Multi Racial 1916 Easter Rising

While much has been written the multi-national makeup of both sides of the battles during the 1916 Easter Rising very little has been written on the multi racial make up of forces especially on the British side.

When the battle between the Michael Malone led group of rebels at Mount Street Bridge and the arriving reinforcements of the Sherwood Foresters ended and the general surrender order was delivered to DeValera at Boland's Mills, the prisoners from the 3rd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers were marched not into the city centre with much of the other forces but out towards Ballsbridge and the grounds of the RDS.

According to Andrew McDonnell of Rathgar, Dublin in his witness statement.

We were left in the stalls on the damp ground for some days. Meals were a movable feast: some days we got food and on others we got none. We were taken to the toilet under armed escort. This was at the end of the road near the gate leading on to Simmonscourt Road. We were objects of interest to the British troops who were in the stables opposite and came to grin at us over the half door of the stall. One of the British soldiers was black, a negro and his broad grin was most annoying until a well aimed tobacco spit made him give the half door a wide berth.

It must have been a strange sight for the exhausted combatants to espy a coloured gentleman in British military uniform in what at the time would have been a very white almost Anglo Saxon island.

Stephen Bourne in his book Black Poppies which dealt with the subject of Black servicemen in the British Army during World War One remarked

The near-total exclusion from our history books of black servicemen in the First World War is shameful…. Some black servicemen made the ultimate sacrifice … and like Walter Tull, died on the battlefields but with the passing of time, with the exception of Tull, the contributions of black servicemen have been forgotten.

The main protagonists of World War One all had their colonies and many of the British servicemen of colour were from the Caribbean so it is probably that the soldier at the RDS especially with his happy outlook was most likely from the opposite side of the Atlantic. By the end of WW1, 15,000 West Indians had joined and served in the British Army. As rebels are marched along the quays of the River Liffey towards ship in Dublin port to take them to prison and internment camps a photograph taken as they crossed O'Connell Bridge may have snapped that very same British soldier acting most likely as an ADC to his commandant on horseback.

Somethings Never Change

"A lodge of Orangemen, were attacked, simply because their appearance gave offence to a number of men who hold different religious opinions. We can only characterise such conduct as disgraceful in the extreme. We are quite prepared to admit that an Orange Lodge may be an eyesore to some few bigoted Catholics, on just the same grounds as bigoted Protestants may feel offended at the sight of the Hibernian Society in regalia but the fact that a man feels hurt at another man parading his opinions does not give him the right to attack him, tear off his regalia, and beat him. If this conduct were allowed, we should soon have graceless zealots of either persuasion wanting to tear down the chapels and churches of those who differed from them.
If the "wearers of the green" wish to show their opposition to Orangemen, it would be an easy matter' for them to get up a counter procession, with their , own banners and distinctive badges. Surely that would be a bettor kind of opposition than dealing in bludgeons, shillalahs, and similar weapons. This sort of thing must be stamped out at once. Public safety demands it. The right of every man to enjoy his own opinions, and of every body of men of one mind to walk through the streets without fear of molestation, must be upheld. We therefore trust those who have outraged the public peace will be punished severely not only because their offence is great, but also because the hatreds and dissensions must be prevented from taking root amongst the youth of this country."

A December 1879 newspaper article describing sectarian riots in Christchurch, New Zealand

Irish born Statesmen Abroad - NEW ZEALAND

Much has often been written about the ancestral connections of US Presidents with Ireland but Irish citizens have travelled the world becoming much loved and treasured statesmen in other nations. Ireland has produced three Irish born Prime Ministers of New Zealand. These are their stories.

DANIEL POLLEN

On July 8^th 1875 Daniel Pollen became the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Daniel was the son of Hugh Pollen, a dock master at the mouth of the newly opened Grand Canal as it entered the River Liffey and Elizabeth O’Neill. Daniel was born on June 2^nd 1813 when the family lived in what later became known as Pollen Cottage in Ringsend. Hugh Pollen received both the house and an annual salary of £100 per annum for his role as dock master.

Little is known about the early part of his life, but it is supposed that he grew up in Ringsend before emigrating to New Zealand in 1840, shortly after his father died in 1837 and the role of dock master and use of the house was taken over by Thomas Pollen, brother of the late Hugh. He arrived at the Bay of Islands settling in a town called Parnell near Auckland which probably made him feel right at home. He practiced as the local doctor but Daniel also became actively involved in politics with the formation of the Auckland Province in 1852 and was well regarded as a great debater and famous for his wit.

Two years after he was appointed the local coroner in 1846 he had married Jane Henderson a daughter of a Royal Naval officer and they went onto to have four sons and four daughters. Pollen entered politics first serving on the local provincial council representing Auckland East and then became a member of the New Zealand Parliament on May 12^{th 1873}.  He rose through the political ranks and served in the Government of Julius Vogel as Colonial Secretary but when that Prime Minister left New Zealand to travel to Great Britain, Daniel Pollen from Ringsend in Dublin was appointed July 6^th 1875 as Prime Minister of New Zealand. He held the position until the return of Vogel on February 15^th 1876 when he returned to the position of Colonial Secretary and continued in that position under the following Prime Minister Harry Atkinson before he retired from politics.

Pollen died at his residence ‘The Whau’ in Avondale in 1896.

JOHN BALANCE

The 14^th Prime Minister John Balance was born in Ballypitmave near Lisburn in County Antrim in March 1839. Born into a farming community to father Samuel, John Balance was the eldest of eleven children. As an eighteen year old he headed for Belfast City before crossing the Irish Sea to live in Birmingham. While there in 1863 he married a butcher’s daughter Fanny Taylor. His new bride became ill and the decision was taken in 1866 to immigrate to New Zealand where Fanny’s brother lived.

Once in New Zealand after a brief period as salesman he studied to become a journalist and from journalism he found his way into local politics. The move for the Balance couple down under proved futile as two years after their arrival down under Balance’s wife passed away. Two years later he married Ellen Anderson and the couple adopted a daughter Kathleen.

He was first elected to parliament in 1879 only to loose his seat in the subsequent election by just four votes when a horse drawn coach shed a wheel and seven of his supporters inside failed to register their vote. He won the seat back in 1884 and joined the Julius Vogel cabinet as Minister for Native Affairs. Out of Government, Balance accepted the role as leader of the then opposition Liberal Party. When the Government of Prime Minister Atkinson resigned, Balance became the Prime Minister in January 1891.

As Prime Minister he attempted to turn his Liberal party into a nationwide party rather than just regionally based. He was not known as a charismatic leader or a good public speaker, he was described as honest, courteous and displayed great patience and integrity. His wife became a leading figure in the fledgling feminist movement in New Zealand. His success as a Prime Minister was short lived as he developed cancer and passed away on April 27^th 1893 receiving a state funeral in his home town of Wanganui. His wife Ellen outlived her husband by forty two years. 

WILLIAM MASSEY

The 19^th Prime Minister of New Zealand was William Massey who was born in Limavady, Derry in March 1856. He was a member of the Reform Party, a political force he helped to found, when he became PM in 1912. Born into a farming Presbyterian family, the family moved to New Zealand in October 1862 without young William who remained in Ireland to complete his education. He followed the family over to the far side of the world in December 1870.

He became involved in local politics through the local school board before being elected in an 1894 by election for the constituency of Waitemata before contesting the 1896 General Election for the neighbouring constituency of Franklin which he represented until his death in 1925.

After founding his reform Party in 1909, they became the largest party after the 1911 General Election but the incumbent Liberal Party remained in power with the support of Independents. The Liberals lost a vote of confidence in Parliament and Massey was invited to form a new administration and officially became Prime Minister on July 12^th 1912. His first years in power were a period of great industrial unrest and his use of force to break strikes did not endear him to either his electorate or party colleagues but like many other politicians across the world the intervention of the First World War diverted attention from domestic matters. In the 1914 General Election no party won enough seats to be effective as a Government and Massey invited the leader of Liberal Party Joseph Ward to be party of a national unity Government in time of war.

Massey signed the Versailles Peace treaty on behalf of New Zealand at the end of the war. With war at an end the unity coalition fractured and in the 1919 General Election despite the rise of the new Labour Party, Massey and his Reform Party won a majority. He governed a troubled New Zealand both socially and economically until the 1922 General Election where he failed to win his majority winning just 37 of the 80 available seats but clung to power with the support of Independents.

His health deteriorated in 1924 and he passed away in 1925.

1917 The Banned Movie

British sensitivities were still on heightened alert as 1917 began. In January 1917 a film opened to packed houses in the Rotunda Picture House. ‘Ireland A Nation’ had been shown to and passed in December 1916 by the censor

The film itself had actually first been shown in 1914 and was made by the Gaelic Film Company. A silent movie it told the story of Ireland from the time of the 1798 rebellion, Robert Emmet in 1803 and up to the planned arrival of Home Rule, itself having been put on the back burner in 1914. It used dramatic scenes and screen titles to tell its story.  The film website IMDB described the film as,

‘The story of Ireland and her fight for Home Rule, as seen through the experiences of Father Tom Murphy, a patriot with a price on his head, and the famous Irish leader Robert Emmet.’

The film was produced by Lismore, Co Waterford born Walter McNamara. McNamara who according to the magazine ‘Moving Picture World’ was a vice president of the Gaelic League and one of the founders of the Irish Club in London. He had been educated in Wales before heading to the United States and became involved in the silent movie business.

The movie had its exterior shots filmed on location in Ireland including at Glendalough and the Vale of Avoca in Wicklow. The interior shots were filmed at  Ec-Ko Studios at Kewbridge in England which led to many continuity errors which was perhaps the least of its problems as it was often factually inaccurate as well. It starred Barry O’Brien as Emmet. O’Brien was an actor born in London in 1893, passing away in 1961.  Dominick O’Reilly played the role of Napoleon Bonaparte with supporting cast including Patrick Ennis and Barry Magee. Interviewed by George Blaisdell, McNamara spoke about his time in Ireland making the movie.

“Did I have any difficulties finding locations? Yes in one instance when I tried to find a mud hut and failed. Parnell wiped those out. I did though get some wonderful backgrounds.  We had a fort built by Oliver Cromwell and to this day no real son of the old sod passes it without spitting, that’s the only way they can adequately express his feelings for the builder. Were obstacles placed in my path in the making of Ireland a Nation? Yes indeed by the soldiers. Sometimes we would start a scene with not a soul in sight. It seemed sometimes that in two minutes soldiers would come from everywhere and demand to see a permit. The military tried in every way to handicap us. That’s why we were five months over there. The Nationalist Party gave us unofficial sanction.”

When he arrived in Ireland he was arrested by the British on suspicion of importing arms illegally but these weapons were discovered to be props for his film. McNamara was released but his props were not returned to him.

Even though the censor passed the film, he did so with some cuts to the original. Scenes including the interruption by British soldiers of a hillside Mass being celebrated by a Priest and the execution of Robert Emmet plus some of the intertitles were cut including one that told viewers that ‘a price of £100 dead or alive on the hed of every priest’.

On Wednesday September 23^rd 1914 it had its premiere at the 44^th Street Theatre in New York and played to big audiences in New York and Chicago despite being panned by most critics.

The tag line for the movie on its release was

‘Made in Ireland by Irish Actors, 116 years of Irish History in 5000ft of film’

Shown twice a day, tickets cost the movie goer either 25c or 50c.

A copy was being sent to Ireland for showing in May 1915 but it was on board the Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine. The intervention of the Easter Rising prevented another copy arriving and so it was January 8^th 1917 before the Irish public got to see the film although with cuts to the original implemented by the censor. Newspaper advertisements called the film "The Greatest Patriotic Picture Ever Screened".  The Rotunda’s 1500 seats were sold out for two consecutive nights but when reports after the first couple of nights that audiences were cheering the death of British forces in the film’s depiction of the 1798 rebellion and roaring ‘up the Republic’ during some scenes, the military authorities banned the film.

The film would not be seen again in Irish cinemas until 1922 when extra scenes of the aftermath of the Rising, the War of Independence and DeValera’s visit to the United States were included.

Bibliography

 ‘A Special Relationship, Britain Comes to Hollywood’ by Anthony Slide

IMDB

Trinity College Archives

New York Tribune

Silentera.com

1917 Another Potato Famine

A year after the Easter Rising the preoccupation of British newspapers with the Irish question wasn’t the reaction to the rebel executions, the rise of Sinn Fein or the massive amount of arms still in circulation on the island but headlines blazed about the humble potato.

The British were relying on food crops grown within the British Isles as German submarines were having an affect on imported goods and ships were being used for military purposes rather than food transport. The potato harvest in both Ireland and Scotland had been particularly poor in 1916 and the word ‘famine’ was again circulating. The yield in Ireland in 1916 was a quarter of a millions tons less than a year earlier and exporting from Ireland had been interrupted by the events of Easter week. Towards the end of 1916 the British Government prohibited the export of potatoes from Ireland to Britain leading to major shortages in Britain.

The Belfast News wrote,

“From Clare to Donegal and Dublin to Sligo thoughtful men are asking ‘what will happen if the people’s food is sold for export?’ there is only one answer –famine”

The Donegal Vindicator added

“The crisis has found Ireland as unprepared as the war found Great Britain. The potato famine is upon us and so are the exporters. The farmer who sells his potatoes for export today must be restrained by his more sensible neighbours. There is a food crisis.”

By early 1917, the wholesale cost of the spud had mushroomed. A ‘CWT’ (8 stone bag) of potatoes that cost between four and eight schillings in 1916, a year later was costing between eleven and fourteen schillings. Some Irish exporters had been accused of withholding supplies for export to take advantage of the ever increasing wholesale prices. The embargo was lifted on the Irish potato in July 1917 but not before the British Government ordered the Irish farmer to sell his crop for a maximum of £6 10s per ton or 1s per stone down from the reported £14 some farmer had been receiving.    

By March there were prosecutions in Ireland of those appearing to profiteer. Potato sellers Thomas Sheridan and Sons were fined £5 and £2 costs for selling potatoes wholesale to Mary Keating of Arklow for 11s 6d a CWT on March 9^th when the maximum at the time was 10s 10d per CWT. There were many such prosecutions during the following six months across the country.

One newspaper editorial in Wales, an area that had been severely affected by the potato shortages wrote,

“Potatoes are not worth buying if they cost more than 4s a cwt. They have been as high as 8s this spring. The potato is of very little value as food. There is not more than   two per cent of nutriment in the potato. Potatoes at 8s a cwt are equivalent in price to oatmeal as 1s per lb which is absurd. We have largely become the victims of the potato habit. In the early part of the nineteenth century potatoes could be had for two or three shillings a cwt. In those times anybody could live for about a shilling a week on potatoes. The root had very little dietetic value; but it was "filling" and cheap at the price. When however the potato begins to cost the price of a genuine food, it is time- its character was exposed. If you have a. good dinner it is all very well to have a few potatoes as "extras" just as you would have a few tomatoes or Brussels sprouts but to regard the potato as an article of diet in itself is rank folly. If the potato were relegated to its proper place the consumption of that fraudulent tuber would decrease and its price would fall accordingly. People acquired the taste for the potato in an age of poverty and they go eating it quite regardless of the fact that its food value is almost nil. The extraordinary prices which potatoes reached in the spring were due to the rebellion in Ireland. They grow huge quantities of potatoes in Ireland but they are not so foolish as to eat them. The Irish labourer has long ago got over his partiality for potatoes. He lives on tea "soda-bread" and American bacon. Liverpool, Fleetwood, .Glasgow and Bristol all receive daily shiploads of potatoes from Ireland. There is never usually more than a week's supply of potatoes in hand in the big towns of England and Scotland. When the Sinn Fein flare-up took place all shipping between this country and Ireland was held up for a couple of weeks, and it was a month before things became normal. In the meantime the grocers in this country were getting desperate for potatoes. Travellers from Manchester and Edinburgh were scouring the wilds of Wales offering any prices for a few sacks of potatoes. The only cure for the high price of potatoes is for people to use less of them. Those who eat meat can do with less potatoes. Puddings are cheaper than potatoes just now. Those who don't use meat should not use potatoes at all. As a food they are useless; their proper function is to serve as an adjunct to meat. Our fathers formed dietetic habits when certain articles of food were cheap. When circumstances alter the habits should alter. The only point in favour of the potato is its cheapness. Once it ceased to be cheap, it ought to be discarded.”

In parts of England especially Lincolnshire,a good potato growing county, there was a different kind of Irish problem when it came to harvesting the potato crop. In 1917 the ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ signs went up at farms, pubs and shops. The local community turned on Irish labourers who would travel across the Irish Sea for seasonal work as local Englishmen serving in the British Army who were conscripted and had been sent to Ireland during and after the Easter Rising were paid one schilling per week but the Irish who had replaced them in the fields and were exempt from conscription in what locals saw as appeasement were being paid between five and seven schillings a week to replace them.

By the end of 1917, the price had stabilised and the threat of famine in both Ireland and Britain had receded but by the end of that year consumers had discovered alternatives to the potato like swede, turnip and parsnip and as the First World War came to a conclusion the potato crisis had abated.  

The History of Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium

Over the years I have written a  number of historical articles on the area I live in and these next couple of weeks will have a small selection of those articles.

The History of Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium.

Every Saturday night between 8pm and 10pm the place to be in Dublin is greyhound racing at Shelbourne Park. Located on South Lotts Road which itself dates back to 1721, the stadium has become a mecca of sports and gambling. But while today those guests sitting in the park’s excellent restaurant see it associated solely as a greyhound venue, it has a very colourful sporting past.

Just like its Northside cousin Croke Park, the stadium originally began life as a soccer ground. Originally a derelict site, it became the home of Shelbourne FC pre-season in 1913. A trial match took place on August 16^th when Shelbourne played a Leinster League select eleven. At that time Shelbourne played in the all-Ireland Irish Football league and their first league match was a one all draw with fellow Dubliners Bohemians. The ground was operated by the Shelbourne Sports Company Limited and many various fund raising activities took place in the first couple of years to pay for and extend the facilities at the ground. In March 1914 the club played Manchester United while on May 23^rd a fifteen mile challenge race was run featuring Irish international running sensations Charlie Harris and Paddy Fagan. A track around the pitch was used for Wednesday trotting and whippet racing. Trotting on a Friday would cost one schilling admission while to enter your pony cost £1 but there was a prize of £30 if you got through the qualifying rounds.

Over the following decades Shelbourne’s home venue was also used by the Football Association of Ireland following the establishment of the Irish Free State and the split from the IFA in Belfast, as home of both semi finals and finals of the FAI Cup including an enthralling final in April 1929 between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians. Shelbourne remained at the ground until the 1948/49 season when Shelbourne’s last match against Waterford ended just like their first in a draw.

In September 1921 the then titled President of Ireland Eamon DeValera officially opened a Fete that featured seven a side Gaelic football tournament. Billed as the ‘best of outdoor and indoor attractions’ the indoor featured Irish dancing Feis, a Ceili and a cinema.

As a greyhound venue it was Ireland’s second after the opening of Celtic Park in Belfast. Greyhound racing began on May 14^th 1927 in front of ten thousand spectators packed into the venue. The National Greyhound Racing Company Limited, the forerunner of Bord Na gCon and the Irish Greyhound Board was the brainchild of Kerry native Jerry Collins, Paddy O’Donoghue, Patsy McAlinden and Jim Clarke.

But the early days of greyhound racing was not without its difficulties. A riot broke out in September 1927 when two dogs Galbally Lass and Skeango racing in the semi final of the Civic Cup stopped mid race and savaged each other. The crowd expected a blue flag denoting a ‘non race’ but to their dismay the 6-4 favourite Gone For Sure was declared the winner. The ‘mob in the cheap enclosure invaded the ground trampling wire and person and attacking the judges box’. Police from nearby Irishtown police station restored order.

 

Hockey arrived in March 1924 when Ireland beat England in a 3.15pm tip off to win the triple crown, a year later 1/6 would gain you admittance to the Ireland v Scotland encounter.

In 1934 another new sport arrived when thousands arrived by ferry from Britain to watch the inaugural Perpetual Challenge Cup match between Warrington and Wigan in rugby league. The match was sponsored by the Hospital’s Trust and Wigan overcame their opponent thirty two points to nineteen. Alas despite its proposed annual status, this was the only rugby league match played at the south Dublin venue.

On July 9^th 1937 promoter Joe McAllister organised a boxing tournament featuring flyweight contender Jim Warnock. Warnock won his bout but lost a belt eliminator to Peter Kane two weeks later in a fight held at the home of Liverpool, Anfield.

In 1950 a new sport arrived, the thrill of the speedway. Motor bikes were speeding around the course in a sport that was now attracting both spectators and American riders eager to earn a living. The sport initially stayed four years at Shelbourne Park promoted by Ronnie Green. It returned in 1961 for a season and a further two years in 1970/1971. Although mostly made up of American riders The Shelbourne Tigers captained by seventeen year old Ronnie Moore matched many of the big teams from across the Irish Sea drawing thousands to the south side venue.

In recent years greyhound racing has shared its space in Shelbourne Park with show jumping. The ‘Jumping In The City’ event organised by the Irish Greyhound Board as a way of utilising their venues in Limerick, Cork and Dublin on days when their stadia were empty. 

Reis's Chambers, The 1916 Rising, the Execution of Francis Hynes and Charles Reis - Part Two

Continued 

James Caffrey, the second in charge of the protection party stated that there was no one in the billiards room when they got there which would have been the correct procedure as the jury were to have no contact with other members of the public while they were on the jury. George Strong reported that there was one man in the billiard room apart from Mr. Martin but then Jury member Edward Hamilton stated that when they walked into the billiard room there were two members of the public but that they left as the group walked in but that two more men entered shortly after. These men were Major Wynne and Doctor James Cusack and that Charles Reis introduced Major Wynne to the others. Reis and Wynne then played a game of billiards while more drink was ordered. With the order was placed an order for cigars but after lighting one up, Reis seemed unhappy with the quality and rang the service bell and complained. The porter fetched more cigars but shortly after Reis rang the bell again but when the porter arrived Reis said firstly that he had not rang the bell and that his complaint did not matter now and the porter was sent off much to the quiet amusement of some of the other men in the room.

Shortly before 9.30p.m. James Campbell returned and inquired of his son who had a drink in his hand, if all was fine and after satisfying himself there he went up to the dining room and checked with the other guards on the rooms floor and left again. As Campbell was arriving night porter Robert Ennis was coming on duty. He found it strange and questioned Campbell junior whether members of the public should be socialising with members of an active Jury. Campbell said that his boss and his father were upstairs and he had said that it was fine. At 11p.m. waiter Patrick Tobin delivered another round of drink to the billiard room with drink now being ordered for the non hotel guests. The drinks list for the billiard room was as follows

William Barrett              2 Glasses of Sherry

Charles Reis                 2 Glasses of Brandy and Soda

William Wardropp        2 Half Glasses of Whiskey

William Gibson             2 Glasses of Beer

11.45p.m.

The Billiard Room, Imperial Hotel

 Charles Reis is by now showing the effects of the alcohol he has consumed in what was by now a very long eventful day. He leaves the room without intervention and sits on a seat in the hall of the hotel opposite the constable on duty outside the door of the billiard room George Strong but he is approached by the Hall Porter Francis Brady who explains to the juror that it is against hotel policy to smoke in the hallways that there are rooms including the billiard room provided for smoking. Reis tells Brady to mind his own business and

            ‘you would do best to keep your eyes shut’

The protection detail also continued to drink as they were served supper.

George Strong              A pint of Ale

James Caffrey               A pint of Ale

James Donnelly             A pint of Ale

Robert Young               A pint of Ale

Michael Carey              A pint of Ale

                                                               Friday August 11^th 1882

Green Street Court House, Dublin

After a coroner’s inquest by Mr. John Frost in Ennis and an investigation by Captain Hamilton RM, Francis Hynes was charged with the murder of John Doolaghty. He would be tried under new legislation enacted by the House of Commons, The Prevention of Crime Act that allowed for major criminal cases to be transferred from the court jurisdiction of the crime to a special court in Green Street, Dublin. The British authorities believed that in the climate in the rural parts of Ireland and the nationalist fervor being whipped up that they would get a better chance of an impartial jury in Dublin away from the country courts. The Nationalist and Catholic leaders rallied against the legislation and believed that Juries were being loaded as they called it that only Protestants were being selected to try the cases giving the Crown a better chance of conviction on limited evidence. It was here on Friday 11^th August 1882 that the trial of Francis Hynes began in front of Mr. Justice James Anthony Lawson. This new legal system would see nine trials completed in ten days within the courts. Two hundred business men and merchants with property and assets in excess of fifty pounds were called and forty nine of them were assigned to this murder trial. Of twenty challenges to jury members allowed to the defense they only used up eleven. They prosecution then used their unlimited amount of challenges to object to twenty six more potential jurors until there were twelve men sitting in the jury box. They were then escorted to a room at the back of the court room and a jury foreman was elected. All except Charles Reis, a Scottish born Grafton Street jeweler were Church of Ireland, Methodist or Presbyterian. Reis was Jewish.

The Attorney-General of Ireland, Mr. Peter O’Brien MP, Queens Council, and Mr. Sullivan, instructed by Mr. Murphy, the Crown Solicitor for the County Clare, prosecuted the case against Hynes. Mr. McDermott QC, and Mr. John Roche, instructed by Messrs Walton and Frost solicitors of Ennis, defended for the accused. Much of the case hinged on the testimony of Hugh McTernan and a dying man’s declaration. The defense brought up the timing issue and the Prosecution organised a runner by the name of Fitzmaurice to run the distance between the crime scene across the fields and along the stream to Hassett’s Pub to show that he had time to get to the pub after committing the crime. There was no gun found matching the weapon that killed the farmer. The three men in the bar swore that they were with Francis Hynes struggled under cross examination admitting that they were under the influence of drink and the prosecution claimed that this influence would not allow them to accurate about the timings. Much of the defensive evidence challenged by the prosecution brought a smile to the Judges face who seemed intent on hindering the defense case at every opportunity.  There was a sense of sympathy illicited for the dead man when he was described in court as having a large family and that he was sixty years old and was attacked by the much younger athletic Francis Hynes. The fact was that John Doolaghty was only forty four when he was killed and in excellent physical health. There was no weapon found that matched the gunshot used. There were no witnesses to the crime. There was doubt about the dying declaration whether Mr. Doolaghty was in any condition to make an identification and if he did was he just naming someone he knew he had trouble with on the assumption that it was Francis Hynes. The gunman would have leapt quickly from his hiding place and startled Doolaghty on the quiet road and he fired instantly hitting Doolaghty in the eyes almost certainly blinding him. It was a summer’s day and the sun was in Doolaghty’s face as he walked home also hindering his identification of a suspect. With the RM giving evidence of a dying declaration and the arrest of Francis Hynes, the investigation stopped.

                                             Third Floor of the Imperial Hotel, Sackville St.

Margaret Walsh who was in charge of the bar that evening closed it for the night much to the annoyance of the jury members still in the billiard room and they begin to voice loudly their annoyance. After being refused more drink Charles Reis asked for a deck of cards but he was told that none were available. Fifteen minutes later the last of the men would leave the billiard room and make their way up the two flights of stairs to the bedrooms. William Gibson and William Wardropp were the first to make their way up to the bedroom where they would be sharing number eighteen. As the remaining four men made their way up, James Campbell Junior met Mr. Barrett and said                                                                                         

‘Mr. Foreman will you see these men to bed before you turn in’                                            ‘

Yes sir off course I will’ he replied.                                                                                   

As was normal practice in Hotels in 1882, the jurors had placed their boots outside their room doors for the hotel staff to clean during the night and Reis and Maconchy ran up and down the hall kicking the boots outside the doors and mixing up the rooms that the boots should be located outside.                                                                                       

The men were in loud jovial humour laughing and joking as they went to their various bedrooms. Reis then in search of a single room as he refused to stay in a double room opened the room door of William O’Brien but after striking a match to light his way realized his mistake and left the room. He also opened the door of Gibson and Wardropp but apologized and left the room quickly banging the door on his way out. William O’Brien rang the bell for the night porter and he made a complaint about the noise in the hallway. Margaret Walsh was making her way to her room at the stairwell at opposite end of the hallway when she was spotted by some men in the hallway who ran at her ‘menacingly’. She immediately made her way quickly to her room and locked the door. Reis began to roar on the corridor for someone to bring him a pair of slippers and Elizabeth Carberry complained that someone had been banging loudly on her door to gain entrance but she refused to get out of bed.                              

When no response was forthcoming Reis moved to the edge of the stairs and shouted louder to get the attention of the staff. Having heard the commotion waiter Patrick Tobin made his way to the floor and found Reis and Barrett in the hallway. When he reached the corridor his colleague Elizabeth Ennis, a housekeeper was already attempting to placate Mr. Reis. She had been to the floor delivering a mattress for one of the constables who would be sleeping in the corridor to make sure that the Jury would not be disturbed or interfered with. Patrick Tobin attempted to persuade Reis to retire to bed but Reis asked for a deck of cards and his slippers. Having found a room he returned to the hall in his stocking feet and with a candle in one hand offering light to a dimly lit passageway, Reis knocked over a table with an empty basin for washing and the basin crashed to the floor. Reis picked it up but it fell again cursing rather loudly at the fallen object but Constable Donnelly moved in and picked it up and put it out of reach so that it would not fall again. Shortly after one o’clock in the morning there was silence.

                             7 a.m. September 11^th 1882, Limerick Gaol,  Condemned  Cell

A large crowd begins to gather outside the walls of Limerick Gaol in the cold early morning where Francis Hynes awaited his fate knowing that all calls for clemency had been ignored by the Lord Lieutenant. As the crowds began to gather in the early morning air a large group of policemen under Sub Inspector Henry Wilton and troops of the 70^th Regiment arrived and began to patrol the outer precincts of the prison. Another fifteen constables under the command of Constable Kavanagh protected the approach roads to the prison. In the early hours of Saturday morning about 1.45a.m., the executioner William Marwood had arrived in the city and met by a large detail of constables and taken to the prison where he stayed making arrangements for the Monday morning execution. The crowd, unlike the rowdy days of the public execution, were mute and all that could be heard were prayers for the young Francis Hynes.   

William Marwood (1820 – 1883) was appointed executioner in 1872 and referred to his work as a science stating that, 

'having studied my profession that a man dies at my hands with as little pain as I give myself by touching the back of my hand with my finger.’ 

He was a small man just five feet seven and many who attended his executions commented on his restless eyes.   

                              9a.m. August 12^th 1882 The Dining Room of the Imperial Hotel

 The jury were awoken by the hotel staff and were all present in the dining room for breakfast at nine a.m. After breakfast had been consumed the William Barrett locked the dining room door and the discussion of the merits of the case began in earnest. While the door was locked the protection detail had their chance to have breakfast but while the jury members had just tea and iced water with their food, the Bailiffs and Constables took a different approach on their last hour in the Imperial Hotel Along with their breakfasts came

John Williams               A Glass of grog*

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

Robert Young               A Glass of Whiskey

(Grog was a naval term for Rum)

One commentator after being informed of the amount of alcohol consumed in the Imperial Hotel noted

‘If the published accounts in more than one paper of the amount of alcoholic liquors that jury consumed are correct' and the jurors were not drunk, then' they must be the most seasoned' liquor drinkers in the whole world’

 7 a.m. September 11^th 1882, Limerick Gaol, Condemned  Cell

While awaiting his final fate Francis Hynes wrote a poem about his impending demise     

’Within my prison cell I sit penning down those saddening lines,
My age is scarcely twenty-four, and my name is Francie Hynes.
For the awful crime of murder, I am condemned to die,
But I will meet the scaffold without a sob or sigh.
I know that tears of sympathy from many an eye shall fall,
But one request I have to ask of friends and brothers all,
Let no man call me murderer of friends I humbly crave,
When I am cold and silent within my prison grave.
A Dublin Orange jury on that Memorial Day, mad drunk and blind with fury,
they swore my life away,
But I’m prepared to meet my fate, no tear will dim mine eye,
I never injured any man,
I swear by God on high.
My friends, they sought for my reprieve, but eloquence could not avail,
They will hang me in the morning in Limerick County Jail.
I give my blessing to my friends who beside me stood,
There’s no more hope, they’re thirsting for my blood.
My mother who watched me in my tender years,
Oh, joy she’s gone before me,
Her form, it now appears as if in childhood’s happy day,
she did me fondly clasp,
Little she thought she reared me for the hangman’s grasp.
But I’m prepared to meet my fate,
No danger will I falter
For innocence will triumph o’er bloody hitch and halter,
                                And when the star of peace will shine again as in the good old times,                            

Let Irishmen remember the fate of Francie Hynes

Hynes had got up according to the prison staff at five in the morning and donned a borrowed tweed suit. He ate a hearty breakfast and was then greeted by the prison chaplain Reverend James McCoy who celebrated mass in his cell. At 7.30a.m. the Sherriff of County Clare entered his cell and informed Hynes that the appointed hour had arrived. Five minutes later Marwood appeared at the door of the cell and pinioned the prisoner. At a quarter passed eight the procession to the gallows formed with two priests leading the way Reverend McCoy and local curate Reverend McNamara. Following behind them was Hynes with a warder on either side responding to the prayers of the clergymen in front of him.  Behind them followed the Governor Mr. Edgar and deputy Governor of the prison. They moved out into the courtyard where the scaffold had been erected. Hynes ascended the couple of steps and saw the treacherous rope hanging from the crossbeam.  Hynes stood calmly on the trap door and the rope was placed around his neck. He then pulled a white cap over the condemned man’s face and tried his legs together. Hynes clasped a crucifix in the middle of his tied hands.

The resident of the Imperial Hotel, William O’Brien was no ordinary guest.                    

                          ‘Home was a back bedroom on the top floor of a Dublin hotel’ 

the Imperial hotel since his release from prison a year earlier on compassionate grounds following the death of his mother. He had been in Kilmainham prison with Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon. William O’Brien was born in Mallow County Cork in 1852 and became a journalist after failing to graduate from legal studies in University. After initially working for the Cork Daily Herald he moved to Dublin and joined the staff of the Nationalist Freeman Journal. In 1878 he met Charles Parnell at a Home Rule meeting and despite an offer of £600 a year to staff at the journal he joined Parnell’s United Irishman paper as editor earning £400 per annum. After his release from prison he drafted ‘The Land War No Rent Manifesto’ and was a vociferous supporter of the actions of the peasants and evicted tenants. The introduction of the Coersion Act in the aftermath of the Phoenix Park murders pitted O’Brien directly against those in charge in Ireland. He commented that the British authorities were                                                                                ‘scouring the country for suspects, manufacturing a hideous race of informers by offering rewards for evidence regardless of its character, trying victims of the delatores by ruthlessly packed juries of ‘loyal Protestants’ in Dublin. Convicting by hook or crook.’

Having just been released from prison and a number of libel suits pending against his editorials in the United Irishman, O’Brien thought it would be better to write his letter of complaint to like minded editor Edmund Gray at the Freeman Journal. William O’Brien had unsuccessfully run in the General Election twice in Ennis, the home of Francis Hynes who also had attended a number of Parnell rallies. On both occasions he had lost narrowly in 1879 by just six votes.

Ireland in 1882 was a hotbed of unrest, violence and various nationalist factions with independence as their ultimate aspiration. On May 4^th 1882, Liberal party British Prime Minister William Gladstone appointed John Poyntz Spenser known as the ‘Red Earl’ on account of his distinctive red beard as the Queen Victoria’s representative in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant. Earl Spenser and his newly appointed Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish traveled to Ireland the next day to be greeted by the Permanent Under secretary in Ireland Thomas Henry Burke. On May 6^th after only one day in Ireland Cavendish who was related through marriage to Gladstone and Burke went for a walk through The Phoenix Park from the Lord Lieutenants residence the Vice Regal Lodge. As they walked they were attacked by members of a Fenian breakaway organization called the Invincibles and were both stabbed to death. On the day of Lord Cavendish’s funeral the legislation was rushed through the House of Commons in attempt to arrest the violence that was menacing Ireland. The Act would allow extra measures for the police in search and seizure and allow for the holding of trials without juries although this was never used but the legislation was used to load empanneled juries. Although Parnell came out against the murders which made him popular in both Ireland and Britain, the brother of the slain Cavendish, Lord Harrington who had also been a member of Gladstone’s cabinet split from the British Liberal party over the introduction of Parnell’s much cherished Home Rule Bill and voted it down on two occasions. William O’Brien also came out against the murders but the resultant legislation caused him more anxiety the way in which the Irish poor tenant Catholic population were being treated.   

After the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief secretary and the Under secretary in Ireland, the affairs of the nation were put before the Privy Council, a sort of cabinet with the Chief Secretary as Prime Minter to the Lord Lieutenant. One of the members of Earl Spenser’s Privy Council was Mr. Justice James Anthony Lawson. Justice Lawson was the second highest rank judge in Ireland after the Lord Chief Justice Michael Morris.

Saturday August 12^th 1882, Special Commission Court, Green Street, Dublin

The Jury and their escorts were taken by carriage back to the Green Street Courthouse and once again sat in the wooden jury box watching Mr. Justice Lawson open proceeding with the prisoner Francis Hynes in the dock. The foreman of the Jury requests that the Reverend Loughnane be called to the stand to give evidence with regard to how much of the act of contrition given to the dying John Doolaghty was able to follow. Neither the prosecution nor the defense had called the clergyman to the stand to give evidence and neither had James Lynch been called to the stand to give credence or disprove the prosecutions alleged motive for the murder. After the Reverend had completed his evidence, the jury went to consider their verdict. Less than an hour later the jury foreman was on his feet and when Justice Lawson asked for the verdict                  ‘Guilty’ came the reply.

 8.10a.m. September 11^th 1882, The Courtyard of Limerick Gaol

The bolt was drawn quickly and the body of Francis Hynes fell through the trap door. A master of the long rope technique, the prison doctor quickly pronounced the prisoner dead and the sentence of the court had been carried out. Outside the walls the prayers of a crowd of now over two thousand people continued and a black flag was slowly hoisted on one of the flag poles indicating that the execution had been carried out. William Marwood remarked after that “I never executed a finer man, nor a man with so much nerve. He walked to his doom with the utmost composure and I cannot but admire him”. Marwood quickly left Limerick being escorted from the Gaol to the railway station and boarding a train for Dublin.

August 16^th 1882 Green Street Courthouse The Sentencing of Edmund Grey

William O’Brien wrote a letter to the editor of the Freeman Journal newspaper Edmund Gray a former Mayor of Dublin and currently High Sherriff and therefore ultimately responsible for the actions of juries in his jurisdiction. William O’Brien was a guest in the hotel that night and wrote of the jury’s drunken behaviour and cast doubts on the legitimacy of the verdict and therefore the sentence of death. The Freeman Journal in publishing the letter brought a swift reaction from the legal system and Edmund Gray now found himself before Mr. Justice Lawson on a charge of contempt. No jury was summoned for the trial of Mr. Gray. The jury foreman was brought before the court and he swore that there was no drunken behaviour at the hotel by the jurors. Gray also a Member of Parliament pleaded his case but it fell on deaf ears. Mr. Justice Lawson took a dim view of his publishing the letter and the editorial comment that went with it saying that Catholics had been rigorously excluded which was against the law and the direction of the legal powers in London. . Mr. Justice Lawson sentenced Mr. Gray MP to three months imprisonment in Richmond, and to pay a fine of £500; also at the end of the three months, to give bail for his good behavior - himself in £5,000, and two sureties in £2,500 each.

 December 12^th 1882 Ennis Court House. Compensation

 For the loss of her husband Eliza and her seven children sought compensation of three thousand pounds under the Crimes Act. At a sitting before Mr. Monaghan QC she said that after the conviction and execution she was shunned and boycotted by neighbours and shopkeepers making it almost impossible to live in her native Clare even her son was unable to get work. The Crimes Act was compensation given with the payment recouped from the local rate payers hoping that this would dissuade someone from committing a crime. There was no report if she received the entire three thousand pounds but when she used some of that money to pay for the family’s passage to a new life in Australia on March 3^rd 1883 arriving in Dunedin New Zealand on June 2^nd 1883. The Mercury newspaper in Hobart reported that she had received £154 from an appeal in the Mail newspaper and a further £50 from a Clifford Lloyd.

Some years later a Royal Irish Constable who was stationed in Ennis at the time believed that Francis Hynes was innocent. He recounted a different tale to the one that was both related in court and in the newspapers of the day. He stated that instead of lying by the roadside, or in the schoolhouse or being brought home immediately that John Doolaghty was taken by car to the local hospital. He was visited there by the local RIC Inspector Colonel Turner and it was he who identified Hynes as the killer by asking Doolaghty to squeeze his hand as he mentioned a number of suspects. There were other suspects including Francis Hynes brother but that Francis faced the hangman to save his married brother and allow his young family he have a father. Another suspect was a worker at the railway station in Ennis who had a run in with another member of the Doolaghty family.

Another prime suspect was a harness maker from Ennis who it was rumoured was paid five pounds to kill the farmer as part of the intimidation that was associated with the Land League. Immediately following the murder, this man fled the country to the United States. An anonymous letter also appeared in the Freeman Journal which is printed below with intimate details of the crime.

Reis's Chambers, The 1916 Rising, the Execution of Francis Hynes and Charles Reis - Part One

5.30p.m. Friday August 11^th 1882

Green Street Special Court, Dublin

Mr. John Walton, a respected solicitor from Ennis, County Clare sat down on the wooden bench after informing Mr. Justice Andrew Lawson that he had concluded the case for the defence. The judge smiled yet again, reached under his red robes and then took out his pocket watch at the end of the silver ornamental chain and opened the lid.

            ‘Members of the Jury it is late and I am instructing the Sub-Sheriff to take you for the night to a Dublin hotel perhaps I can recommend the Gresham, I have dined there often myself and it would be in keeping with the standard of gentleman serving on today’s jury’

The court rose to its feet, the Judge left and the prisoner taken down to the cells underground. The twelve men of the jury filed out and into a sparsely decorated jury room. The men patiently waited for a couple of minutes when the door opened and James Campbell, the Sub Sheriff under the Dublin City’s High Sheriff Edmund Gray MP, entered the room.

            ‘Honourable Gentlemen I am charged with your protection and to provide repose and refreshments for tonight at the direction of His Honour. I can offer you the fine facilities at The European Hotel or the Imperial Hotel’

            ‘But Mr. Justice Lawson recommended the Gresham’ interjected the jury foreman, forty year old businessman and merchant William George Barrett of Kingstown*.

(* Kingstown is now Dun Laoghaire)

A number of the men spoke against staying at the Imperial Hotel as they believed that it was frequented by the rebellious nationalists and supporters of the Charles Stewart Parnell Roman Catholic dominated Irish Party. They suggested as did Mr. Justice Lawson the Gresham Hotel on Upper Sackville Street* or the Shelbourne Hotel located on St. Stephen’s Green. Some of the jurors even suggested that they would rather spent the night in the court house as was with previous juries than go to the Imperial Hotel. But with the introduction of the Prevention of Crime Act and the moving of cases such as murder cases from the assizes in the country outside Dublin, juries were being afforded better treatment in a belief that they would be more conducive to giving the prosecution the desired result. After some heated discussion, Campbell ended the chatter.

            ‘Alright Gentlemen of the Jury as you have rejected the European, I will be taking you to the Imperial.’

The Imperial Hotel was located on Sackville Street and the European Hotel was located on Bolton Street.

(* Upper Sackville Street is now O’Connell Street)

The twelve unhappy men were transported by horse drawn coaches accompanied by Mr. Campbell, two bailiffs John Williams and George Strong and four Dublin Metropolitan Police constables James Caffrey, James Donnelly, Robert Young and Michael Carey. Also with the protection detail was James Campbell Junior son of the Sub Sheriff although not officially court appointed. The coaches traveled along the River Liffey quays as far as Carlisle Bridge* and turned right down Sackville Street passed the recently completed statue of the Emancipator Daniel O’Connell. The coaches stopped in front of the Imperial Hotel that overshadowed all of the buildings on that side of the street. Opposite the hotel was the façade of the General Post Office and between the two on the central meridian named Gardiner's Mall was the impressive one hundred and thirty four feet high Nelson’s Column granite and stone structure. The twelve men and their escorts entered. The men many of them wearing black frock coats, while others wore three piece suits topped with tall hats and walking sticks entered the lobby and waited to be taken to the floor that was assigned to them although there was no room assignments.

(*Carlisle Bridge is now called O’Connell Bridge)

The Imperial Hotel itself was located on the upper floors over McSwiney’s and Delaney’s Mart*, one of the first purpose built shopping malls in Europe opened in 1853 in time for the Dublin Exhibition. It was an impressive four storey structure modern for its day. In 1882 the Hotel was operated by William Lawlor. When James Campbell arrived at the hotel reception he spoke to the manager whom he had dealt with in the recent past. He told the manager that a floor should be cleared for them and that food should be provided for the jury and their protection. He also informed the manager that drink could be served in moderation. This would be good business for the hotel.

(*McSwiney’s and Delany’s Mart is today Cleary’s Department Store)

The jurors were taken to the third floor where all the rooms had been cleared but for two guests William O’Brien and Elizabeth Carberry. It was just after six p.m. and after freshening up, the jurors traveled back down one flight of stairs to a dining room to have pre-dinner drinks.

1881

Lissane and Knockaneane, Ennis County Clare

For a number of years John Doolaghty had worked as a herdsman for the Hynes family on their seventy acre farm but in post famine Ireland and at the height of Land League efforts to get a fair deal in rents paid by native Irish to Landlords, the Hynes family struggled to keep their farm financially viable. In 1878, the Hynes family rented out the grazing parts of their farm to James Lynch of Lissane. Head of the family John Hynes, a solicitor in Ennis in an attempt to keep the family from being evicted resorted to criminal activities and after being suspected of forgery fled the country leaving his wife and sons to look after the homestead. In 1880 the Hynes family were evicted from their farm and it was sold to James Lynch.

Francis Hynes took particular offence to this loss of the homestead even though he would not have been the beneficiary of the land as it would have gone to his married brother William and especially when he discovered that John Doolaghty had decided to stay on the farm as a herdsman for the new owner. Francis Hynes was a twenty three year old, six foot three fit young man who felt hard done by when Doolaghty would not agree to a boycott of the James Lynch farm. On February 4^th 1881, young Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Captain Hugh McTernan when he was accused of intimidating and attempting to bribe the Doolaghty family. These events followed a meeting in the town of Ennis addressed by the Nationalist MP Charles Stewart Parnell.

On taking over the farm James Lynch whose fortune was someone else’s misfortune had driven twenty three cattle onto the land and the Hynes brothers arrived and drove the cattle onto the road and threatened to take them further if there was no settlement with Doolaghty with regards to him quitting the employ of James Lynch. James Lynch although now in receipt of the farm had no quarrel with the Hynes family as they had proved honest and fair in their dealings with him in the previous years and they had prior to that been good neighbours.

Despite being bound over to the peace, Francis Hynes was suspected of being in a party that attacked the Doolaghty home and fired bullets into a cabinet shattering a number of plates. On another occasion, the grass on Lynch’s farm was cut in the middle of the night and stolen and in October 1881 shots were fired at Lynch himself as he herded some cattle through a field.

On Sunday July 9^th 1882, John Doolaghty and his wife Elizabeth known locally as Eliza left their home and attended Mass in Ennis. After Mass, Eliza went to visit the local convent while John set off on the walk home on that bright summer’s day.

 7p.m. August 11^th 1882

Dining Room, Imperial Hotel, Sackville Street.

Having made the arrangements with the manager and given details of where the invoice should sent, Campbell left for his own home on Rutland Place to have his dinner leaving John Williams and his son in charge of the members of the Jury.

The jury chosen for this case were forty year old William G Barrett a Distiller and mineral water merchant from Kingstown* who was chosen as the jury foreman. Forty five year old Royal Bank, Smithfield branch bank manager Richard Barbor from Rathmines and member of the Church of Ireland. The oldest member of the jury selected was Richard Carey of Lansdowne Road a retired gentlemen who professed to be a Protestant. Church of Ireland members William Gibson of Ormond Quay, fifty one year old plumber William Macklin of Kingstown and James Maconchy of Rathgar. Also selected was Dominic Street based Land Agent resident of Rathgar Edward C Hamilton. He was thirty five years old and a member of the Church of Ireland congregation.  Twenty eight year old Ephraim Phillips was a draper and hosier of Grafton Street a Methodist who would later become a rates collector in the city. John Beatty, forty one years old and a carpet manufacturer with a shop on Grafton Street and a Presbyterian. He was the co-founder of ‘Millar and Beatty, Carpet and Oil Cloth Warehouse’ who also had an office at Number Five Grafton Street. Grave E. Seabright, fifty four of Pembroke Road, Church of Ireland and William Wardropp of Great Brunswick Street* a Presbyterian. Wardropp was involved in building materials and construction sales who resided at Hamilton House on Ailesbury Road. The twelfth and final member of the jury was Scottish born Charles L Reis a jeweler on Grafton Street who was of the Jewish faith.

Charles Lionel Reis was born in Liverpool in July 1849 eldest son of Jonas and Elizabeth Reis. He married his first cousin Elizabeth in 1872 but she would pass away in 1915 after producing nine children, eight of whom survived. In June 1916 he married Christine McKay in Glasgow. In the 1870, Reis came arrived in Ireland having opened stores in Glasgow, Sheffield and Birmingham. He opened his first Dublin store on Westmoreland Street before moving to 115 Grafton Street and opening a second store at 6 Lower Sackville Street which would be vacated for the Dublin Bread Company and Reis’s moving to the corner of Lower Abbey Street. Reis’s company would also open a shop at 85 Patrick Street, Cork City. Reis’s business was destroyed in Dublin and he would pass away in Glasgow in 1927. For the duration of his time in Dublin, Reis lived at 1 Ailesbury Road in the affluent leafy suburbs of Ballsbridge and Mount Merrion.

Of the twelve members of the jury three did not drink whether by choice or belief, Ephraim Phillips, Richard Carey and William Macklin. The group gathered in the dining room and pre dinner drinks were delivered but it was not just the jury having a drink but all their guards would be consuming alcoholic beverages. It was the first opportunity for the gentlemen to get to know each other socially. They formed into small groups, some talking about their business, others about their personal lives and others discussing the case.

The pre-dinner drinks consisted of the following,

William Barrett         Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor        Glass of Wine

William Gibson         A half glass of Gin and Bitters

James Maconchy     Glass of Sherry

Charles L. Reis        A half glass of Gin and Bitters

Grave Seabright       A half glass of Sherry

William Wardropp   A half Glass of Gin and Bitters

None of the other members of the Jury had a drink before dinner. But the jury were not the only ones having drinks before dinner. The men of the protection detail were also drinking as they took it in turns of three to eat while the others watched the jury members. The drinks served to the protection detail were as follows

John Williams               A half glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A half Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A half glass of Whiskey

Robert Young               A half glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A half glass of Whiskey

The conversation was light hearted and warm as they sat around the table and sipped their drinks as they prepared for the evening meal. Most of the men were business men and discussion often veered towards their various occupations and perhaps what they could do for each other once the trial was over.

2.30pm July 9th 1882

The Road at Knockaneane

John Doolaghty attired in his Sunday best tweed suit was walking along the country road home when he met local man Cornelius McCormack who walked and chatted with him between Rossleven Cross and Guaria Cross where they parted and John Doolaghty continued alone along the road home. Suddenly from the bushes jumped a gunman in front of a startled Doolaghty and fired a gun at closed range into his face with the shot damaging much of the left side of his face and some shot penetrating his left eye and penetrating his brain. He collapsed on the road. Doctor Daxon, a doctor at the Clare County Asylum was first on the scene driving on his way home and moments later from the opposite direction came local butcher Michael Considine. They attempted to treat the wounds of the injured man at the side of the road. Shortly after 2.30p.m. Eliza was making her way home when she met a young man running along the road fetching water who informed her that he husband had been shot. She hurried along to the scene of the crime and knelt beside her injured husband cradling his bloodied her in her lap.

She immediately demanded that a priest be summoned. At 3.20p.m. Doctor Daxon left to fetch local curate Reverend J. Loughnane who returned with him and had obtained a flask of whiskey which he brought with him from the rectory. With some water Eliza wiped the blood from her husbands face and a small amount of whiskey was placed on the lips of the injured man but he had problems swallowing. She later recounted to the investigating magistrate that she asked her husband who shot him and she said that he had said ‘Francy’.

Reverend Loughnane began to give the dying man the last rights. He said in court that the man seemed to follow the act of contrition but that he was struggling in and out of consciousness. The priest believed under oath that the man was in a coma. After delivering the priest Doctor Daxon left again for Ennis and informed the local police of the incident. A large force of policemen headed for the scene of the crime.

First on the scene was Constable Richard Doyle followed shortly after at 4.30p.m. by Captain Hugh McTernan RM, sub Inspector Croghran and police surgeon Doctor William Cullinan. According to early reports when Constable Doyle arrived they moved the injured man into the nearly National School of the road and out of the elements and that is where the injured man was when Captain McTernan arrived. But in a number of court appearances the Captain would under oath claim that the injured man was still by the side of the road and that he ordered the constables to break in the door of the school only to fetch a pen and paper for a dying declaration. McTernan said that he asked who Doolaghty who had shot him and that he replied ‘Francy Hynes’ and that he asked ‘was it Francy Hynes who shot you?’ and Doolaghty replied  ‘yes’ this despite both Doctor Daxon and Reverend Loughnane stating that Doolaghty was both incoherent and unconscious.  McTernan swore that he wrote a dying declaration on a piece of paper for Doolaghty. “I John Doolaghty believing that I am dying, declare that Francis Hynes killed me by firing shots at me” and that when he repeated the declaration and showed it to Doolaghty that he replied ‘yes’.

The injured man was then taken home where he was tended to by Dr. Cullinan and his family. He succumbed to his wounds and died on Monday night at 10.15p.m.

July 9th 1882

Hassett's Public House, Barefield

Constable Doyle was despatched to arrest Francis Hynes whom they were informed could be found in Hassett's public house in the nearby village of Barefield. Constable Doyle said that he found the suspect eating outside the bar and that he seemed to him to be intoxicated. Francis Hynes was twenty three years old and athletic in build in his six foot three inch frame. The son a local solicitor who had himself ran foul of the law on charges of forgery. They owned a farm at Drumdoolaghty but it the tough economic times of post famine Ireland and at the height of the land leagues battle for fair rents for tenants, the family let out the grass on their farm to James Lynch in 1878 and 1879. The following year financial matters overtook the Hynes family and they were evicted from their farm in 1880 for non payment of rent. The farm was then sold to James Lynch who maintained the employment of the herdsman James Doolaghty much to the displeasure of the Hynes family. In February 1881 Francis Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Hugh McTernan for twelve months for intimidating and attempting to bribe James Doolaghty. The intimidation included the cutting and stealing of the grass on the farm in the middle of the night and the opening of gates and allowing Lynch’s cattle to roam free on the roads.  In September 1881 a group of armed men including members of the Hynes family raided the Doolaghty family home on the farm and fired a number of shots in an attempt to get Doolaghty to boycott the employment of Lynch. Even the sound of shattering delph did not stop Doolaghty faithfully serving his master as he too had a large family to feed and needed the work. In October 1881 shots were fired at James Lynch as he herded his cattle from a field. Much of the Hynes’s frenzy was whipped up following an impassioned speech in Ennis by the leader of the Irish party Charles Stewart Parnell.

When he was searched he found some gun powder and buck shot in his pocket and a pair of dry socks. He claimed that in appearance that his boots were grey as though they had been through water and his socks seemed wet and were up over the bottom of his trousers. Hynes immediately denied any hand or part in the shooting and that he could not have done it as he was in the bar at the time of the shooting and that from the time of the shooting to the time he arrived in the pub he would not have had the time to make the four mile journey. The police claim that there was a stream between the scene of the crime and the place of arrest and that it why his boots looked wet that he made his escape through the stream.

The landlady of the house and three customers claim that Francis was drinking with them at the time of the murder. He claimed that at the time given for the murder he was entering the bar and would not have had the time to make it from the scene of the crime to the pub in the allotted time. Francis Hynes was taken to the police barracks in Ennis. 

7.30p.m. August 11^th 1882

The Dining Room of the Imperial Hotel

The jury were eating dinner and another round of drinks were served while they were eating. There was sherry, whiskey and a bottle of Claret served. The drinks orders were as follows

William Barrett              A Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor             A Glass of grog

John Beatty                  One and a half Glasses of Sherry

William Gibson             A Half Glass of Sherry

Edward Hamilton          A Glass of Whiskey

James Maconchy          Two Glasses of Sherry

Charles Reis                 Three Glasses of Claret

Graves Seabright          A half glass of Claret

William Wardropp        A Glass of Sherry and Three quarters of a glass of Whiskey

The other three jurors only had water with their dinner.

The protection detail also ordered drinks with their meals as follows

John Williams               A Glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A Bottle of stout

Robert Young               A Glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A Glass of Whiskey

After the plates were cleared another round of drinks were ordered by some of the jury members and Charles Reis ordered a bottle of champagne and four glasses for himself, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Maconchy and Mr. Wardropp. He tells his fellow jury members that having a bottle of champagne after his lunch was a regular occurrence if he were at home. William Gibson ordered a glass of beer and Graves Seabright had another glass of Claret. Some of the men began to smoke cigars and there was discomfort amongst some of the older members and the non smokers as the room quickly resembled a harbour fog scene. As chairman of the jury, Mr. Barrett asked the guard at the door if there was somewhere else the men who wished to smoke could go. After some discussion and a suggestion from Charles Reis, six of the jury, half of them, were escorted down one floor to the hotel’s billiard room by two constables and a bailiff. On duty in the room was the hotel’s Billiard Marker Alfred Martin.

Four jury members remained talking in the dining room and Richard Barbor and William Macklin retired to bed early at 9.45p.m. and 10p.m. respectively. Mr. Barbor spent his time after dinner reading a copy of The London Times and retired to bed when a member of his family had delivered his nightclothes to the reception of the hotel and they had been passed onto him by one of the Constables. At 9.30pm Mr. Campbell arrived in the dining room and passed the remark to Mr. Beatty that jurors now had so much liberty compared to olden days when they would have been locked up in the sparse and unaccommodating surroundings of the Green Street Courthouse.