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- Herausgeber: Mercier Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
Bizarre tales of murder and investigation in the drumlins, valleys and towns of Monaghan in the nineteenth century, based upon a casebook just recently discovered that has never been lodged in any archive anywhere. This is NEW information and highlights such cases as: The Illigitimate Half-Sisters Of Oscar Wilde - Emily and Mary Wilde died tragically at Drumaconner House while dancing by the fire - their deaths are kept quiet so as not to shame Sir William Wilde. The Legend Of The Sleepwalking Nun - Sister Mary Keogh is discovered drowned in the Convent lake near the Crannog - to this day, local legend tells the story of her death.
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Seitenzahl: 793
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2004
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Melancholy Madness
A Coroner’s Casebook
Michelle McGoff-McCann
4
To my husband, Ryan ‘And once again we come forth to dance amongst the stars’
Contents
Acknowledgements
I am grateful, not only to Jimmy Wells for his good judgement in saving Waddell’s casebook in the nick of time from a burning pyre, but to the man to whom he gave the book, his nephew, the late Mr James McCrory (1925–1999) formerly of Hillsborough, Co. Down. James McCrory’s son and daughter-in-law, Allister and Angela McCrory, and his loving wife, Violet, speak of how James cared for the old faded brown book, taking it out of its case on occasion to read some of its stories of tragedy; likely contemplating the fate of those recorded on its pages. I have been fortunate enough to gain their permission to look through its faded pages and share its stories.
It is a pleasure to thank the many persons who helped me create this work although it is likely to be impossible to thank them all here. My many thanks to the librarians and museum staff as well as those organisations and agencies who helped guide me to their many publications, documents and collections: The National Archives of Ireland, Dublin: Senior Archivist, Tom Quinlan and his staff who helped me find the right materials and have allowed me permission to print the wonderful collection of photographs from the Penal Records; Queen’s University Belfast, specifically those at the science, medical and main libraries; The National Library, Dublin; Trinity College Library, Dublin; Valuation Office, Dublin; The National Photographic Archive, Temple Bar, Dublin; The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast; The Linen Hall Library, Belfast; Ulster-American Folk Park, Omagh; Local History Library, Armagh; Enniskillen Library, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh; Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Holywood, Co. Down; Registrar’s Office, Deaths, Births and Marriages, North-Eastern Health Board, Monaghan – Mary Lenehan and Suzanne Cronin; Central Statistics, Cork – Gary; Lisburn Linen Museum, Lisburn – Brenda Collins; The National Union of Journalists, Dublin; and the staff at 10the Co. Monaghan libraries, Clones and Monaghan. Special thanks to Faber and Faber, London, for kindly granting me permission to reproduce a letter by John Butler Yeats.
To those I interviewed for more personal information about their knowledge of history and family: William Joyce Topley and Thomas Norman Topley; Professor Clarke, Royal Victoria Hospital; Molly Skeath; Tommy Crow; Nora Campbell; David O’Daly; my friends and clients at Solas Resource Centre; Des Fitzgerald; and especially to Theo McMahon and Maire O’Neill who first introduced me to the photocopies of the coroner’s casebook and allowed me to use their private collection of microfilm to begin my research. Additionally, for his generosity and offering his camaraderie in research, thanks to the Revd Mr David Nesbitt and his wife Elsie.
For contributing their professional ideas, information and time: Dr Martin Watters, North Monaghan Coroner for all his candour and in-depth discussion regarding the nature of the coroner’s office; Dr Brian Farrell, Dublin City Coroner for his support and critique of the duties of the coroner’s office in the nineteenth century and sharing his work from his publication, Coroners: Practice and Procedure (Dublin, 2000); Dr Myrtle Hill, lecturer in the Institute of Lifelong Learning and head of the department of Women’s Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast, for her expertise and review of women’s issues in the nineteenth century; Dr Denis A. Cusack, University College Dublin for contributing research; Brian Kennedy, Curator, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Co. Down for explaining the intricacies involved in building the railway; forensic researcher, Cristy Ettenson, New York City.
To those who read drafts of the book, in whole or in part, and offered me their comments, I am especially grateful.
To Patrick McCabe for his support, advice and most of all, for understanding the goals and objectives of this book. He is a generous and talented man.
Warm thanks to Mercier Press for their interest and patience with this publication. 11
I am fortunate to have surrounded myself with a supportive family and close friends who have continued to encourage and support this endeavour throughout the past few years: my husband, Ryan McCann, Mom, Mayor Nancy Hurley, Dad, Mr Kevin McGoff and my brother, Kevin McGoff, Linda Koerbel McGoff, Thomas Hurley, Kathy McGoff, Barbara, Jason, Jeff and Jacqui McCann, Geraldine Skeath, Henry Skeath, Jen Levy, Teresa Mushik, Blaithin and Tiarnach Ronaghan, Paula Nolan and Stephen Quinn, Kathy Quinn and Tony Sherry, Adrian Quinn, Caroline Quinn and Fil Barry Quinn, Bernadette Williams and the Williams family, Dennis Hunt, Geraldine Rooney, Catherine Mulligan, Amanda Brady, Helen Fitzpatrick, Alice O’Neill, Olivia Duffy, Michael Kavanagh, Thomas Shanahan, Grace Maloney, Patricia McElwaine, Seamus Casey and the Casey family of the Black Valley, Co. Kerry, Christine Jobson, Clodagh and Bernadette (Rush) McKenna, Peadar and Margaret McGeough, Kathleen Ward and Packy Ward, John Williams, Ann McCabe, Shane McNamee and Jill, Tony Quinn and Grace, Jason Williams, Larry Meegan, and my extended McGoff, Monroe, Roach, Hall, Byrnes, McCann, Skeath and McGeough families, my friends in San Francisco, California and those many people in the community in Monaghan town who have been good to me. Additionally, my gratitude to those who are no longer with us, Professor Milton Kessler, Binghamton University, Robert Bridges and Caroline Prospect of Binghamton, New York.
Thanks to all of you.
Michelle McGoff McCann
August 2003
Foreword
Chronicling the Soul along ‘the Permanent Way’
‘A ball through the heart might end my pain.’ I don’t know if those were the exact words spoken by Nathaniel Beatty, a twenty-six-year-old man who had been married for just two months in Kilmore West in 1861, not so very long before his wide-eyed bloated face broke the surface of the water in a well very close to his home; or if the cause of death was a broken heart. All we have to go on are the bald, prosaic facts and some rumours regarding an ‘unhappy union’.
Equally I am not privy to the innermost workings of a certain John Treanor’s mind when he, having fallen asleep while working on a tall building some sixty feet up from the ground, and being rescued by two fellow workers, decided some time later to climb back onto the roof, thereby hastening his untimely demise. Not long afterwards, Treanor was discovered by a William Grimley, impaled by railing spikes through the bowels and chest, on an otherwise unremarkable evening in the small town of Monaghan in the first month of the year 1872.
Did the gatekeeper of the Irish Northern Railway, his fallen body limp upon the tracks of ‘the Permanent Way’ (the name given to the railway track) yearn for that same ball of steel as the life ebbed from his body, the eyes turning in his head as he moaned: ‘Will no person lift me?’ before Ann Sheenan arrived to cradle his head, perhaps to recite the Act of Contrition into the dying man’s ear?
Such postulations, obviously, must belong in the realm of speculation, for who can claim to begin to be familiar with the arterial complexities that map the inner republic of any human soul; particularly when the subject walked the earth almost a century and a half ago?
The past, wrote William Faulkner, being far from irrelevant, is not even past. It seems pointless, even frivolous, to point this out in an age when vast armies once again are being massed in desert sands as they were in the days of Horace, Virgil and Ovid. But one could perhaps be forgiven for suggesting that society in the past twenty years or so, and nowhere more so than in Ireland, has become so taken 13with materialism and disposable culture that this inevitable, enduring truth has been, if not forgotten, then overlooked. Life changes but it does not change in the slightest. Perhaps even as I write, a broken-hearted soldier awaits someone to cradle his head, the ‘eyes turning in his head’, the sun, as it must, burning down upon this particular ‘permanent way’, another very familiar journey indeed. Except that, on this trip, the train doesn’t stop at Bundoran.
But, if we accept this, however strained metaphor for the itinerary that is our lot, its never-meeting tracks stretching far into infinity, there can be no better guide for us than the extraordinary character that is William Charles Waddell, whose life’s work within these pages is compiled and further investigated by Michelle McCann, who brings a modern sensibility to bear on some of his findings.
I cannot praise this book highly enough. And I think it would be a great pity if it were to be perceived as some workmanlike exercise in a purely local history, of which there are many. All of them valid in their own way. For surely, as Patrick Kavanagh, a better man than ever I’ll be, pointed out – all history must be local.
Inevitably, Melancholy Madness concerns itself with the habits and mores of the latter part of the nineteenth century. But more than anything, I think of it as a fabulous detective story, with more than a whiff of fogbound chilling Gothic. It is as though Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Maturin, Arthur Conan Doyle and a number of their more modern counterparts (such as Cracker played by Robbie Coltrane, for example), had joined forces to produce from a necronomicon of old, an enduring, entertaining, incisive illumination of human behaviour which happens to be set in Co. Monaghan, in the exotically named townlands of Tydavnet, Aghabog, Clontibret, Latton and Lacken.
For that is what one gleans as chapter after chapter unfolds this feeling of exoticism, of life lived in some faraway place that is vaguely troubling, familiar, a country one has visited in a half-forgotten dream. Except that when you’ve finished the book, you feel you know it inside out, which of course you do, as you ought to, because you’ve been reading about yourself. You look into the mirror one day to see 14your great-grandfather looking back out, into the future and out of the past, in the words recorded by William Waddell every day of his thirty-two years in the county.
In the strict scheme of things, William Waddell wasn’t a detective, even if that’s how he appears to me, tentatively shining his pencil of light as he cautiously negotiates the Monaghan darkness, our innermost longings that lie swathed in shadow. Whenever death had occurred, it was his job to hold an inquest to determine its cause. To this end he would work with police, clergy, physicians and grieving relatives, interviewing witnesses, ordering autopsies and samples of tissue for analysis, as well as organising juries to evaluate the evidence.
In all, William Charles Waddell investigated the circumstances surrounding the deaths of almost 900 persons who perished in nineteenth-century Co. Monaghan, recording his findings and experiences in a most remarkable casebook, which Michelle McCann has drawn on, thereby in her own right creating yet another remarkable work which ought to be required reading not only for students of the period but for anyone interested in human behaviour and the mysteries that attend this journey we make, from the beginning to the end, to the end of the beginning, from A to Z along this ‘permanent way’.
The material is magnificently organised, broken up into a series of immensely readable chapters, each dealing with a particular aspect of Waddell’s work – whether infanticide, suicide, dangers in the home, death by misadventure, strange and unusual occurrences, etc.
Time and again one uncovers little nuggets: the book can be read in sequence or viewed as an eccentric ‘lucky dip’ in which yet another aspect of social and psychological behaviour is revealed. For many years I had been fascinated by the story of ‘the Sleepwalking Nun’, which was current when I was a student in Monaghan, and apparently, still is. Where did it come from I would wonder and why in this particular form? Its raison d’être is simply and concisely explained here and one’s heart cannot but go out to the unfortunate sister herself and the generous, protective souls who dreamed up the tale as a means of protection, both for her and the community.15
I’m not going to tell you any more about them here. You’ll have to read the book to find out for yourself.
Michelle McCann has done us all a great service in discovering William Waddell’s casebook – I had certainly never heard of it before – and employing her fine sense of editing and scholarship in distilling the material within to present it to the general reader.
Melancholy Madness is Robert Louis Stevenson with a dash of Rosa Mulholland. It is James Clarence Mangan with a goodly portion of Patrick Kavanagh. It is Charles Kickham with Charles Maturin. The Hungry Grass bleeds into The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is entertaining, erudite and perceptive. It is scholarly and wise, accurate and fastidious; and many other things I don’t have the time to name.
But, more than anything, it is a work of love for a place and the people who make it unique, whose private history more than deserves to be written. Within these pages, it most certainly has been, with a rare and commendable eloquence.
Patrick McCabe
Introduction
This book began as my imagination and interest peaked having read through, over and over, the catalogue of sad tales of death recorded by coroner William Charles Waddell. While contemplating just exactly how these tales might be presented for others to read, one of the darkest days in history took place: 11 September 2001. It was then that I was again reminded of the significance of the last moments of life. It is the stories leading up to that moment, those details included in a coroner’s inquest, that are the most poignant for those left behind. The need for these facts is an ontological curiosity that we all share. It is more than the wanting and needing to understand how death occurred – particularly in sudden, unusual, unexplained or suspicious ways – it is a quest for answers to help us understand our own lives and, under some unfortunate circumstances, to get justice for the dead.
I called this book Melancholy Madness, having read one particular inquest, that of a young woman named Jane Divine. The only facts recorded in the brief account of her death were that she was twenty-two-years-old, a servant to James Fiddes, Esq. and that she was in a physically weak state due to English Cholera, which, when combined with her inherited trait of ‘melancholy madness’, accounted for her drowning herself in Holywood lake. I was stunned. What was this melancholy madness that she suffered from? My first inclination was to define her medically, clinically. She suffered from depression. But what were the factors contributing to this state of mind, those which drove her to commit suicide? Was it truly mental illness or a chemical imbalance – as we classify such persons today – or rather, were there other possible reasons for her fateful decision?
I became a sociologist, a historian. I knew that women in Victorian times were considered biologically inferior to men, unable to handle such issues as love affairs, spousal arguments, grief and ultimately 17‘emotions’. Further research showed that servants were often subjected to the unwanted attentions of the master and his other male visitors and were usually isolated from friends and family. Now I became a detective for the dead, the buried, the forgotten. The possibilities for her suicide became endless and Jane Divine weighed heavily on my mind. I found myself creating scenarios, piecing together the few details of her inquest with academic research, information from novels of the time and my own creations of what happened that fateful day in 1872. I was hooked.
William Charles Waddell, Esq, was a man whose life was dedicated to recording and investigating death. He had the unfortunate task of working as a coroner during the Great Famine; he watched the massive population decline due to emigration and ultimately saw the darkest effects that these events had on those persons who remained in the country. Waddell was on the front-line of brutality, viewing and inspecting the bodies of murdered infants; the bruises and open wounds of wives beaten to death; men murdered in passionate rages, hit in the head with rocks, slaughtered with knives or cut down with guns. He also visited the homes where death occurred under suspicious circumstances, within families, where it was likely that the murderer was interviewed and stared Waddell in the face while telling their fabricated tale of the last moments of their victim’s demise.
These were tumultuous times in a country that saw much death, sadness and trouble. Waddell’s casebook is a valuable collection of stories from a county, but more so of the country. These atrocities did not just happen in Co. Monaghan, they were occurring all over Ireland. This collection is special because it is an uninterrupted record of his travels, from townland to townland, mangled corpse to breathless body. It tells not only the stories of death, but the life and experiences of a nineteenth century Irish coroner.
Cataloguing and investigating death is an unusual task and was even more so in a time before formal protection and preservation of the corpse; when the general populace adhered to strict customs and rituals of waking and burial; and when there was disharmony between 18the law and the public, who distrusted this intrusion of their privacy in their time of mourning. However, we can now gain much remarkable information from these inquests about how people lived – their diet, clothing, chores and duties in the home, work on the railway and in the mills, alcohol consumption, social activities, marriage patterns, family strife and violence, games played by children, religious and political activities, the treatments, herbs and medicines given to the sick and dying and old names for locations within the county.
When reading Melancholy Madness, my hope is that readers will be intrigued by the facts presented but will also gain more understanding about the lives and deaths of the people in these pages. Some of you may find some new insight into understanding your own Irish ancestors and may remember a whispered story or secret, that, although dismissed, may now be revisited and reconsidered as a version of the truth. And for those who just like a good mystery or murder novel, take these facts presented in the coroner’s casebook and develop your own theories as to why some of these unfortunate souls went to a world beyond ours – from time to eternity.
Michelle McGoff-McCann
Chapter One
The Coroner and His Casebook Inquests, Investigations and Autopsy
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic.’
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
The Casebook of Coroner William Charles Waddell is an exceptional collection of historical information capturing the circumstances surrounding the death of almost 900 persons who perished in nineteenth-century Co. Monaghan. By examining this text, we are able to get a clearer picture of both life in post-famine Ireland as well as the duties and responsibilities of the coroner. Waddell was not a medical man, but a gentleman acting as an investigator, solicitor and judge. Working with police, clergy, physicians and grieving relatives, he held a formal investigation to determine the cause of death of the deceased and considered the possibility of guilt or liability of a suspect who may have contributed to the final moments of the deceased. Waddell was responsible for interviewing witnesses, ordering post-mortem examinations as well as organising juries to evaluate the evidence. Autopsies conducted by country doctors were often mere observations of the dead corpse, or crude and quick dissections. Depending upon 20the state of the body, many cadavers must have been quite gruesome to onlookers – regardless of their years of experience.
The cases covered in the coroner’s career and the procedures by which Waddell obtained a cause of death help to create a profile of the man as well as a window into the procedures and reactions of those who contributed to gaining justice and closure for the deceased and their families.
Death Investigation
W. C. Waddell and the Office of Coroner in Ireland
The role of the modern coroner is to inquire into the circumstances of sudden, unexplained, unnatural and suspicious death. A coroner is an independent office holder with responsibility under the law for the medico-legal investigation into such deaths.1 It requires an evaluation of forensic information, such as autopsy or special analysis of organs and tissues, in addition to the testimony of witnesses with information, all of which can help reach a verdict. Although the coroner is often the first public official to hold a formal investigation into a death, contrary to public perception, he is not permitted to consider civil or criminal liability, let alone to determine such matters.2 He must simply establish facts. Without the coroner, public suspicion and doubt might be cast on every death that required further investigation by a judicial or public enforcement authority. The coroner’s role, by its very nature, protects the integrity of the deceased and in many cases, spares the relatives the pain of public mistrust and uncertainty.
The first coroner in Ireland is believed to have been appointed in the thirteenth century. Initially, the office was founded to limit the powers of the royal sheriff whose additional activities as a financial and judicial official had caused great resentment in and around Dublin.3 By appointing a coroner, the sheriff would not be able to make as much money in the preliminary procedures prior to going to trial. Not only was the office of coroner created to limit one person’s ability to profit from the investigation surrounding death, but also to uncover 21the truth. If a person were to profit greatly from say, a murder investigation, an inquest and a criminal trial, such as in the case of the royal sheriff, it is likely there would be more cases recorded and an increased possibility of corruption.
Over the centuries, reforms were made to maintain the integrity of the office. By the nineteenth century, although changes were made, corruption and extortion did exist. At a time when liability might be considered by the coroner and his jury, suspects contributing to the death could be held for an indefinite time in local jails until petty and assizes juries might consider more evidence. Coroners could be pressured by the local political climate and sway a jury towards a predetermined verdict. Salary and travelling expenses were increased, but some offices around Ireland had fallen into disrepute. It was during this time, from 1829 and 1908, that nine acts dealing specifically with the office of coroner were passed.4 The coroner was now empowered to order the performance of a post-mortem examination and to summon a qualified medical practitioner to attend an inquest for the purpose of providing a more accurate, expert and credible opinion into the cause of death.5 With the Coroner’s Act of 1846, coroners’ districts were defined in each county in Ireland in an attempt to cover each area of the country as completely as possible. At a time when communications and transport were limited, when news travelled by word of mouth and horse and cart, these districts were designed to ensure proper coverage.
William Charles Waddell, Esq., was appointed to the office of coroner on 24 April 1846. Not only was he starting his career as the only coroner for the entire county, it was also the early years of the Great Famine in Ireland. Soon realising that an impossible task had been set before him, he appealed to the county for the appointment of a second coroner to cover the southern region of Monaghan. Hugh Swanzy, Esq., was chosen for the position and working out of Castleblayney, covered the southern half of Co. Monaghan. Waddell’s region is most easily described as the northern half of Co. Monaghan, where he was to carry out his duties of investigating, recording and determining the cause of unnatural, sudden and suspicious deaths.622
Waddell lived in the townland of Lisnaveane in the parish of Tullycorbet, a landholding of almost fifty acres, where he rented to several tenants.7 He was born in 1798 as one of five children of James Waddell and Susanna Hope and his family was well-known in Co. Monaghan. William’s grandfather, Alexander Waddell was a leader of the Volunteers and his brother, Hope Waddell, was a noted Presbyterian missionary and scholar.8 W. C. Waddell was also a devout Presbyterian. It is likely he was selected to become coroner owing to his reputation as a gentleman, as well as for being a large landholder who resided within the district to be covered. It was not until the latter part of the century that the coroner was required to be a physician, barrister or solicitor. Therefore Waddell was considered a man who could be relied upon to faithfully attend the cases presented before him and to see that a proper verdict of death was reached.
He kept a casebook which he maintained in three volumes that spanned his thirty-two-year career from 1846 to 1878. Volume one (1846–1855) covering 408 deaths in Co. Monaghan during the famine, is now missing.9 Volume two, containing 861 inquests and inquiries into death from January 1856 to March 1876, is the casebook referred to throughout Melancholy Madness.10 Volume three covered the brief period from April 1876 until a few months before Waddell’s death in 1878. This volume is presumed missing or destroyed.
The inquests recorded in Waddell’s casebook follow a particular format. Except for those entries in his casebook that are mere inquiries – notes taken to record a notice of death or a short investigation when an inquest was not deemed necessary – all the inquests are numbered.11 An inquest is given two numbers, for example 4.290 or 4 (290). The first number (i.e. 4) is the number given to the inquest to distinguish it from one assizes to another. When an assizes was held, Waddell would submit his expenses for the inquests to the grand jury for receipt of his salary and reimbursement. The second number (i.e. 290) is the number of the inquest in relation to the entire book – a running total. In the margins of the book, at the side of each inquest, he recorded costs incurred for each. He kept careful record 23of various expenses that ranged from grave-digger’s fees to expenses for chemical analysis. It was vital for Waddell to keep accurate records in order to keep track of his expenses, fees and payments and he offered details under certain circumstances to justify the costs. The beginning of each inquest verifies the identity of the body, where the inquest took place and on what date. For example, ‘In the townland of Cooldarragh in the parish of Drumsnat, an inquest was held on view of the body of Philip Coyle’. Next, the depositions of witnesses who provided information as to the events surrounding the death are recorded. These persons were usually relatives, neighbours, physicians and anyone with additional evidence. At the end of each inquest, a verdict of death was determined. For example: ‘The verdict was death from apoplexy accelerated by previous habits of intoxication and a free indulgence of spirits.’12
Page from the coroner’s casebook. Each inquest was recorded and numbered with various expenses such as gravediggers’ fees and miles travelled, written along the margin.
24Carrying out the duties of the office of coroner was challenging, burdensome and sometimes exhausting for Waddell. Throughout his thirty-two-year career as coroner he investigated and organised inquests into the deaths of over 1,300 persons. His job was not an easy one. Viewing abandoned infants left by the roadside, their bodies half-scavenged by animals or the bloated bodies of the unfortunate and disturbed floating in canals and rivers are images not easily erased from the mind and memory. Besides viewing the lifeless shells of the destitute and starving, the poor and uneducated, the political and the religious, the educated and gentrified, old and young, grandparents and babies, as well as the victims and their violators, the duties of the coroner can more accurately be described as ‘services for the living’. One might imagine the importance of his presence when investigating the sudden death of a young woman dying in childbirth with her sobbing family standing around her body asking the doctors and coroner, ‘What went wrong?’ When investigating the circumstances surrounding a possible political murder, he might be confronted by an angry mob demanding to know if the deceased met his fate at the hands of foul play and who might be considered a suspect. Doctors and jury members were not always eager to participate and some high profile cases, such as the murder of an Orangeman or Fenian, required a strict adherence to procedure without allowing tempers and political beliefs to influence proceedings. Ultimately, when the coroner embarked upon an inquest, he travelled in a wake of doubt, suspicion and caution; yet by maintaining order and strict professionalism, an accurate verdict of death might be reached, instilling confidence in the public and allowing the living and the dead to rest in peace
Conducting an Inquest
Responsibility to a Curious and Suspicious Public
The duty of a coroner is to uncover the truth about the circumstances concerning the death of the deceased in cases of unnatural, suspicious or sudden death. The coroner must ensure that all the facts are ‘fully, 25fairly and fearlessly investigated’.13 He or she must determine: 1. the identity of the deceased; 2. the place of death; 3. time of death; and 4. how the deceased came by his death. These four objectives can best be remembered by asking ‘who? where? when? and how?’ The necessity of answering these four questions has remained the same throughout the past century. Of course, the ability to determine an exact time of death has become more accurate over the past two centuries as modern forensic techniques developed. Determining how a person died has become more precise with the development of new techniques in criminal investigation and forensic science.
Inquests are inquiries conducted by the coroner, with or without a jury, where the facts surrounding a death are evaluated and a verdict as to the cause of death is determined. Its purpose is to establish the facts and place those facts on public record.14 A contemporary coroner is first informed of the death by police and then makes arrangements for the body to be sent for a post-mortem examination. Depending upon the circumstances of the death, an inquest might not take place for several weeks or months. More than a century earlier, Waddell would have been informed of a sudden or suspicious death by the local constabulary immediately or as soon as possible. Having been notified, he had two days to hold an inquest. This was a short amount of time especially in complicated cases, such as suspicion of murder. If he failed to do so, any two local magistrates in the district could conduct the inquest themselves. In complicated cases, Waddell might begin an inquest for the purposes of having the body examined, laying it to rest and then adjourning until a later time as evidence and witnesses were gathered.
An inquest had to be initiated within two days of death primarily owing to the strict adherence to Irish traditional rituals of waking and burying the dead. Some practices regarding the dead are believed to go back as far as the megalithic age. Customs involved washing and preparing the body and lying the deceased in a coffin or bed or ‘waking’ table (which was usually the kitchen table). This was followed by visiting relatives, friends and neighbours coming to the 26home to pay their respects. Contrary to the serious nature of such an event, wakes were more like parties. A good wake was one to be remembered, and involved storytelling, drinking, dancing and games played in celebration of the deceased’s life. It was important not to leave the body alone in case the spirit had not yet left it. A code of behaviour was carefully executed when removing the dead from the house in procession to the graveyard for burial. Such rituals as bringing the body out of the house ‘feet-first’ and turning over the chairs, table or bed where the body had lain were important so as to avoid another death. This particular belief was prevalent in Ulster and any shortcuts taken or interruptions in such tradition were believed to be a sign that another death would occur shortly after.15 With such superstitious practices surrounding a dead body, an investigation such as an inquest conducted by a coroner and a jury comprising strangers would have been regarded with suspicion. On more than one occasion Waddell would have met resistance. In fact, in one instance he was driven from the scene of the inquest. He warned those present that they would be committing an offence by not allowing him to hold the inquiry and perform his duties. It was said that they arrived at his residence the next day, begged his forgiveness and assured him they would participate in the inquiry.16
With preliminary information from the constabulary, the coroner proceeded to the location of the body and interviewed witnesses to determine the cause of death and if an inquest should be held. If Waddell deemed an inquest necessary, he informed the sub-inspector of police in the district to summon a sufficient number of persons to attend and be sworn as jurors. Jurors were selected from a list of residents in the district who paid not less than £4 annually to the relief of the poor and were householders residing in the county. It was the coroner’s duty to issue summonses to every witness required to be present.
A post-mortem examination was not always required and it was Waddell’s responsibility to assess this. Autopsies were carried out by local country doctors but any further tests, specifically chemical analysis, 27tissues and fluids were sent to Belfast. Professor John Hodges of Queen’s University (1815–1899) conducted all toxicology tests for Waddell during his years as the coroner. Hodges was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Glasgow University and the University of Giessen in Germany. He was a lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at Queen’s University in Belfast and was dedicated to the science of chemistry. He analysed the samples requiring the detection of metallic and non-metallic poison, usually when murder by such was suspected.17
When an inquest begins, it is run in a format similar to that of a court trial with the coroner reigning as the judge with a jury who listen to the evidence. In our contemporary society, criminal and civil liability is not determined in this court. However, in the nineteenth century, not only could Waddell’s verdicts be used later at petty and assizes courts to prove liability but he was also able to remand suspects to jail in suspicious cases until a verdict of death had been reached. Over the years, owing to many cases of improper imprisonment and lack of evidence, this practice was abandoned. The only issue decided upon in the coroner’s court today is the cause of death. Once the verdict is reached in the coroner’s court, it is then up to the family members (regarding civil liability) or the justice and criminal system to prosecute any persons suspected of causing or bringing about the death of the deceased.
‘An inquest is a public forum to find out how someone died, but has another purpose as well – to allay public suspicion. It is for the dignity of the person themselves and for the entire society, so they don’t think anything is covered up,’ says Dr Martin Watters, MD of Emyvale. Watters is the acting coroner for the northern region of Co. Monaghan, the same position and territory as W .C. Waddell one hundred and sixty years earlier. The current caseload in the district of North Monaghan of between thirty to forty cases per year matches that of Waddell between the years 1856 and 1876.
Dr Watters explains that he conducts his inquests either in his office in Emyvale or at the courthouse in Monaghan town. ‘Some people think because the inquests are held here in Emyvale in the 28evening time after normal business hours this is secretive and adds an element of mystery … but really it’s for the convenience of the participants.’ Inquests are held after 5p.m. in the evening. Most persons work between 9a.m. and 5p.m. and evening hours are more suitable for those people attending. During the nineteenth century, Waddell held inquests at any time of day or evening depending upon what time he arrived on the scene and how quickly medical examination could be made and witnesses and a jury gathered. The inquest was most often held in a local residence in the townland where the body was at the time of death, sometimes in a public office or building or else it took place at the Monaghan courthouse. The courthouse was often convenient for various reasons such as travel for participants, more space to accommodate a larger crowd, or in some high profile cases, a suspect was remanded in the jail pending the outcome of the inquest and a criminal trial.
Investigating Death at State Institutions
Similar in scope to today’s cases, the general public viewed inquests and the duties surrounding the coroner’s office with a watchful eye. These were deaths that required further explanation and many had a possibility of foul play. When a death of unnatural, suspicious or sudden nature occurred at a public facility, such as the jail, asylum or workhouse, the coroner was occasionally requested to attend and investigate. Prisoners at the jail most often died from disease and if the coroner was brought in, these deaths might be regarded as suspicious. Such an inquest was conducted to determine whether the prisoner ‘died by the ill usage of the gaoler’. There are only a handful of inquests from the Monaghan jail. The first is recorded in 1856 and the last in July 1868.
From the Poorhouse to the Jail: Death Behind Bars
The Death of William Harvison, Monaghan Jail, February 1867
William Harvison was a pauper in the Monaghan Poorhouse. During his stay there it became clear that his violent nature was a danger 29to others. He was uncontrollable and a local magistrate was contacted to have him removed to the Monaghan jail. John Temple, the attending doctor at the jail, told the coroner that William Harvison had been admitted on 7 February 1867 as a dangerous lunatic for further examination. Having observed his behaviour for six days, he was committed as an inmate.
The evening after William’s committal to the jail, turnkey James Campbell saw the new prisoner eating his supper heartily and in good health. Within ten minutes, while sitting on a bench in his cell, William apparently keeled over and never spoke again. Campbell told the coroner that ‘he’d returned and found the prisoner lying on the floor of his room quite dead’. With no other information presented or evidence contradicting the turnkey, the inquest into the death of William Harvison was concluded. The verdict reached was death from natural causes.18
Another institution surrounded by great suspicion was the Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum. From the time of its opening in 1869, many persons entered its walls only to exit in a casket. The coroner attended the asylum quite regularly to investigate the deaths occurring there. Asylums, which will be discussed in more detail in chapter 3, were considered to be places of disgrace and shame and were filled with disease. In fact, in 1875 Waddell conducted a record 71 inquests – the majority were just inquiries recording a visit to the asylum. Most of the entries in the casebook for the asylum that year were just a record, documenting only the death:
On this 2nd day of November 1875, [I] attended at Monaghan Asylum to enquire into the death of Catherine Dobson, an inmate of the said asylum from 4 August 1869 to this day, being 6 years and 3 months and the period of her illness previous to her disease was 2 years and the cause of her death. Disease of the kidneys and the heart.
When disease was not believed to be the cause of death, more detail 30was required with respect to the manner in which the body was found and the nature of the illness of the patient. Again, something similar to ‘death by ill usage by the gaoler’ would need to be determined or ruled out when conducting an inquest at the asylum.
Suffocating in the Sheets?
The Death of Thomas McCormick, Monaghan Asylum, January 1871
Dr John Robertson first received Thomas McCormick as a patient into the lunatic asylum on 16 June 1869. He was suffering from epilepsy. The doctor attended him daily over the next six months but Thomas was becoming worse. One morning in January 1871, Dr Robertson got word that one of the attendants heard Thomas in a fit. The attendant, Edward Cosgrove, went to the patient and attended to him until the fit passed off. He then settled the man comfortably before leaving.
The next morning at 7a.m., Cosgrove opened the door of the room and found Thomas lying on his face and dead. Dr Robertson deposed, ‘Frequently epileptic patients when in a fit turn on their face and begin turning the bed clothes. That is what happened in this case, and the attendant settled the clothes and made deceased comfortable. I consider he had a fit between the one in the night and being found dead at 7a.m.’
Edward Cosgrove, the attendant to Thomas McCormick, explained how at 2 o’clock in the morning before the death he heard the patient having a fit. Cosgrove went in, ‘I settled the bed clothes and then left having fulfilled my instructions.’ Joseph Brown, an assistant attendant, was also present during Thomas’ epileptic fit. He said, ‘We found him lying partly out of bed and put him back into it. We settled his bed clothes comfortably and then left, the fit being over.’
Cosgrove added, ‘I attended him as carefully as if he had been my Father.’
The jury seeing no cause to believe there was any foul play or any evidence, concluded that death resulted from suffocation from having turned on his face during an epileptic fit ‘to which he had long been subject’. Thomas McCormick was 40 years of age.19
31When death occurred at a county workhouse, depending upon the circumstances, it was of little consequence. Only three such inquests were recorded in the twenty-year time span of volume two of the coroner’s casebook. Since the workhouse was an institution that an adult person could voluntarily leave, unlike the jail or asylum where they were confined until released, it might be assumed that less suspicion followed these deaths. Many in the workhouse were destined to die within its walls. Such institutions were disease-ridden and it was likely that many who entered would not return. These were the poor, unwanted and the destitute who found some relief either temporarily or permanently. It is apparent in each of the poorhouse inquests, that the deceased persons suffered from pre-existing conditions prior to their death.
Children were at great risk in the workhouse, usually dying from a combination of starvation and lack of proper care. At one inquest held by Waddell in 1855 (referred to in The Northern Standard) the jury concluded that the nurses at the Clones Union workhouse should be charged with culpable neglect and noted that the officers had not discharged their duties in a vigilant manner. Two children, Richard Gillespie and Jane Armstrong were both said to be ‘very emaciated’ by a Dr Henry, but he would not commit himself to what he believed caused their death.20 It appears that authorities were reluctant to accuse employees of the workhouse when intent and proof might be lacking for further investigation.
Bleeding Sores and Injuries
The Death of Elizabeth Smith, Clones Workhouse, January 1860
The four-year-old child of Ann McManus had been unable to walk for eight months. The girl had a ‘very severe discharge’ oozing from her right thigh resulting from a large lump which had formed in her groin. On 18 January 1860, while both mother and daughter were residents of the Clones Workhouse, a fatal accident occurred. Ann was holding her daughter Elizabeth on her knee and nursing her, as was her usual routine. Two other women, Mary McDonald and Sally 32Slowey, were present. Having fed her child, Anne stood up to go for a pail of water and set the sickly child down on the table as the girl was unable to stand. The mother then asked Mary if she would mind taking her child. As she was assured the woman would keep an eye on the girl, the mother left the room. However, when Mary went to put the child in her arms, the child gave a ‘hitch’ turning from her, lost her balance and fell to the ground. Sally quickly caught her and ran to carry her to her mother. She later explained that while running with the child, her apron had become stained with blood that was pouring from the little girl.
Shocked and horrified, Ann took Elizabeth to the master and matron of the workhouse, who in turn contacted Dr Henry. He was in attendance within an hour after the fall. Sadly, the child died within twenty-four hours after the accident. The verdict was death on Thursday, 19 January 1860 from the effects of a fall off a table on which she had been sitting and which proved fatal in consequence of her extreme delicacy of health and emaciated state of body.21
Taking Depositions
The Stories Surrounding the Death
Most of the witnesses at Waddell’s inquests were the grieving relatives and friends who were present before, and at the time of, the death. They were usually allowed to simply tell their story, the way they saw or experienced the event, guided by questions asked by the coroner. Although the questions asked at an inquest are not transcribed in the casebook, they were sometimes recorded and published in newspapers. Jurors, physicians and solicitors are often quoted asking questions of witnesses, although it was Waddell in charge of the proceedings who was ultimately responsible for extracting the necessary information from the witnesses and steering the jurors towards a verdict. ‘Anyone can ask questions at an inquest. The coroner is responsible for making sure all evidence is revealed and brought to light to answer the four 33primary questions – who? where? when? and how? – but all present have the opportunity to ask questions of the witnesses and of the pathologist in regard to the physical evidence,’ explains Dr Watters. This appears to have been true at Waddell’s inquests as well. It is important to note, however, that inquest procedures in regard to asking questions of witnesses vary between districts, counties and cities.
It is the coroner’s duty to consider only the facts when reviewing evidence in the depositions to uncover the cause of death. In some cases, Waddell concluded that an inquest was not required having interviewed several witnesses. Although sometimes circumstances surrounding a death appeared suspicious, it was the coroner’s duty to decide that if the evidence was too circumstantial, it did not warrant any further exploration.
Inheritance and Suspicion
The Death of Mary Nesbitt, Annagose, Aghabog Parish, March 1869
The coroner arrived at the townland of Annagose in the parish of Aghabog on 15 March 1869 to investigate the death of Mary Nesbitt. When the death was reported to him, she had died three days earlier and her body was already buried. Yet, some in the family and neighbourhood were suspicious of foul play. Waddell was told her death might have been ‘hastened’ and some of the family wanted an inquest to be held and her body raised from the ground. Having made the necessary inquiries, he did not consider that any further investigation was necessary.
A month later in April, Waddell received a letter from James Nesbitt of Corkish, son of the late Mary Nesbitt, speaking of the circumstances surrounding the death of his mother. In the letter he stated that he and other members of his family were of the opinion that their mother had been murdered. He described how his mother had received some punch from her daughter-in-law the day before her death. The family suspected there was poison in it. James also wrote that he and other members of the family would make affidavits swearing to this allegation.34
This letter raised new questions about how Mary Nesbitt died and meant Waddell needed to take a closer look at the case yet again. He met with the Sergeant of Police and then spoke with the Revd Henry Cowan, the minister of Newbliss Presbyterian church, and discussed the letter and the circumstances surrounding the death of the old woman. In their long conversation, Mr Cowan explained that he had seen Mary repeatedly and the last time he spoke with her was just a few days before her death. He told the coroner that she spoke very highly of her daughter-in-law’s kindness. Mr Cowan considered that the anger of the remainder of the family was ‘more spite because Mary had left everything to her daughter-in-law’s husband’. Since it appeared to Waddell that one son was envious that his brother had gained all of the inheritance and meant only to make trouble, there was no further inquiry into the suspected murder.22
One must wonder if the Revd Mr Cowan and the coroner were correct. Was the Nesbitt family so jealous of the gift of inheritance that they would make such an accusation against the inheriting members and request that the coroner dig up their dead and buried mother? In many of the stories and evidence throughout Waddell’s casebook, it is possible that the answer to this question is ‘yes’. Not only were money and property motives for murder; they were also the basis for family division, which in truth, is still a characteristic of contemporary society. By not accepting the death of a loved one or the financial gain or loss as a result of their death, grieving or jealous family members look for other means to punish the living for their perceived injury. Yet, one might continue to contemplate this case based upon our lack of information. Did the Revd Mr Cowan present such compelling and clear explanations for the dispute in the Nesbitt family that the coroner immediately stopped his investigation? Or did Waddell not have enough evidence to warrant disinterring the body, conducting a possibly costly investigation? Such situations are presented in an open forum for judgement in many of the inquests presented throughout the casebook. Each must make up his/her own mind as to what appears to be the ‘truth’ given our lack of 35evidence in most cases.
An inquest is not a pleasant experience. Although from time to time there are high profile cases, heated arguments and some drama, it should not be compared to a highly publicised criminal trial. Most often there are relatives present who are devastated at the loss of the deceased. Some are grieving at the loss of their loved one, crying and quite emotional. It is with a careful and sensitive nature that the coroner asks questions of the witnesses while attempting to keep order and maintain a proper and dignified proceeding. This was especially necessary when children served as witnesses discussing the death they experienced first hand. They were required to discuss the circumstances surrounding the death. Listening to their tiny voices revealing the harsh realities of how a death in the family occurred must have been difficult.
Tiny Voices Tell the Story
The Death of Pat Sherry, Knockballyroney, Tedavnet Parish, January 1870
The coroner arrived to the Sherry home in Knockballyroney in the parish of Tedavnet to conduct an inquest on the body of Pat Sherry, an eleven-year-old boy who was found dead by his nine-year-old sister. His mother, Isabella, gave her explanation for the events on the day of the tragedy:
‘For some time past, Pat complained of pains in his bowels and also about his heart. On the morning of 20 January 1870, I gave him some senna and salt which relieved him so much that he said he felt quite well. He then took his breakfast heartily,’ she said. ‘I went to a neighbour’s house for about an hour with Pat accompanying me a short distance of the journey. When the time came for him to return home, he asked me not to stay long.’ She concluded, ‘On my return, I found my child on his back on the kitchen floor, dead.’
One of Pat’s sisters, a little girl nine years old, told the jury that when her brother returned, he put out one of the cows and then went to clean out the byre. When she went out to see him a short while later, she found him lying on the ground with the spade he was using 36to shovel the dung beside him. Pat was dead. Assisted by her two brothers, aged five and seven years of age, she carried the corpse of their brother into the house. The small children then sat around the body and waited for their mother to return home.
Dr Woods examined the body. The verdict was death from inflammation of the bowels – aged 11 years.23
‘… and the Verdict is …’
A verdict of death is the statement at the end of an inquest including the name of the person who died, when they died, where and the cause of their death. Of the 861 inquests recorded by Waddell, most death occurred as a result of accidents. These accidents include drowning, burning, choking, farming and industrial accidents, victims being struck by lightning and other fatal occurrences due to negligence or misadventure, many of which involved alcohol.
Drowning deaths were the leading cause of accidental fatality. Men and boys underneath the surface unable to pull themselves back from the depths, elderly women retrieving pails from the well, and many children playing or running errands near rivers, lakes, streams, canals, wells and water-filled flax and bog holes were too quickly taken from this earth. Some drowning deaths describe the victim as having been ‘of weak mind’; that they were showing signs of ‘insanity’ or suffering from a form of mental anguish. Although such verdicts reflected ‘accidental’ drowning deaths, it can be assumed that some were suicides. An accurate recording of such a death was a difficulty for the coroner if evidence could not conclusively prove that the deceased took their own life, as well as for the victim’s families who did not want to bring shame on their loved one or the surviving family members. One example is that of Judith Fox, a sixty-year-old woman who was described as having ‘recently become of melancholy and weak mind’. She had left her home in the middle of the night and was found the next morning drowned in a flax-hole. The verdict of her death was 37from accidentally falling into a pool of water and thereby drowning.24 Her death was documented as an accidental drowning either because it was not conclusively proven that she acted upon her own will or Waddell modified the language of the verdict for the surviving members of the family. If deaths such as these were to be considered suicides, the actual percentage of suicide would probably be higher than the total recorded.
Percentages tallied from 861 inquests recorded by Waddell between the years 1856 and 1876
Other accidental fatalities might be considered suspicious cases and ‘open’ on the books of public opinion even in the present day. These inquests were vague and lacked a convincing and definitive cause of death, often owing to a lack of evidence. Usually, the coroner could not determine whether the death occurred as the result of violence or due to the nature of death. Being inconclusive, these deaths were not recorded as manslaughter or murder since it could not be determined if the beating or violence caused the death. The case of Thomas Hughes illustrates how a neutral verdict of accidental death was 38
