 and 1922,
when they occurred between 1900 and 1911?

Seamus: This time-period 1900- 1911 is valid if one merely recites

the names and dates of executions. But if we want to go further
with our analysis and, say, compare these execution-figures with
the numbers of commutations that occurred between 1900 and
1922, the period 1900 -1911 doesn’t work. We may also wish to
known, where possible, the overall number of capital sentences
handed down over the period. In this respect, while the execution
numbers involved did occur between 1900 and 1911, there were
further cases after 1911 in which capital sentences were handed
down and no executions followed. These cases were civil in nature
and are to be distinguished from those, which came under the
charge of Treason and were associated with the 1916 firing squads.

Sile: Even still, how does one square the number thirteen with the
number 17? Either you or this WebPage is in error?

Seamus: Possibly, but as it happens, I don’t think so. All that has
happened, it appears, is that the WebPage put the number of those
cases, which went through Belfast into a separate compartment –
the same compartment that they compiled for Northern Ireland
after the 1922 Treaty – whereas we see no reason to do this until
after the Treaty itself. In other words, they assume that ‘ Southern
Ireland’, as a politically independent place is in operation since

8
1900. So, while the WebPage in question quotes thirteen cases
between 1900 and 1911, it quotes 16 cases for Northern Ireland
throughout the century. With one or two minor differences, we
quote much the same number, but in different categories. They use
different categories than we do. (Needless to say, we use different
categories than they do.)

Sean: Can you say which cases you refer to?

Seamus: Certainly. The WebSite entitled Capital Punishment U.K.

<http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/contents.html >
takes the following five cases from where they should be, for all
happened in Southern Ireland before the Treaty. And we, naturally,
have no reason to exclude them.

11/01/1901 William Woods Belfast

05/01/1904 Joseph Moran Londonderry
22/12/1904 Joseph Fee Armagh
20/08/1908 John Berryman Londonderry
19/08/1909 Richard Justin Belfast

Sean: Ah, yes. But the number 17 differs from 13 by four cases.
You cite five cases.

Seamus: Quite correct! And if you examine the WebPages above

quoted for ‘ Southern Ireland’ and Northern Ireland, you will find –
what it took me some time to discover.

Sean: Which is?

Seamus: One of the cases has been double counted -- as belonging

to both categories. Would that incidentally account for the 164
computing at 165?

Sean: So, what are you saying? It seems to me that if those five
Northern cases have been included, as you have included them,
then there would be 18 cases, not 13. How do you explain that?

Seamus: The WebPage in questions recites13 cases, 12 men and

one woman between 1900 and 1911. It took out the Northern
Ireland cases –

Sean: Yes. It took out five cases!

Seamus: No. It took out five cases and one of them it also left in.
As I have said, it double counted one of the cases. Whereas, if it

9
had taken out the five cases without double placing any, it would –
should – have claimed that there were only 12 cases of execution
between 1900 and 1911. Now, 12 plus five, equals????

Sile: And now you are saying that all those cases (15, plus 102)
really apply to a war-type situation and do not qualify for analysis,
as they have not been judicially and civilly determined cases?

Seamus: We are concerned with them – but yes, they do not come
into our analysis proper.

Sean: Ok. So the number of executions between 1900 and 1921

was seventeen, 16 male and 1 female. What then about the last entry,
the 35 cases?

It is unequivocally stated that ‘Thirty-five people, including one woman, were

hanged for murder between 1922 (after Ireland had achieved independence)
and 1954’. Do you agree with that figure?

But that’s five not four. Five from 17 leaves twelve. So how did he
arrive at 13? Look to his Southern Ireland figures, and we find:

So, what do we have included that he hasn’t?

He DOUBLE COUNTED JOSEPH MORAN (LONDONDERRY CASE) IN

THE NORTHERN IRISH SECTION AND THE SOUTHERN IRELAND
SECTION

SO, WHAT THEN ARE OUR FIGURES?

1900-1922 17

1924-1954

Thirty-five people, including one woman, were hanged for murder between 1922
(after Ireland had achieved independence) and 1954

If five of these are IRA, then we should have 29 in the south, but
we really have thirty. But since Moran is double counted, he really
means 34 – 5 =29

And it has nothing to do with Simon McKeown. Except that we have

to take him out and put him in Northern Ireland. This will give us a
figure of 52 instead of 53. So, 52 less five gives us our best figure
of 47 executions in the South of Ireland 1900 – 1954.

10
 Total number of executions in Northern Ireland during the 20th
century: 16. Or is it 16 –5 = 11: and that includes McGeown of
NI???

Date Name Prison

11/01/1901 William Woods Belfast Bridget McGivern
05/01/1904 Joseph Moran Londonderry Rose Ann McCann
22/12/1904 Joseph Fee Armagh John Flanagan
20/08/1908 John Berryman Londonderry William Berryman,
Jen Berryman
19/08/1909 Richard Justin Belfast Annie Thompson
17/08/1922 Simon McGeown Belfast Margaret (Maggie)
Fullerton
08/02/1923 William Rooney Londonderry Lily Johnston
08/05/1924 Michael Pratley Belfast Nelson Leech
08/08/1928 William Smiley Belfast Margaret Macauley,
Sarah Macauley
08/04/1930 Samuel Cushnan Belfast James McCann
31/07/1931 Thomas Dornan Belfast Isabella Aitken,
Margaret Aitken
13/01/1932 Eddie Cullens Belfast Achmet Musa
07/04/1933 Harold Courtney Belfast Minnie Reid
02/09/1942 Thomas Joseph Williams Belfast Patrick Murphy
25/07/1961 Samuel McLaughlin Belfast Nellie (Maggie)
McLaughlin
20/12/1961 Robert McGladdery Belfast Pearl Gamble

All were for murder. There were 12 executions at Crumlin Road

prison, Belfast, 3 at Londonderry and 1 at Armagh. (A total of 17
men were hanged at Crumlin Road prison between 1854 & 1961).
Albert Browne, a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA),
was found guilty of killing a member of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary (RUC) in October 1972 for which he was sentenced to
death but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. William
Holden, who had killed a soldier, was the last person to receive the
death sentence in Northern Ireland and his was also commuted.
The death penalty was later abolished as part of the Emergency
Provisions Act.

== = =

Seamus: Obviously our concerns take in the first figure of 13

persons hanged. But this figure only accounts for executions
between 1900 and 1911. We are concerned with the period 1900

11
and 1922. And even if there have been no executions carried out
during this period, capital sentences have been handed down. And
this is of interest to us, because we do not want to remain with a
collection of names and dates of executions, which, however
necessary as a first exercise in the analysis of executions in Ireland,
is merely a beginning, not an end in itself.

Sean: Well, what about the last figure of 35 executions. According

to the WebSite,

‘Thirty five people, including one woman, were hanged for

murder between 1924 (after Ireland had achieved
independence) and 1954…’

But the last figure of 35 hanged. And even in the figure of 35

hanged, five of them relate to IRA personnel and political crimes.
The remainder poses a difficulty as to whether they should be
included or not. In any event, we leave that until we have to deal
with it.

= =

In this last entry we have taken uncritically from a very useful site
indeed, which states that ‘ There were 164 executions in the Irish
Republic during the 20th century’.

Sean: Yes, but they count up to 165, not 164.

Seamus: Yes. Perhaps 165 were intended. Anyway, we have no

reason to take issue with this number or this site, which we highly
recommend to all. We should point out, however, that our concern
is somewhat different. We are only interested in persons who have
been executed as a result of civil and judicial process, not those
arising out of either civil war, the war of independence, or the
respective IRA campaigns, or military tribunals howsoever etc. Later
on, we shall be forced to choose between cases, which overlap in all
kinds of ways between the civil and the military jurisdiction. But
this has always presented a problem, just as the exact time break
between legitimate governments presents a dilemma as to whether
fringe cases should be included or not. When, for example, does the
one jurisdiction leaves off and the other take up the count? For the

12
moment, therefore, we have included the figure of 165 executions
for ‘20th century executions in the Irish Republic (Eire).

Interestingly, according to Mr. Dennis Baker, of the 102 who were

executed during the Irish Civil War, 91 were shot and 11 were
hanged, whereas in a 6-month period (November 1922 – April ’23)
75 persons were shot by firing squad by the 26 county provisional
government. Of course much of these executions had been know
before, but they were never given a full calendar.

The following sites are to be recommended:

http://www.geocities.com/richard.clark32@btinternet.com/irel
and.html

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/contents.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_MacBride

Seamus: By way of a provisional table, the following magnitudes

can be used as an overall perspective of our concerns, even if we
can be sure that they are not accurate. The number of persons
executed is exact, but the numbers who were in receipt of
commutations is infinitely trickier. So, what we can say is that these
are minimal figures and not too removed from what the real figures
probably represent. And we will see this when we go through the
tables for each period.

Sile: Of course it might be preferable to leave out the Northern

Ireland figures altogether and concentrate on the South.

Seamus: It is our preference to get a picture – a close picture and

a comprehensive picture – of most if not all of the crimes that
generated these executions.

Sile: What about the female murders and executions?

13
Seamus: (Bk.11): The Nineteenth Century Female Calendar
and (Bk.12): Petty Traitors are two accounts of female
executions, the first, a monograph or rather a calendar and
reconstructed accounts – mostly drawn from contemporary
newspapers -- of those hanged in the nineteenth century. The
focus, of course, is narrow, but it has never been done before and
without the hard and sometimes simple facts, students feel
somewhat in the dark about the actual numbers of those capitally
punished, and how it was used as a widespread mechanism of social
control.

The second work, Petty Traitors, a more substantial work in ways, is

an attempt at a very short history of the subject, incorporating an
analysis of received notions of Irish womanhood from the
perspectives of crime, punishment and executions. Because

14
murderers were executed and because most women, when they
killed, killed their husbands, the figures for the one approximate the
other. In other words, women were mostly executed for killing their
husbands (or their children). So, it seemed appropriate to call them
Petty Traitors, as husband-murderers were once regarded

Sean: What then about (Bk.13): Infanticides Or The Mercy

Miracle? Where does that fit into the picture?

Seamus: The Mercy Miracle tries to describe the nature of

infanticide and the role (to my mind the decisive role) it played --
first in diminishing the biblical view of capital punishment and
secondly in subverting it as a means of social control. Needless to
say, the Irish were nowhere leaders in either the scientific
development of alternative views on capital punishment or on the
humanitarian belief in mercy. Nevertheless, the descending order of
historical mercy by which the Irish came to let go of Capital
Punishment is itself a kind of imitative miracle, but a miracle no
less.

Sean: When, by the way did we get rid of it?

Seamus: Quite recently, I’m afraid. But, as I said, we no sooner let

go of it than we wanted to tell the world that we would never
introduce it again.

Sean: Even in time of war?

Seamus: ‘Even in time of war.’

Sile: That’s what really annoys me. In it I find that old Catholic
nonsense again. W couldn’t convince ourselves (for ‘us’ read ‘RC
Church and the Department of Justice’) to get rid of it, and then,
belatedly, when we came round to the idea, we wanted the world to
know how humanitarian Catholicism really is. We almost make the
case that we were the originators of such mercy. (The soccer
metaphor again!). It’s a bit like the Department of Foreign Affairs,
in their latest move to set up a place, where everybody in the world
can come and do a ‘Peace Process’.

As the Irish independent reported on Monday, July 21, 2007

“ FOREIGN Minister Dermot Ahern has set up a conflict resolution unit in his
department and asked it to report in the autumn. He has thereby signaled a
new stage in Ireland's long-standing involvement in peacekeeping operations
worldwide, a stage in which we can use both our domestic and our
international experience.”

15
We are now selling the ‘Peace Process’ – Who is it that has such
gall? Who is it that imagines that we are so important that we can
solve other peoples’ problems, when we couldn’t solve our own?
Believe it or not, the Minister actually mentioned East Timor. Is that
a clue to who it is that has the hard-neck gall to try and push the
Christian conquest on the back of the Irish peace process?

A few years ago, buoyed by the Red Cross, the Irish Catholics went
around the world moaning about how evil East Timor was, torturing
our own priests and precipitating on behalf of the RC Church the
invasion by the Australians. Now ‘us Irish’ want to set up a kind of a
Conference Centre - A Conflict Resolution Centre – no less. We
want to mediate between the East Timorese and Indonesia and, at
the same time, nudge the old Christian Conquest as we speak and
speak and speak…. When you have finished shooting them and
bombing them, give them an Irish Christian education: that’s the
RC way! And that’s the Irish way! As long as we remain
insufferably Catholic, we Irish must remain suspect throughout the
world for the phonies we are. Under the guise of being world
‘arbitrators’, we, the noisiest little terriers out in the Atlantic, want
to teach people – no doubt through the medium of Christianity –
how to attain peace.

Sean: Whatever about East Timor – and I accept that having sold
time by way of indulgences for the Church, we would sell anything
by honesty and the capacity to analyse anything fairly – why do you
say that we were phonies in getting rid of capital punishment?

Sile: Do you not remember? We no sooner banished its remnants

from the Constitution, than there was this pious and thoughtless
statement to the effect that we will never do it again. Do you not
remember the last REFERENDA? It’s true that there was a problem
with the manner in which it was given to the public. Despite the
efforts of the press, and the best will in the world – the voters spent
most of their time just trying to understand what was involved.
They had little time left to look back and assess the historical import
or merit of any of the amendments. Even the referendum on the
death penalty - which one might have expected to be easy – was
thrown in among complicated data. Apart from the NICE
amendment we were asked by the then Minister for Justice, Equality
and Law Reform, John O` Donoghue T.D. to vote on a draft Bill
providing inter alia for a constitutional amendment to delete
references to the death penalty, that is, to delete articles 13.6 and
40.4.5 (the 21st Amendment of the Constitution – on a Blue Ballot
Paper), and to prohibit the re-introduction of the death penalty
under any circumstances even in time of war (and for that purpose

16
to amend Article 28.3.3), and a new section establishing an
International Criminal Court (the 23rd Amendment of the
Constitution - on a Pink Ballot Paper)

For most – if not all - of these items one instinctively felt there was
widespread agreement. But like most things in Irish life, widespread
agreement was sustained in the absence of detailed examination.
And it is this lack of examination more than anything else that was
so disappointing about this battery of received European wisdoms.

Sean: Were you one of the speakers enlisted at the time?

Seamus: I was. I remember speaking about it at length, mostly

expressing my surprise that the debate lacked any real passion or,
for that matter, conviction. You must remember that because it was
a Constitutional Amendment, they had to get speakers like me to
talk about it. One couldn’t really find people – few of them, at any
rate – who were against the death penalty. Anyway, I was
genuinely surprised that we Irish were enacting into law a condition
whereby we would never use Capital Punishment, even in
circumstances where war was raging -- and the enemy was
resorting to capital punishment. It sounded a bit ludicrous, I felt a
touch hypocritical. While I was generally against the use of capital
punishment, I felt that we were making this constitutional
amendment in order to make some religious/political statement to
Europe – namely, that we Irish are really a merciful, trustworthy,
civilised people, the type of people you might trust the rotating
leadership of the EU to. Of course, at this time Bertie hadn’t handed
over ‘chairmanship’ to Barusso and no one had heard of Professor
Buttigleone, the late Pope’s friend. What we didn’t really want to
say to Northern Europe, a people who protected the rights of
homosexuals against Buttigleone and the Catholic Irish, that the
death penalty was used here as late as 1985/6 to frighten the wits
out of people, here we were – not just denouncing it, but
denouncing it with a particular relish. In other words we didn’t really
want to admit to Europe what we can’t admit to ourselves: Ireland
is as liberal as the Catholic Church allows us (including all
Departments of State) to be. As if Europe doesn’t know our
predicament! As if Europe doesn’t know whom the Irish really are!

Sean: Even still, it was a good thing to do, don’t you think?

Seamus: Only if we meant it?

Sean: But we meant it so much that the government moved it as a

constitutional amendment. You can’t get more serious than that?

17
Seamus: Oh, yes you can. You can actually talk about it.

Sean: Well, why we wanted to get rid of it hardly needed much

talk. As you just said, we held onto it so long, it was an
embarrassment. And in any event, we needed to rid the bits and
pieces that remained of it in the constitution. Moreover, there is
hardly a government in Europe, which by law compelled a balanced
discussion on the subject, is there?

Seamus: No. On this quirk of Irish experience you are absolutely

correct. And it obviously points up two things. One is the felt need
to compel discussion, and this can only be legislated for when it is
admitted that there is an absence of debate, an absence of
competing interests. In other words, it was meant to safeguard us -
- as best the legislators could --against the awful homogeneity that
obtained in Ireland, even by the very legislators who wanted to
enforce debate.

Sean: And the second point?

Seamus: The other point is how we see remedial action in the form
of legislation rather than some other way. To enact something like
this is to enforce an artificial virtue in place of a spontaneous
reaction by the public. And this was visible in the ‘debate’, where
the Press couldn’t at this stage find people who were against the
removal of capital punishment.

Sean: But according to you, you would not expect the Irish people
to be against its removal. And yet you now admit that the Press
could not find people to retain anything to do with the death
penalty. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical on your part?

Seamus: But that’s just it. To be against the use of capital

punishment having retained it so long on the statute books, one
would expect to find some people still around with the conviction
that it might be retained in some circumstances. But no. Practically
everyone was against retaining anything to do with the death
penalty. Even those who were against the death penalty were
against it in circumstances where the enemy was using it against
us. This is a rather curious volte-face. The absence of any real
debate on this aspect of things surely makes one think that there
was no real debate at all. It was just the mechanical work of a
governmental policy decided long ago and far away…

Sile: It was a non-debate.

Sean: But maybe Irish people have little interest in the subject.

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Seamus: But isn’t that every bit as bad as having no debate at all.
Getting rid of the existing remnants of capital punishment in the
Constitution is understandable. But even still, one might have
expected a historical review of why we kept it on after the British
left in 1922, why we hanged Annie Walsh in 1925, and why we kept
hanging males up to 1954, why we retained it as a sentence up to
the mid-80s. Surely these weighty things require of a civilised
society some sense of debate amongst themselves (without the
pulpit getting its oversized ladar istigh all the time). When, in other
words, do Irish people speak to Irish people without the
confessional ear of the Priest? When do we make the visible effort
to grow up to the world of secular discourse? And what happened –
historical, I mean – between the declared stance on capital
punishment as enunciated in 1948 by Cearbhail O’ Dalaigh and the
abolition of capital punishment?

Sean: Well, that’s another story. We did it and that’s that.

Seamus: Not quite. We got rid of the old bits and pieces. Can you
tell me where was the debate was and who first moved the further
idea that ‘even in time of war’, we would never resort to capital
punishment?

Sean: To tell you the truth I don’t know. And if you say there was
no debate whatsoever in the Dail or elsewhere else about it, then I
will accept what you say. What this means for Irish society,
however, is another matter. And I feel I understand where your
indignation is coming from. You feel that a society that eventually –
after centuries – gives up the use of capital punishment should
show, through debate and reflection, the real reasons why. And this
should be so, because it is upon them that the people share the
new values and one knows that one will not bring the old values
back so readily. Coupled with that, in the case of us Irish, however,
is the further anomaly that while we give up the use of capital
punishment without such a reflective debate – without, as it were
taking national stock – we plunge themselves into a new state and,
again without assessing things or drawing upon some discourse
with self, we make the most outlandish statement for constitutional
inclusion. I understand your indignation perfectly, but isn’t it a good
thing rather than a bad one, even if we never quite measure up to
assuring ourselves of our own intentions?

Sile: Well, if it is so good, will you please explain the fact that we
no sooner stick this nonsense into our constitution, than Mr Bush
gets on World Television to assure us and the world that he is going
to ‘smoke them out’, ‘run them down’, and to kill all those enemies

19
with weapons of mass-destruction like his own? Indeed, in his
second campaign even John Kerry (the good guy!) had it as part of
his campaign that he would also run down terrorists and ‘kill them.’
Explain to me the wisdom of our constitution when we no sooner
sign the constitutional amendments than we are drafted into the
USA’s capital punishment programmes. Everyone knows – or ought
to know – how uncivilised the Americans are in this regard. They
have no history of saints and scholars, or they, too, might know,
that men will always have their dignity, and that holy men are the
greatest terrorists of all. And, if they realised anything about
history, the first thing they would know, or ought to know, is that
the threat of death does not solve a thing! Indeed, it is probably
why we have so many suicide-bombers.

Sean: Do these suicide-bombers not scare you?

Seamus: Not as much as those who show them such indifference.

If European history has taught us anything, it is that if people are
prepared to kill themselves systematically, then they have been
abused to that end – and they are hurting so badly that they need
to be given care and attention – not the reverse! Does no one recall
the suicide pact of Masada in Jerusalem in the year 70 or the
hunger strikers in Belfast in 1981? The moral is the same: and it
might have helped if someone told George Bush about those simple
historical incidents. Tony Blair (the Pope’s man) could have done it;
but like the Christians in Jerusalem, he probably believed that it was
prophesied, if not by God then by Benedict XV1. In any event, the
atavistic indifference that has been shown to suicide-bombers is
probably the worst index of American barbarism that I can think of.
Quantanimo Bay, Death Row, and the other indignities that the
Americans occasionally parade upon television are not compensated
for by the rhetoric of democracy or the fear of weapons of mass
destruction. And the trappings of world policemanship shown by the
British and the Americans are not to be condoned. Did the Irish help
in this and related enterprises by Romano/Anglo/America? What do
you think?

Sean: What then about (Bk.8) Last Of The Betagii?

Seamus: Last Of The Betagii is an account of the second last

execution of a woman in Ireland, or, if you like, the last execution
of a woman under the British Administration. It contains singular
and astonishing features, which demonstrate the accumulated
history of the Holy Family, and how those who instituted it, Pope
and Prince, left this peasant woman from Doonane with little or no
options either to defend herself or her two children. Mary Daly is, in
many ways, the continuation of Alice Kyteler. It has much to say

20
about Irish womanhood, capital punishment, and the weaknesses of
the Holy Family.

Sean: So, it only deals peripherally with capital punishment, or,

rather, it deals with it in a singular and particularly factual way.
What then about
(Bk. 9) The Penology Of Samuel Haughton?

Seamus: Haughton, Like Tyndall, as you know was a Carlovian. He

was an extraordinary man, whose people came form Killeshin – not
far, by the way, from Doonane, on the Leix/Carlow border. He was
a Quaker, as were his people – but he was also an extraordinary
scientist. As part of his much wider interests and passions he set
about making ‘hanging’ more humane, so he cast his very
discerning mind on what has been commonly known as ‘The Drop.’
And why Haughton has never been known as ‘The Drop-Haughton’
is a bit of a mystery. Anyway, the rise-and-fall-of-the-drop (if you’ll
excuse the pun) is the theme of Haughton’s penology.

Sean: Are all these works finished, by the way?

Sile: Not likely!

Seamus: Mostly. But I am afraid I have the unfortunate habit of

breaking the back of something and then, just before finishing it,
turning off, and leaving it to finish itself. So, in one sense they are
all finished; in another, some of them need to be polished. In either
event, I am your most eager correspondent.

Sile: You are not my most eager correspondent.

Sean; Nor mine either.

Sile: Most disappointing, more like.

Sean: And I agree.

Seamus: Well the, so long as one is good for something!

Your most disappointing correspondent,

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