Crime in the nineteenth-century Irish home

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the Irish home as the scene of a crime. Using a sample of nineteenth-century textual records, namely coroners’ inquest documents, police and witness statements, judges’ reports of trials, and newspapers, it showcases how the home could become a focus of attention in court. Police (and sometimes the general public) infiltrated these domestic spaces in their search for clues; they often interfered with domestic materiality, or confiscated objects or fragments therefrom. In court, maps, plans and models illustrated the physical space and layout of the home for those who had not crossed the threshold. Witness testimonies accounting for the crime inadvertently reveal how the homes looked, some of their contents, and the nature of relationships between occupants and neighbours. These Irish homes were typically ordinary domestic spaces but as this article shows, the crime brought the intimate space to a more public arena. It also demonstrates how the home could both protect or expose a suspect.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the participants of the AHRC Network, ‘Challenging Domesticity in Britain, c.1890-1990’, for shaping some of my ideas on this subject, and to Eloise Moss and Charlotte Wildman for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I have used the term Derry in this article to refer to the city and the term Londonderry to denote the county.

2 Georgina Laragy, ‘“A Peculiar Species of Felony”: Suicide, Medicine, and the Law in Victorian Britain and Ireland’, Journal of Social History 46, no. 3 (2013): 732–43.

3 Crime scene photography was not typically used in nineteenth-century Irish crime investigations, although photographs were taken in some notable cases, such as the killing of Bridget Cleary in Tipperary in 1895. See Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary (London: Vintage Digital, 1999), 132–4.

4 See, for example, Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary; Karen Brennan, ‘Murder in the Irish Family, 1930–1945’, in Law and the Family in Ireland, 1800–1950, ed. Niamh Howlin and Kevin Costello (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017), 160–80; Sarah-Anne Buckley, ‘The Cruelty Man’: Child Welfare, the NSPCC, and the State in Ireland, 1889–1956 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013); Lindsey Earner-Byrne, ‘“Behind Closed Doors”: Society, Law and Familial Violence in Ireland, 1922–1990’, in Howlin and Costello, Law and the Family in Ireland, 142–59; Maria Luddy, ‘The Early Years of the NSPCC in Ireland’, Éire-Ireland 44, no. 1&2 (2009): 62–90; Maria Luddy and Mary O’Dowd, Marriage in Ireland, 1660–1925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), chapter 10; Richard McMahon, Homicide in Pre-Famine and Famine Ireland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017), chapter 3; Elizabeth Steiner-Scott, ‘"To Bounce a Boot Off Her Now and Then … ": Domestic Violence in Post-Famine Ireland’, in Women in Irish History: Essays in Honour of Margaret MacCurtain, ed. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis and Mary O’Dowd (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1997), 125–43; Diane Urquhart, ‘Irish Divorce and Domestic Violence, 1857–1922’, Women’s History Review 22, no. 5 (2013): 820–37.

5 See, for example, Eli Osterweil Anders, ‘“So Delightful a Temporary Home”: The Material Culture of Domesticity in Late Nineteenth-Century English Convalescent Institutions’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 76, no. 3 (2021): 264–93; Amy Helen Bell, Murder Capital: Suspicious Deaths in London, 1933–53 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014); Amy Helen Bell, ‘Abortion Crime Scene Photography in Metropolitan London 1950–1968’, Social History of Medicine 30, no. 3 (2017): 661–84; Eloise Moss, Night Raiders: Burglary and the Making of Modern Urban Life in London, 1860–1968 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), chapter 6.

6 Claudia Kinmonth, Irish Country Furniture and Furnishings, 1700–2000 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2020), 7–17. See also Joanna Bourke, Husbandry to Housewifery: Women, Economic Change, and Housework in Ireland, 1890–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

7 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

8 Deposition of Mary Moore, 6 May 1881 (National Archives of Ireland (hereafter NAI), Convict Reference File (hereafter CRF), B-2-1892).

9 Deposition of Archibald Dutchfield, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

10 It is probable that David and Elizabeth Buchanan were not legally married. After David’s death, a constable reported that the couple had tried to get married in Carndonagh but had not completed the necessary paperwork to do so (Thomas Hogben to County Inspector Quin John Brownrigg, 13 August 1881 (NAI, Penal File (hereafter PEN)/1892/31)). On the legality of marriage in Ireland, see Luddy and O’Dowd, Marriage in Ireland, 1660–1925, chapter 1. For nineteenth-century long-term cohabitation, see Ginger Frost, Living in Sin: Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014).

11 Penal record of Elizabeth Buchanan (NAI, PEN/1892/31).

12 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

13 Deposition of Mary Anne Logue, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892); Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

14 Alexa Neale, Photographing Crime Scenes in Twentieth-Century London: Microhistories of Domestic Murder (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 38.

15 Deposition of Thomas Dickson, 10 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

16 Deposition of Andrew Farry, 10 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

17 Ibid.

18 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

19 Anders, ‘“So Delightful a Temporary Home”’, 5–6.

20 For more on this case, see Elaine Farrell, ‘A Most Diabolical Deed’: Infanticide and Irish Society, 1850–1900 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), chapter 4.

21 Alexander Smith in William D. Andrew’s report of the trial (NAI, CRF, E-5-1886).

22 William John Eakins in William D. Andrew’s report of the trial (NAI, CRF, E-5-1886).

23 Deposition of William Grannery, 17 August 1892 (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (hereafter PRONI), Crown Files for County Antrim, 1892, ANT/1/2/C/2/64).

24 Belfast News-letter, 18 August 1892.

25 Deposition of David Hannan, 26 May 1867 (NAI, CRF, C-50-1867).

26 Freeman’s Journal, 7 April 1879.

27 The Standard, 19 May 1880.

28 Liverpool Mercury, 11 December 1890.

29 Deposition of William Stratford, 14 February 1891 (NAI, CRF, C-75-1893).

30 Ibid.

31 Heather Shore, London’s Criminal Underworlds, c.1720–c.1930: A Social and Cultural History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 122–3.

32 For more on this case, see Elaine Farrell, Women, Crime and Punishment in Ireland: Life in the Nineteenth-Century Convict Prison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 81–91.

33 Moss, Night Raiders, 135.

34 Information of Joseph King, 1 August 1889 in Infanticide in the Irish Crown Files at Assizes, 1883–1900, ed. Elaine Farrell (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 2012), 37.

35 Information of Catherine (Cassie) McFadden of Letterkenny, 1 June 1893 in Infanticide in the Irish Crown Files at Assizes, ed. Farrell, 174.

36 Deposition of Thomas Dickson, 10 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

37 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 20 April 1887 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

38 Deposition of James MacCullagh, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

39 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

40 Neale, Photographing Crime Scenes in Twentieth-Century London, 9.

41 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

42 Freeman’s Journal, 10 February 1865.

43 James Anderson in William D. Andrew’s report of the trial (NAI, CRF, E-5-1886).

44 Ibid.

45 Neale, Photographing Crime Scenes in Twentieth-Century London, 8.

46 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

47 Deposition of Mary Birmingham, 14 March 1893 in Infanticide in the Irish Crown Files at Assizes, ed. Farrell, 168.

48 Information of Patrick McKenna, 19 January 1895 (PRONI, Crown Files for County Antrim, 1895, ANT/1/2/C/5/17).

49 Deposition of John McCaughey, 20 April 1896 (PRONI, Crown Files for the City of Belfast, 1896, BELF/1/2/2/6/17).

50 For discussion of nineteenth-century forensic science and toxicology in the courtroom, see, for example, José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez, ‘Managing Uncertainty in the Academy and the Courtroom: Normal Arsenic and Nineteenth-Century Toxicology’, Isis: A Publication of the History of Science Society 104, no. 2 (2013): 197–225; Ian Burney, Poison, Detection, and the Victorian Imagination (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006); Alun Evans and Breandán MacSuibhne, ‘Forensics and Folklore the Theft of “Human Lard” in Nineteenth-Century Clare’, History Ireland 20, no. 6 (2012): 26–9; Christopher Hamlin, ‘Forensic Cultures in Historical Perspective: Technologies of Witness, Testimony, Judgment (and Justice?)’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013): 4–15.

51 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

52 José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez, ‘Chemistry, Microscopy and Smell: Bloodstains and Nineteenth-Century Legal Medicine’, Annals of Science 72, no. 4 (2013): 490–516.

53 Richard J. Moss in William D. Andrew’s report of the trial (NAI, CRF, E-5-1886).

54 Ibid.

55 Henry Fraser in William D. Andrew’s report of the trial (NAI, CRF, E-5-1886).

56 Deposition of James MacCullagh, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

57 Deposition of Andrew Farry, 10 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

58 Neale, Photographing Crime Scenes in Twentieth-Century London, 9.

59 A stained piece of material sent to Sir Charles Cameron for analysis survives among the trial records for the Queen vs McKeon (NAI, Crown Files for County Sligo, 1891). For photographs of items confiscated in twentieth-century infanticide cases, see Cliona Rattigan, ‘What Else Could I Do? Single Mothers and Infanticide, Ireland 1900–1950 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2012), plates.

60 Caitriona Clear, ‘Women of the House in Ireland, 1850–1900’, in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, ed. Angela Bourke et al., iv (5 vols, Cork: Cork University Press, 2002), 596.

61 Deposition of Catherine Manaher, 3 April 1894 (NAI, Crown Files for County Kerry, 1894).

62 Bourke, Husbandry to Housewifery, 206.

63 Deposition of Catherine Manaher, 3 April 1894 (NAI, Crown Files for County Kerry, 1894). For a discussion of the challenges women faced in old age, see Sarah McHugh, ‘“Who of Us Care to be Seen Assisting an Old Woman?”: The Institutional Care of Ireland's Elderly Women, 1845–1908’ (Unpublished PhD, Queen’s University Belfast, 2021).

64 Kerry Sentinel, 14 July 1894.

65 Bourke, Husbandry to Housewifery, chapter 7; Clear, ‘Women of the House in Ireland’, 596; Maria Luddy, Women in Ireland, 1800–1918: A Documentary History (Cork: Cork University Press, 1995), chapter 1; Mary O’Dowd, A History of Women in Ireland, 1500–1800 (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005), chapter 3.

66 Statement of the accused, 10 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

67 Deposition of Mary Anne Logue, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

68 Ibid.

69 Deposition of Elizabeth Walsh, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

70 Deposition of John Moore, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

71 Ibid.

72 Deposition of Bridget Elliott, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

73 Deposition of Mary Moore, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

74 Victoria Bates, ‘Forensic Medicine and Female Victimhood in Victorian and Edwardian England’, Past & Present, no. 245 (2019): 141.

75 Deposition of James MacCullagh, 6 May 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

76 Londonderry Sentinel, 21 July 1881.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 For a discussion of community disapproval of age gaps within marriages in nineteenth-century Ireland, see Linda May Ballard, Forgetting Frolic: Marriage Traditions in Ireland (Belfast: Queen's University Belfast, 1998), 32; E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), 286.

80 Justice Fitzgerald to Dublin Castle, 24 July 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

81 Belfast News-letter, 22 July 1881.

82 Ibid.

83 Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1881.

84 Belfast News-letter, 22 July 1881.

85 Justice Fitzgerald to Dublin Castle, 24 July 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

86 Petition of inhabitants of the county of Londonderry, n.d. (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

87 Illustrated Police News, 30 July 1891.

88 Justice Fitzgerald to Dublin Castle, 24 July 1881 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

89 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 11 August 1885 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

90 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 20 April 1887 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

91 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 28 February 1888 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

92 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 13 November 1888 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

93 Ibid.

94 Petitions of Elizabeth Buchanan, 30 January 1892; 3 July 1892 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

95 Katie Barclay, ‘Place and Power in Irish Farms at the End of the Nineteenth Century’, Women's History Review 21, no. 4 (2012): 575.

96 Montgomery died in Inishowen Workhouse in February 1883 at the age of eighty-three (Death record of Mary Anne Montgomery, 17 February 1883, available at civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie (last accessed 10 May 2022)).

97 Farrell, Women, Crime and Punishment, 249.

98 Petition of Elizabeth Buchanan, 30 January 1892 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

99 Memo of Charles Bourke, 3 February 1892 (NAI, CRF, B-2-1892).

100 Penal file of Elizabeth Buchanan (NAI, PEN/1892/31).

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Elaine Farrell

Elaine Farrell is a Reader in History at Queen’s University Belfast. She is a social historian with interests in women’s history and crime in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Ireland. Her monographs include Women, Crime and Punishment in Ireland: Life in the Nineteenth-Century Convict Prison (Cambridge University Press, 2020), and ‘A Most Diabolical Deed’: Infanticide and Irish Society, 1850–1900 (Manchester University Press, 2013). With Leanne McCormick, she leads the AHRC-funded Bad Bridget project, which examines criminal and deviant Irish women in nineteenth and twentieth-century North America.