The Colleen Bawn;
By
Richard Lloyd Fitzgerald

First published 1868
Published by The Ex-Classics Project, 2021.
Public Domain

Bibliographic note
First published 1868. Transcribed from a reprint dated 1931. The
copy used belonged to William Danaher, (1872-1956), folklorist
and schoolmaster at Athea, Co. Limerick, about 13 km. from Glin.
He collected the recollections of older people in the area who
were alive at the time of the murder, and incorporated them in
handwritten notes, which are appended here.
Fitzgerald, who was Protestant rector of Glin, Co. Limerick, and
nephew of the Knight of Glin who plays such a prominent part in the story, lived c. 1800-1885.


Title Page

THE
COLLEEN BAWN

THE TRUE HISTORY OF ELLEN HANLEY
By one who knew her in life and saw her in death
by
REVD. DR. FITZGERALD,<1>
Protestant Clergyman of Ballydonohoe, Glin, County Limerick.

TRALEE:
REPRINTED BY
THE KERRYMAN, LIMITED.
1931.
Price: 1/=

CHAPTER I.

Early in the Summer of 1819 I doffed my cap and gown in my rooms
at dear old Trinity, and, with elastic step and buoyant spirits,
issued from the ancient gateway of "Alma Mater," filled with
bright visions of the fun and frolic, the rural sports, and
manly exercises of the country, anticipating with feelings of no
ordinary delight, the sweet society of the loved relatives of
home, which I hoped to enjoy during the long vacation, now
commenced. Having bidden a kind farewell to the college porters,
whom I always made my friends, and who, as I departed,
respectfully raised their caps from their brows, and with a
hearty cheer wished me a merry time in the country and a safe
return, I bounded off, accompanied by my skip, with my trunk on
his back, and reached the office of the two-day coach for
Limerick, just as my old friend, Jim Dempsey (alongside whom I
drove many a journey in the Summer's heat and in the Winter's
cold), had taken his seat on the box. I always made it a point,
and trust I shall continue to do so, to act with courtesy, and
to exercise the law of kindness towards all with whom it has
been, or may be, my lot to hold intercourse while passing
through the varying scenes of this eventful world; and I
strongly recommend everyone who wishes to enjoy real happiness,
to cultivate the same spirit. By acting so, I have made many a
rough way smooth, I have softened the naturally sullen and
uncourteous disposition of several, who, if treated with
hauteur, would probably have resented it, and I secured for
myself the friendship of many who, through a kind word spoken in
season, were led to see the folly and misery of giving way to
unruly tempers. The moment my old friend Jim got a glimpse of
me, he gave me a knowing wink, and made some palavering excuse
to a stout rustic (whom, in his rich Irish dialect, he called a
"feeltough"<2>), that had preoccupied the box seat, and, having
prevailed on him to give way, quickly arranged a comfortable
place at his side for the young collegian who had often fought
gallantly with him against the Winter's storm and the cutting
breeze. No sooner had I taken the place which my friend Jim had
so adroitly provided for me, than "crack went the whip, round
went the wheels," and away we bowled, at the rate of six Irish
miles an hour, a slapping pace fifty years ago, when railroads
were not so much as thought of. After a comfortable journey of
about nine hours, not marked by any particular incident, but
very much enlivened by the racy and amusing jests of my jolly
and good-humoured companion Jim, we arrived at Mountrath in time
to partake of a most substantial and well-served dinner; and,
after it, to enjoy for the evening the society of the passengers
of the up, as well as those of the down coach, which for many
years had daily met at that provincial town. Short as the time
was at these social meetings for communion amongst the
passengers, friendships were formed, and, no doubt, tender
engagements commenced which ended only with life. Looking back
to those happy days, when the youthful heart was seldom crushed
with care, and the merry students of our noble and ancient
University, after shaking off the dust of nine months'
collegiate life, were hastening homewards to brace their nerves
for the Winter term, I confess that I recur to them with the
most pleasurable feelings. Though no doubt, there were in those
days of often exuberant wildness, many things done which it
would have been better to have left undone, still, in my
opinion, there is nothing better qualified to prepare young men
for the battle of life than the rough usage which they will
often meet at school and at college. Having been roused from our
slumbers at five the next morning by the shrill voice of the
well-known "Snowball" (who had received that soubriquet, the
direct contrast to his Ethiopian skin) sounding, in our ears,
the words, which many a weary traveller would heartily have
wished had been postponed, "Time to rise, Massa," we had the
alternative to shake off Mr. Murphy and pack up for another long
day's drive to Limerick, or to be left behind. We started
precisely at six, and arrived at Dunkerrin at nine, well
prepared for a hearty breakfast, for which we paid two
tenpennies, with a trifle to the waiter, and, depend upon it,
left little profit to the "Maitre d'hotel." The incidents of the
journey 1 shall at present sum up, by merely stating that,
having left my friend Jim at Mountrath, his successor, though
equally civil and accommodating, was sombre and reserved in his
nature, a strong contrast to my jolly friend whom we had left
behind. Having arrived safely at Limerick at three p.m., I
walked about the town with a beloved college friend and
companion, alas, now no more! and exchanged kind and
affectionate salutations with numerous acquaintances, and thus
whiled away the time till six o'clock, when I enjoyed, with my
friend just alluded to, a hearty dinner at Moriarty's, now
Cruises' Hotel; looking forward with earnest longings for the
morrow, at the close of which, after a sail down the Shannon, I
hoped to clasp to my bosom the beloved friends for whom my
youthful heart for the last nine months was deeply and intensely
longing.

An incident occurred that night in Limerick which memory still
retains with feelings of thankfulness to Almighty God, for
making me an humble instrument in His hands for saving from
perhaps a horrible death a whole family, who were then
slumbering, unconscious of their danger, and totally unaware
that their house was on fire. I was walking with my friend,
before alluded to, through Cecil Street, about ten o'clock, when
I saw a more than usual blaze of light in a house, and
immediately accosting him, said, "I am sure that house is on
fire." I thought it better, therefore, even though I should be
mistaken, to rouse the inmates; and, to do so, I thundered with
all my might at the door, and, after a lapse of a minute or two,
it was opened by a terrified and half-dressed maid servant. We
did not wait to exchange words with the domestic, but rushed
upstairs, and having forced in the drawing-room door, flames
immediately burst out, and, finding the carpet and several other
articles in a blaze, we set heartily to work, shouting the while
for help, and, with God's assistance, were soon enabled to check
the progress of the devouring element, and eventually to
completely extinguish it. We were in the midst of our work of
mercy, when two half-dressed females, evidently of the higher
class, made their appearance on the stairs, and, though we used
every exertion to soothe their fears by assuring them that all
danger was at an end, the terror which they had experienced was
so intense that they both swooned away, and it was some time
before they recovered from the shock which they had received. I
know not whether any of the parties, besides myself, who went
through this fiery trial, are now alive, but, should they be,
and this brief account of the occurrence, which was so near
being fatal to them, meet their eye, they will, no doubt,
remember the young striplings, fresh from college, who were
providentially made the instruments of saving their lives.



CHAPTER II.

I shall now enter into the details of the fearful tragedy which
I have undertaken to relate, and which, at the time it was
enacted, occupied a very prominent place amongst the
extraordinary events of the day; especially from the position in
life of the principal malefactor. This ruthless villain was
clearly convicted of one of the most heartless murders on record
in the annals of civilised life, and for which, in the very
county where he ought to have maintained a highly respectable
station, he deservedly suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
Ellen Hanly, the unfortunate victim of this brutal murder, was
the daughter of a small farmer, and, at the time she eloped with
this fiend in human shape, was residing with an uncle, a
respectable tradesman, who, by honest industry and economy, had
accumulated a sum of about sixty pounds. Her heartless seducer
persuaded poor Elly to steal this money from her kind protector,
who, it will appear from the sequel, was most devotedly attached
to this lovely young creature, whom he had adopted as his child
and brought up from her infancy with the most tender care. I had
partly from her own lips the history of her misfortune, which
originated in listening to the persuasive eloquence of her well-
trained seducer, who, had promised her marriage before she fled
with him from the home of her affectionate uncle, and which
pledge she felt quite convinced he had redeemed to the fullest
extent by making her his wife.

Shortly after she had entrusted herself to the care of this vile
wretch, he got up a mock marriage, which the poor creature, in
all her simplicity, imagined was perfectly genuine. This gallant
son of Mars (for it appears he had been an officer in the Royal
Marines) hired a villain, who was as accomplished in iniquity as
himself, to personate a Roman Catholic priest, and who, being
robed in the vestments of a clergyman of that communion,
performed the marriage ceremony; and thus not only satisfied the
conscience of the unsuspecting young creature (who by her
father's sworn testimony was under sixteen years of age), but
also divested her of all suspicion of the nefarious plans of the
"high-bred" villain, who, when he had spent all the money which
he had tempted his poor victim to abstract from her uncle,
persuaded the accomplice of his deeds of darkness to murder, and
to commit her body to the deep.

On the morning after my arrival in Limerick, with the scene of
the previous night vividly before me, and romantic visions of
the inmates of the house, whom I had been so fortunate as to
rescue, floating in my boyish mind. I left the hotel to take my
passage to Glin, in the "Lady Frances" packet, the best mode of
conveyance at that period, and to be preferred to bad roads and
worse carriages. As soon as I came on board I was warmly greeted
by Tom Mahony, the pilot, who, during my school days at Kilrush,
where his voyage ended, often bore a message from me to dear
friends at home; and into whose sympathising ears I often poured
a flood of all the wrongs I fancied I had suffered, when the
birch of our preceptor was exercised, as I firmly believed, with
undue severity upon me for my trifling peccadilloes. "Musha,
Master Dick," said old Tom, "I am glad to see your darling face
once' more. Wisha, faix you're grown a fine slashing fellow
since last I saw you. In truth Paddy A—— would have something to
do to hoist you now; I'd be bound you'd have a tug with the ould
lad before you'd let him put you up. Yerra! how is Master Gerald
and Master John?' Monnum!<3> but they say Master John is the
brightest boy, in college; faix, the next pramium he gets, we'll
have a bone-fire for him in Kilrush." With these hearty; and, no
doubt, sincere expressions of friendship for myself and kind
inquiries about my two beloved brothers, alas, now no more! (one
of whom was a distinguished ornament of our noble University),
my old and warm-hearted friend Tom, upon the skipper giving
orders to cast off the hawsers, took a stout hold of the tiller
and got the little vessel under weigh. Just as she was gliding
along the wharf, a tall, dark-visaged young man, evidently the
worse of liquor, jumped on board with a gun in his hand, crying
out, "Ha! I was near being late. Elly, dear," addressing a
pretty young creature sitting on a bench on the deck, "what
would you do if I were left behind? Hie ho! faith I was raking
all night," he exclaimed, throwing his hands over his head, with
the gun still firmly in his grasp, which he swung from one side
to the other, to the evident dismay of the passengers, any of
whom might, during one of his wild gyrations over the deck, have
received the contents through the body. It was really a very
ticklish position to be placed in, as the gun was loaded, of
which I subsequently made myself sure by a trial, for, after he
had made a few wild whirls round the vessel, he laid down the
fowling-piece on the deck, threw himself exhausted on a
stretcher, and when I found that he was buried in sleep I took
it up and found it heavily charged.

We had now moved away from the quay and, with the ebbing tide,
were carried swiftly beyond the precincts of the fast retiring
city; old Tom steering his little bark with the most consummate
skill through the vast variety of crafts of various sizes which
at that day, before steam almost superseded sailing vessels, lay
at anchor in every direction down the Pool. As I paced up and
down the deck, occasionally cracking a joke with my kind and
facetious friend Tom, my attention was drawn towards the young
female before alluded to, who had been addressed by the man now
fast asleep on the deck, from whose haggard countenance an
admirable sketch might have been taken to depict the hero of
Hogarth's "Rakes Progress"! It was no wonder that a lad of
seventeen, as I then was, with all the bright visions of life
before me, fresh from the society of my joyous companions of old
Trinity, should look with interest on this lovely young
creature. I saw evidently she was gazing with bewildered look on
the wretched object stretched upon the deck, who appeared more
like a snoring grampus than a human being. Who could then
suppose that he had been an officer of the Royal Marines, a
corps from which he had just retired, and had entered upon a
career of infamy, moral degradation, and frightful crime,
induced by these debasing habits of intemperance and self-
indulgence, into which, alas! too many godless and reckless
youths are still being led by their unbridled passions. Young
and innocent-looking as this apparently unfriended girl was, a
glance, as it were, of noble indignation flashed across her 
beautiful countenance, as her black and brilliant eye fixed
itself on the mass of living corruption lying prostrate before
her. A look of pity, mingled with pardonable scorn, was visible
in every feature, as she beheld the sleeping brute, for the love
of whom, as will soon appear, she forsook all the comforts of a
dear, though humble home. Here lay the man, to follow whose
fortunes she sacrificed adoring parents, loving brothers and
sisters, and a devotedly attached uncle, who had adopted her as
his own, and who mourned for her as one would for an only child,
when he found that she had fled from beneath his roof. To what a
state of moral degradation must this wretched man have been
reduced, when the very night of the day on which he had led his
poor unsuspecting victim to believe that she had become his
wife, at the very time when her afflicted relatives were
shedding bitter tears over her elopement, by his own confession,
expressed in my hearing, and that of every passenger on board,
he had been indulging in the grossest revelry and excess! One
could almost read her innocent thoughts, as her poor sickening
features were gradually withdrawn from the disgusting object
still sweltering in a feverish sleep, and with fitful starts and
dreaming exclamations already giving an earnest of the dark
deeds which he was plotting in his unhallowed mind. "Stephen,
ahoy! Bring the boat ashore! D—n it, man, I'll blow your brains
out if you don't come directly." Then, with clenched hands d
teeth, he uttered some horrid imprecations which though
frightful to listen to, gave no definite ideas to those who were
witnesses of the scenes which I have described, of what was
passing in his fiendish thoughts. Leaving this miserable and
degraded victim of Satan's wiles to sleep off his late
debauchery I shall reserve for another chapter a conversation
which I had with poor Elly, for whose forlorn case I had already
begun to feel a deep sympathy.



CHAPTER III.

The restless slumber of the yet unawakened debauchee had
continued, and the evidentlyunhappy young person whom he
addressed when he first came on board (to whose manifest
disgust, in common with the great majority of the other
passengers, he had described the drunken orgies of the previous
night) now sat listlessly musing on the scene which I have
described and seemed racked with the agonising thoughts which,
no doubt, surged in her drooping and afflicted heart. After the
lapse of a few minutes, I ventured gently to approach, and
having briefly gazed with tender compassion on her lovely
countenance, now bedewed with tears, I asked if I could, in any
way, be of service to her. Awakened, as it were, suddenly from a
feverish dream, she turned her dark and streaming eyes towards
the youth who had politely tendered his devoirs, and had
endeavoured, with look and gesture, to inspire with confidence
the young female who evidently stood so much in need of
consolation. "Pray, young friend," I said, "excuse me for this
intrusion, and for thus venturing to address you. I can no
longer conceal that I see the cause of your distress; yonder
restless sleeper is, no doubt, connected to you by some tie
which causes these bitter tears to flow." "Ah, kind sir," she
replied, "you have guessed right: That man, that br—— (she
suddenly restrained herself, as if a tender thought, had curbed
her just indignation) is my husband. A few days only have passed
since I left my darling uncle's house with him, after pledging
his word and honour that he would always love me; and it was but
yesterday that the holy Father joined our hands in marriage."
Such was the artless, simple, yet true description, which was at
once confidingly given by this interesting young creature to one
who, a few minutes before, was a perfect stranger to her.
Despairing, as she evidently was, of any sympathy from the man,
for whose love she had sacrificed all the blessings and comforts
of a happy home, she felt glad that she had found one to whom
she might venture to unburden the load of care which was then
crushing her young and guileless heart. How could she respect
the vile wretch who the very day after he had led her to believe
she was his lawful wife, and had solemnly pledged himself to
love and cherish her, had, as already described, gloried in his
shame, in the presence of the company, who were now witnesses of
his degradation. As soon as I ascertained that I had won her
confidence, and felt assured that in her desolate and forlorn
condition it was a manifest relief to her to have gained a
friend who would sympathize with her in her sorrow, I at once
entered into a familiar conversation with her and learned, in a
short time, the source of that misery, which, in an unguarded
moment, she had been led into.

The heartless villain of our tale (who, as before described, was
sleeping off the effects of his brutal debauchery) had, while on
a sporting excursion, apparently by accident, but with deep
design, sought shelter at the humble abode of Elly's uncle, and
with the most perfect nonchalance knocked at the cottage door.
The shades of night were then gathering round, and as the
mansion of an aristocratic friend with whom he was staying on a
visit was many miles distant, he made that an excuse to ask for
the old man's hospitality, which, with the characteristic
generosity of the Irish peasant, was at once freely tendered to
him. "Here, Elly dear," cried the venerable and unsuspecting
owner of the humble dwelling, "this gentleman who has just
knocked at our door seems very wet and cold; sure 'tis hard to
think his honour can put up with our poor fare, but we'll .give
him at all events a 'Cead Mile Failthe.<4>' Put down some turf
on the fire, darling, and warm some water for him, and if he'll
just sit in the room there for a moment, I'll bring him dry
shoes and stockings, which perhaps he will put up with for the
present." In a shorter time than I have taken to describe it,
this office of kindness was performed, and no sooner had our
sportsman thus exchanged his wet hose for a comfortable dry
pair, than he threw himself in a lounging attitude into a rustic
armchair, and enjoyed a cheerful fire, enlivened by native bog-
deal which might vie with the Yule log of ancient days. The aged
host was well supported in his hospitable exertions to provide
for all the necessities of the duine uasal<5>; and while he
bustled about to provide a decent spread, little Elly was busy
in getting ready a spatchcock and a rasher, in a miraculously
short time a steaming pot of potatoes was prepared to add to the
repast, to which their guest now applied himself with a gusto
that a London alderman might have envied. While all the master's
wants were thus abundantly supplied, his servant Stephen, sat
roasting himself at the hob, was not neglected;  a large plate
of bacon and cabbage, with plenty of potatoes was placed before
him, to which, no doubt, he did ample justice. While they were
thus discussing the plain but comfortable meal which generous
hearts had provided for them, Elly stole quietly away, and,
having determined to give up her own little bedroom for the
night to the duine uasal who had honoured, them with his
presence, she placed a pair of snow-white sheets on the couch,
and made everything as tidy as circumstances would admit of.
When our gallant hero had finished his meal, he thanked the kind
old man with the most plausible heartiness for the abundant
provision he had made for all his wants; and having, with the
most winning smiles (which no man was more capable of assuming
at pleasure) paid many elegant compliments to the charming maid
who had, gracefully waited upon him, he retired to rest for the
night, and was soon buried in a deep sleep.

CHAPTER IV.

When the refreshed sportsman rose in the morning from his
comfortable bed, a lily-white cloth was spread, on which was
placed some delicious household bread, new-made butter, plenty
of fresh eggs, and milk just hot from the cow; when their guest
had partaken of which abundantly, he rose to depart, and to
renew his sports for another day. But his short stay in this
homely, though truly hospitable abode, he had made a stronger
impression on the guileless and innocent heart of poor little
Elly than he himself at first was aware of; and, though his
visit, unconsciously to the inmates, was paid with that intent,
he was too well versed in military tactics to assault the
fortress at once, but, like a skilful general, he besieged it
with the most deep-laid plans, which, unhappily were too
successful. The snipe were so abundant in the neighbourhood of
this humble cottage that Mr. Scanlan, of the Royal Marines,
during his sojourn at the Great House, had a good excuse for
paying frequent visits to his kind host, who, after his late
warm and hospitable reception, it would, of course, be the
greatest ingratitude to pass by unnoticed. During his numerous
calls, while in the neighbourhood, he had frequent
opportunities, without lying under the slightest suspicion of
any sinister object, of conversing with Elly, so, according to
the Irish adage, "to make my story short," he at length not only
prevailed upon her to elope with him, but capped the climax of
his iniquity by the base, mean, and loathsome crimp of inducing
her to rob her uncle of sixty pounds, the sum total of his
honest earnings for many years; thus committing a rash act which
broke the heart of the venerable old man, who loved her as he
did his life, ended in her own destruction, and brought the
wicked author of all their misery to an ignominious death upon
the scaffold.

A very few days after this elopement occurred, the mock
marriage, to which I have alluded, took place; and it was, as
already stated, the very day after this ceremony was performed
that I sailed down the River Shannon with the errant pair, and
heard from the lips of the then apparently repenting bride, in
her own simple and unadorned language, the substance of the
facts I have just related.

Our voyage down the river was very tedious, as the wind was
ahead of us, and to this day I have the frequent "ready about"
of the skipper, whenever a tack was to be made, ringing in my
ears. I never shall forget the many unavailing attempts which I
made to fire at wild fowl (as the old flintlock repeatedly
flashed in the pan) with the very gun which was afterwards used
as the instrument of poor Elly's destruction. During our tedious
passage I had frequent conversations with the almost broken-
hearted girl, who was scarcely noticed by her really base
seducer, but, as she supposed, her merely careless husband. This
wretched man, during the whole time I was on board, when he was
not snoring like a grampus upon the deck or in the cabin, was
frequently swigging bottles of ale, occasionally mixed with
whiskey. I cannot forget the native politeness of poor Elly to
myself; she had a well-stored basket of provisions which her
vile companion had provided, more, I believe, from selfish
motives as he calculated upon a long day's voyage, than aught he
cared for her. This viaticum she freely and delicately offered
to share with me, but, as my gastronomic powers were sadly out
of order from the tossing of the vessel, I merely accepted a
little bread and cheese, as I did not wish altogether to decline
her kind and well-meant offer. Shortly after this her mind
evidently began to wander; she talked incessantly to all the
passengers, and was quite incoherent in her language. To me, who
had heard her story from her own lips, it did not appear so
strange, as I knew that her position was most embarrassing; but
our fellow-voyagers, who were ignorant of the facts, could not
conceive the cause of her strange conversation. At one time she
used to say that this man, whom we had seen so disgracefully
comporting himself, was her husband, at another time that he was
her brother whose mind was astray. Again, she would offer to
emigrate to America, with any person that would protect her and
pay the passage money for both. Thus she continued to wander in
her speech, and made no secret of her regret for having
entrusted herself to the care of the unfeeling savage who, never
once that I remember, paid her, during the voyage, the slightest
attention.

However disposed one might have been to rescue her from the
hands of such a wretch, her own statement that she had married 
him the night before put interference out of the question.

When the ancient towers of Glin Castle came in view, my old
friend Tom Mahoney hove to, and a boat was immediately at my
service to put me on shore. Poor little Elly, who was by no
means insensible to the warm interest which I had evinced for
her under the sore trial which then weighed down her young,
guileless heart, bade me a sad farewell, and looked as if she
would gladly, if she were not bound by the ties of matrimony, be
delivered from the bondage she was then enduring, and commit
herself to the care of some humane person who would restore her
to her beloved uncle. As the boat pushed off from the smack, she
gave one long and, penetrating look, feeling probably, at that
sad moment, as if she would never again see, in this dark
wilderness of sin, the youth who had listened with such patient
and seeming interest to the detail of her late misfortunes.	She
was, however, mistaken in this supposition, as will shortly
appear as we proceed with our story.

I was not long in landing on the Southern shore of the far-famed
river Shannon, close to the ancient gateway of Glin Castle, and
having asked the porter if the Knight was at home, and having
been answered in the affirmative, I committed my trunk to the
old janitor, who greeted me with a warm "Cead mile failthe" and
followed me to the Castle, where I had been expected for some
days. Glin Castle was at this period one of the most agreeable
mansions in Ireland; its owner was the descendant of an
illustrious line of ancestors, and, though he received his
education in an English University, was full of Irish frolic and
fun, and was a very general favourite in the county, where he
held a high position. <6> His wife was one of the loveliest of
her sex, and from the hour I had first had the pleasure of being
introduced to her, to this day on which I write, when widowhood
and many painful trials have traced sorrow on her sweet face, I
never experienced anything but the warmest affection for her.<7>
Even now, when we talk over the days of my, boyhood, when she
was in the zenith of full-grown womanly beauty, I take delight
to remind her of the. -affectionate greeting I invariably
received at her hands (and which has not ever since one jot
abated) when, with joyous and exuberant spirits, I returned for
a season to shake off the dust of old Alma Mater to enjoy the
pleasures of the country.



CHAPTER V.

Imagine, gentle reader, a youth of seventeen, who, from his
earliest boyhood had been trained to all the manly sports of the
country, now arrived at the Castle of the Knight of Glin, whose
extensive preserves abounded with game of all sorts; and judge
what were his feelings, after having been released from the
restraint of a college life, to have received liberty from the
owner of these ancient domains to partake of whatever sport the
season would afford. It was now the month of June, and as the
grouse shooting was still two full months off, I had to content
myself with hunting hares in the mountains till the challenge of
the "Cark a freigh"<8> on the 20th of August should call me to
the moors, where many of that bold species of the feathered
tribe often fell under my skilful hand. When the weather was
unfit for outdoor sports, there were many internal resources in
the Castle which every guest, according to his taste, might
avail himself of. There was an excellent billiard-table in a
well-lighted room, which furnished a very agreeable pastime for
those who were adepts at that interesting game. I am a decided
enemy to every sort of gambling; the wretched and demoralising
effects of which I saw abundance of during my college life; but
I cannot see why a rational being may not, especially in a
private house, amuse himself with a game of billiards as well as
with a game of chess. During my sojourn at the castle I often
played a game with the Knight of Glin, and we were such equal
matches that, after several hours play, there was scarcely any
difference in our scores. The beautiful estuary of the Shannon
(which formed a splendid lake-like sheet of water at the foot of
the Castle lawn, that sloped like a carpet of emerald green to
its edge) afforded us many days of wholesome and exhilarating
amusement, especially during the summer months, when the Knight
frequently planned a pleasure party for his guests, and sailed
with them in his yacht to the different points of interest on
this noble river. On one of these agreeable trips we visited the
town of Kilrush, in the County Clare, where there was a first-
rate market for all sorts of provisions, especially a great
abundance of excellent fish at a merely nominal price. In those
days we frequently purchased a very fine cod-fish for sixpence,
and all other kinds at a proportionate rate. An interval of
nearly fifty years has made a wonderful difference in the prices
of all the articles of life, and though clothing, from the vast
improvement in machinery, has been greatly reduced in value, all
sorts of butcher's meat and also fish, fowl, and eggs, which are
so easily conveyed by railway, have fully doubled in price. The
Knight having left the yacht in care of the skipper proposed a
walk to the town, which was distant about a mile from the fine
pier, close to which the vessel was anchored. During our visits
to the many excellent shops which abounded in that busy,
thriving place, who should greet me with a winning smile and a
warm grasp of the hand but dear little Elly, whom a few days
before I had left on board the "Lady Frances" packet with him
whom she believed was her husband, but who, in fact, was a vile
and brutal deceiver. I was truly glad to find her under the
protection of my kind old friend, Mrs. S——, at whose shop,
during my schoolboy days, I had often spent my pocket-money in
purchasing the delicious fruit with which she was, at the proper
seasons, always well supplied. After a brief conversation with
my young and interesting friend, and an earnest request to Mrs.
S—— for "auld langsyne," to pay her pretty lodger every
attention in her power, I bade her (as I then little thought) a
last adieu, and quickly rejoined my party, who were hastening to
get on board, to take advantage of the flood-tide to waft them
back to the Castle, which we reached in time for a seven o'clock
dinner. While I was thus agreeably spending my vacation, an
incident occurred which, though seemingly at first of slight
importance, eventually led to the development of one of the
foulest conspiracies against human life (unhappily too
successful) that ever was recorded in a civilised country.

One day, when the Knight of Glin and I were busily engaged in a
well-contested game of billiards, there was a sudden summons tor
the former to visit the town of Glin in his official capacity as
a magistrate. At that period of Irish history there was no such
thing as a petty sessions court; each magistrate had to act upon
his own responsibility. Now, no doubt, as well as then, a sudden
emergency may arise, when a gentleman of property and station,
who has received the commission of the peace, must act without
awaiting for the arrival of a second magistrate. Had the case,
however, to which I am now about to allude (though, as the
result proved, it was pregnant with the most portentious and
fearful consequences) occurred in the present day, it would have
been dealt with "pro tempore" by the police; and the several
parties, who will immediately be brought on the stage, would
have been summoned to appear before the magistrates, who would
assemble at petty sessions on the next court-day. Had the matter
been left altogether to the police, the circumstances which led
to the detection of the horrible crime I am about to detail,
might never have been noticed. The acute perception, however, of
the Knight of Glin (no doubt directed by the wise designs of
Providence to bring the guilty to justice) hit upon the first
link of that chain of facts which through the clearest
circumstantial evidence brought conviction to the minds of two
enlightened juries.

When the Knight and I had finished our game of billiards, we
proceeded together to the town (he in his official capacity as a
magistrate, and I as a looker-on) to inquire into the matter he
was called upon to investigate. At first view it appeared
nothing more than a sort of Billingsgate row between two old
women, who were loudly vituperating each other. The subject-
matter of their dispute was a cloak, which one of them had
pledged, with the other, who kept a "Shebeen House," for a quart
of whiskey as security till she could pay for it in cash. When
the purchaser of the liquor subsequently brought the money, and
required back the pledge, the seller peremptorily refused to
return the article to the owner, who instead of waiting to
recover it by due process of law, determined "vi et armis,"<9>
to have it back then and there. The Knight of Glin, accompanied
by myself, and with the police in attendance, came upon the
disputants, who were evidently preparing for battle, and as the
tongues were not sufficient to end their strife, were about to
try the effects of fisticuffs. The moment, however, they saw the
respected and venerated magistrate, "who always dwelt among his
own people," and whose word, from his well-known impartiality
and even-handed justice, was generally law in that
neighbourhood, they immediately desisted and appealed to his
decision. On hearing the case, he felt it was but just, when the
price of the "native" was tendered, that the pledge should be
returned, and therefore directed it to be produced. The
proprietor of the "Shebeen House," though unwilling to part with
the article which was vastly more valuable than her whiskey, was
constrained to bring it forth. As soon as it was produced, the
Knight held it out with uplifted arm, asking, at the same time,
where that handsome cloak had come from. Many lovers of dress
amongst the crowd that had now assembled, looked, no doubt, with
longing eyes at the beautiful grey cloth mantle with brilliant
green silk hood, wondering where Mauria Sullivan could have
obtained such a precious garment. While the admiring crowd was
gazing in amazement at this article of dress, which was far
beyond, in its texture, a suitable apparel for any of the dames,
or spinsters, who had assembled on this occasion, a woman in the
crowd named Ellen Walsh, who was afterwards the principal
witness on the trial, edged stealthily up to the Knight of Glin
and whispered a few words to his ear to the following effect:
"Knight, I know that cloak; but say no more about it at
present." That was quite enough for the active and experienced
magistrate. In an instant he took his stand upon what was thus
confidentially communicated, and, probably before a single
person in that crowd could have observed what had passed between
him and Ellen Walsh, he dismissed the assembly, and was promptly
obeyed, as the great body of them had the highest respect for
him as a magistrate, and a landed proprietor who spent his ample
fortune amongst them. Turning to the disputants about the cloak,
he said: "I am sure you will have no objection that I should
take possession of this article for a few days, after which I
shall be sure to return it to the rightful owner." After the
crowd had dispersed and all had proceeded quietly to their
several homes, the Knight and I turned our steps towards the
castle, chatting on the way respecting the mysterious cloak,
quite ignorant at the time of the remarkable events connected
with it, and which, shortly afterwards were brought to light.
After a few hours had elapsed, the Knight sent a confidential
message to Ellen Walsh, whom, on her arrival at the castle, he
closely questioned.

"How did you happen, Ellen," he said, "to know this cloak?"
producing the article for her further inspection. "I saw it,
Knight," she replied, "on Mrs. Scanlan" (meaning Ellen Hanley,
who, in consequence of the general supposition that she had been
married to Lieutenant Scanlan, went by that name).

Knight—"Where did you see her wear it?"

Ellen Walsh—"In several places since her marriage; for I acted
for some time as her waiting maid."

Knight—"Where is Mrs. Scanlan now?"

Ellen Walsh—"That I cannot tell. The last place I saw her was at
Carrig Island, near Ballylongford, where I was dismissed, as
Lieut. Scanlan told me he was going to take her home for a short
time to her uncle's."

Knight—"Do you think she is there now?"

Ellen Walsh—"Indeed, Knight, fear she is not, for bad stories
are going about, and when I saw the cloak this morning, and
particularly when it was claimed by Mauria Sullivan, who is
sister to Stephen Sullivan, Lieut. Scanlan's boatman (as bad a
boy as any from this to Cork) I trembled in my skin, and my
knees shook under me. Oh, Knight, asthore!<9> from the way
lately that Lieutenant Scanlan and Stephen his boatman thrated
the poor darling crathur in my presence, there was nothing too
bad for them to do."

While this questioning and answering was proceeding, a tapping
was heard at the library door, which was immediately opened by
the Knight, who, having asked the cause, was told by the servant
that a party of police were at the hall door, urgently
requesting to see him with the least possible delay. What
followed this interruption, I shall relate in another chapter.



CHAPTER VI.

The Knight, having told Ellen Walsh to remain seated, attended
at once to the summons which he had received, and, as he made no
objection that I should be a witness to his conference with the
constables, I accompanied him to the hall door, where they were
waiting.

"Well, Sergeant Fitzgerald," said the Knight, "what is the
matter now? Has this row between those hags recommenced?"

"No, Knight," said the Chief Constable, "but an express from the
County Clare has just arrived stating that the dead body of a
female has been cast ashore between this and Kilrush, very near
Money Point, and strong suspicion exists that there has been
foul play."

"From what occurred this morning about the cloak," said the
Sergeant, "it struck me that there might be some connexion
between the events, and I therefore felt it my duty to inform
your worship of the fact, in order that you might act as you
thought fit."

The Knight, with his usual promptness in action, at once formed
his resolution, and sent immediate orders to his skipper, Jack
Murray,<10> to prepare the yacht without delay for a sail down
the river. He, at the same time, ordered the Sergeant to get a
party of his men under arms with the utmost possible despatch,
and to be ready to accompany him in the vessel.

As soon as the police left the Castle to execute the orders they
had received, the Knight again addressed himself to Ellen Walsh,
and said: "Depend upon it, Ellen, that those 'bad stories' which
a few minutes ago you said were going about, will find their
true solution in the terrible revelation which is now about to
manifest itself in connexion with the subject of our
conversation. How strange that this seemingly insignificant fact
of a row between two old hags should so soon be brought to bear
upon this case, which it is my imperative duty to investigate!
How fortunate for the ends of justice that you, unconscious when
you joined that crowd this morning, of what was about to take
place, should now be able to give a clue to the discovery of
what I fear has been committed, the foul and brutal murder of
this poor young woman; upon whom, you tell me, you attended for
several days! Get ready at once, Ellen, as I mean to take you
with me in the yacht; and I promise you that, if you will only
determine to tell the truth, and, without fear of consequences,
reveal all you know about the matter, you shall receive every
protection which it is in my power to give, and, exclusive of
the satisfaction you will feel in your own conscience from being
an instrument in the hands of Providence of bringing to light a
horrible deed of darkness, your country will applaud you for
being an honest and willing witness in perhaps discovering the
foul perpetrator of what, I fear, will turn out to be a horrible
murder."

The Knight, after thus judiciously addressing himself to Ellen
Walsh, turned to me and said, "Richard, I know you are fond of a
sail, and also deal a little in the romantic. Get ready,
therefore, my boy, in a jiffy, and accompany me in the yacht."

While the conference which I have just related was proceeding, I
can scarcely describe the dreadful thoughts that were passing
through my mind. From all Ellen Walsh had said, I feared that
the young woman, upon whom she had attended, was identical with
Elly, whose history I had heard from herself on board the
packet, and that the female whose remains were reported as cast
ashore near Money Point, in the County Clare, was the same ill-
fated poor creature. It was no time, however, to delay
reflecting on this sad catastrophe; therefore, as the Knight had
invited me to accompany him, I ran upstairs to my dressing-room,
quickly donned my yachting dress, and was soon ready for the
excursion.

The only difficulty at this moment which seemed to present
itself, and was likely to cause some delay, was the absence of
one of the yacht's regular hands, but this want was soon
supplied in the person of Jack King, a very civil, experienced
sailor, who happened to be present on the wharf.

The Knight thus addressed the man alluded to: "Jack, my friend,
Bill Murray,<11> is away, and as I am in a hurry to take
advantage of the falling tide, to run down the river towards
Money Point, will you, like an honest fellow, hear a hand with
us?"

"With a thousand welcomes, Knight," replied Jack, "I would go up
to my neck in the say to oblige your honour."

No sooner said than done; honest Jack at once took the place
assigned to him, and assisted with alacrity the other men to
prepare for the start.

The sequel will show how singular it was, and how necessary to
the ends of justice, that this man should have been on the spot
at the very time his assistance was wanted.

We all now jumped on board, and before many minutes had elapsed,
were running with a favourable tide and a rattling breeze
towards Money Point, near which, it was reported to the Knight,
the dead body of a female had been thrown on shore. As soon as
we reached the place, we saw a man walking on the beach, and
having: asked if he had heard anything about the matter in
question, he turned out to be the identical person who found the
dead body the day before, and had buried it in the sand.

The Knight immediately asked if there was any gentleman living
close to the place, and he replied that there was, pointing to
the residence of Mr. F——, a gentleman of property in the
neighbourhood.

The Knight further inquired if Mr. F—— was aware that a dead
body had been cast upon the shore? To which the man replied that
he certainly was, as he had seen the corpse himself.

The Knight then asked if Mr. F—— had reported the circumstance
to Major Warburton, the very efficient head of the police, who
resided at Kilrush, about, three miles from the spot? He replied
he did not think he had, as no police party had visited the
place since he found the mutilated remains, which, on being
questioned as to the sex, he stated he could distinctly swear
were those of a female.

Without further delay, he took us to the spot where he had
buried the body in the sand, within a short distance of the
landing place. When we reached the grave we beheld the
horrifying spectacle of a human leg protruding from the sand,
and, in consequence of the decomposing remains being so near the
surface, an almost intolerable stench filled the air around us.

The next step which the Knight of Glin took, was to despatch a
messenger to Kilrush for Major Warburton and the police, and, as
no Coroner was to be had within any reasonable distance, the
Knight determined that he and his brother magistrate, last
named, should, on his arrival, hold an inquest, which it was
quite lawful for them to do.

Little more than an hour had elapsed after the departure of the
express messenger, when Major Warburton, on horseback, and a
strong escort of mounted police made their appearance. Having
warmly greeted his old friend, the Knight of Glin, and heartily
shaken hands with me, who had enjoyed his hospitality, and
joined in the sports of his children during my school-boy days
at Kilrush, he asked the cause of this urgent summons.

The dreadful spectacle, which was close at hand, was pointed out
to him, immediately after which the Knight and he had some
private conversation preparatory to the exhuming of the body.

The next step which was taken was to empanel a jury, which was
no difficult task, as the rapid progress of the police force
from Kilrush had quickly drawn a crowd to the spot, from amongst
whom the jury was speedily selected.

I never can forget the circumstances attending the raising of
the body from its shallow grave on the beach, to be viewed by
the magistrates and the jury before proceeding on the business
of the inquest. The stench of the putrifying remains, which must
have been bereft of life for several weeks, was so dreadful that
the police had to keep up a constant explosion of gunpowder to
deaden its offensive effects, and to give the jury and the
witnesses an opportunity of examining it.

Ellen Walsh, the witness, for reasons which will just now
appear, was not as yet allowed to see the body, and was,
therefore, removed to some distance from the spot.

When the body was raised from the sand in which it was so
imperfectly buried, it was found that one of the legs was
missing, while the other was tied to the neck with a rope; and
now, mark, reader, the singular bearing of this latter fact.

 When we started from the Quay at Glin, it seemed to be a mere
matter of accident that Jack King should have taken a hand with
us in the yacht, but no sooner did he see the rope just alluded
to than he exclaimed "I know that rope."

The Book was immediately handed to him by Major Warburton; he
was sworn on the Holy Volume, and deposed as follows:—"I met
Lieutenant Scanlan and his man, Stephen Sullivan, in Glin, about
six or seven weeks ago, when the former asked me for the loan of
a rope, as he was going to take a sail in his boat, and I lent
one to him. I swear positively that the rope now in my hand is
the same."

Major Warburton—"How do you know that it is?"

"I'd swear to my own splicing in any part of the world, and it
was my own two hands that joined these two pieces together,"
pointing at the same time distinctly to the joining, which,
notwithstanding its long immersion in the water, was quite
perfect.

This testimony from a man who, exclusive of the blunt, honest,
straight-forward character which he had preserved unblemished (I
trust I may say to the present day, for he is still alive),
coupled with his intimate acquaintance with the parties who were
suspected of this foul murder, had great weight with the jury,
and left no doubt on their minds of the guilt of these wretched
men.

 All who were present expressed quietly to each other, without
at all interrupting the progress of the inquest, their amazement
at the chain of circumstantial evidence which was every moment
throwing light upon this horrid conspiracy against the life of
this young and guileless victim.

There was, however, one very necessary link in the chain which
was yet wanted and was of the utmost importance, if possible, to
have supplied—namely, the identity of the dead, and, no doubt,
murdered female, then lying a mangled and ghastly corpse before
us, with Ellen Hanley, who for several weeks had been missing
from her uncle's home.

 I had previously remarked that Ellen Walsh, the witness who had
accompanied us in the yacht, had not as yet seen the body.

My readers will recollect that the man who first found it on the
shore swore that it was the body of a female; the skull,
however, was so completely bereft of hair and flesh that it was
utterly impossible for the nearest and dearest friend of poor
Ellen Hanly, by merely looking at the bleached member of the
human frame, to say that the body was hers.

 The magistrate took Ellen Walsh aside, and produced for her
examination a stays (which is also called a bodice) which was
taken from the remains, and asked her if she thought she could
distinctly swear to that article. The reason they put this
question to her was because she had previously stated that,
while acting in the capacity of her maid servant, she had
frequently laced her stays.

She looked intently at this article of dress, and though she
said she could almost be certain that it was the very one that
she had so often handled, she absolutely refused, when the lives
of her fellow-creatures might hang upon her declaration, to
swear positively to it, and assigned as a reason for not doing
so that it would not be safe, considering the rotten state it
was in, absolutely to say it was the same.

The magistrates and the jury, though, in other respects,
perfectly convinced that it was the body of Ellen Hanly (who had
not been seen for several weeks and could not be found) which
lay before them, determined, in order to .work out perfectly the
ends of justice, to leave no stone unturned, if possible, to
prove beyond all reasonable doubt that it was the identical body
of this poor girl.

When every effort seemed almost hopeless, and when Ellen Walsh
had been questioned and cross-examined, her reply always was:
"If I saw her darling face I would know her at once." This we
all felt impossible, as, alas! no face was there. Therefore,
being hopeless of legally proving the identity by this witness,
we were just about to gratify her with viewing the remains,
which none of us had reasonable doubt, were those of poor Elly,
when by a sudden and unaccountable impulse, I laid my hand upon
her shoulder, addressing her at the same time in rather a
startling manner thus: "Think of yourself, Ellen! Perhaps you
may recollect something that could make it clear to the jury,
beyond all question, that the body you are now about to see is
that of Ellen Hanly."

The words had scarcely escaped my lips, when, as if inspired by
some immediate revelation, she loudly exclaimed: "Oh, sir, yes,
yes, I remember now she had two double teeth in her upper jaw
(placing her fingers at the same time on her own mouth, thus
suiting the action to the word), and though you tell me her
sweet face is gone I could show the very spots where these white
teeth, I so often saw, were placed."

No sooner had she made this statement than the skull was closely
examined; the teeth had disappeared, but the double sockets had
remained, identically as she had described them. The body was
then exposed to the view of Ellen Walsh, on beholding which she
burst into a flood of tears, and as soon as she had somewhat
recovered her equanimity, she placed her fingers on the sockets,
and swore distinctly that, as far as human judgement could go,
such were the identical receptacles of the once lovely teeth of
that young and interesting creature.

This evidence completely satisfied the jury as to the identity
of the body, which they declared to be that of Ellen Hanly who
had, they were convinced, been murdered about six weeks before,
and their verdict was:—That Lieutenant John Scanlan and Stephen
Sullivan were guilty of that crime.

Now that the verdict had been returned, and the magistrates had
had a short consultation, they both declared that they not only
felt it their bounden duty. to state that they perfectly
concurred in the result of the inquest, but they could not
separate without pronouncing their marked displeasure respecting
the conduct of the neighbouring resident gentleman, who, from
what the man who found the body thrown in upon the shore had
stated, was perfectly cognisant of the fact and yet had allowed
it to lie for twenty-four hours in its shallow and ill-made
grave, without reporting the matter to Major Warburton at
Kilrush.

Were any public functionary in the present day guilty of such a
manifest dereliction of duty, he would, no doubt without much
ceremony, be dismissed from his office, and were a private
gentleman of the same station as Mr. F——, who resided within a
few hundred yards of Elly's grave, to leave so serious a matter
unnoticed for a whole day, he would, no doubt, be severely
censured in the public press, and would incur the marked
disapprobation of his compeers, and of every lover of order.

The important business of the inquest having now closed, and the
piece of rope, which in such a remarkable manner had been
identified and sworn to by Jack King, having been marked by
himself with a blue thread, preparations were made for the
decent interment of the body in the next churchyard, until her
friends could be communicated with; and it was accordingly
followed to the grave, which was close at hand, by all the party
who had witnessed the solemn ceremonial of the inquest, and many
a salt tear, on that mournful occasion, bedewed the cold earth
which was laid upon the mangled remains of her who had fallen a
victim, in the bloom of youth, to the lust and cupidity of a
fiend in human shape.

This monster of iniquity was, as before stated, an officer in
his Majesty's service, who, instead of upholding the honour and
dignity of the noble defenders of the country, was now to be
hunted down as a degraded felon, who was accused of one of the
foulest crimes that had ever blackened the pages of its
history.<12>

Here I would diverge from my narrative, in order briefly, to
address my readers on a subject which I fervently pray may
arrest their serious attention. My heartfelt appeal is specially
intended for the young and inexperienced of every class in life,
including that honourable profession to which John Scanlan was a
disgrace.

The great body of them would, I am convinced, die a thousand
deaths ere they would quail before the foe, but, alas! is it not
too true that many engaged in their country's service rend the
hearts of their parents, who have frequently many domestic
difficulties to contend with, by the reckless extravagance in
which they too often indulge, and thus bring ruin upon
themselves and the guardians of their youth? I would earnestly
conjure such to look on this picture of real life, which I have
endeavoured without the slightest exaggeration, faithfully to
sketch. I have recorded simple facts from personal experience
and a memory from which nothing but second childhood can ever
efface this fearful tragedy.

Oh! may none whom I address, who are exposed to similar
temptations, which led the wretched malefactor here brought
before them to an untimely death upon the scaffold, be high-
minded, but fear, lest the enemy of souls should use the same
engines to entrap them, and lead them to destruction and
perdition.

Here is the young man of good position, and, for aught I know to
the contrary, possessing adequate means, in addition to his pay,
to secure him every reasonable comfort; the scion of an ancient
family, and connected with some of the best blood in the
country, a youth of high and aspiring promise, of noble mien,
belonging to an honourable and gallant profession, giving way to
his corrupt passions, and without the slightest compunction, not
only bringing disgrace and ruin upon a poor young female far
below his rank of life, but, with mean and low cupidity inducing
her to rob an affectionate relative of his all, to minister to
his own ungodly vices!

A few days sufficed to show him the dark side of the picture
which he had painted for himself. He felt acutely how unequally
he was yoked, and what a ferment it would create in the
aristocratic families with which he was connected, to hear of
the union he had formed. He knew full well that the marriage was
only a sham, and yet, instead, on cool reflection, of trying by
legitimate means to repair the damage he had done, he makes a
short cut to the solution of the difficulty he was placed in by
conspiring against the life of his victim, and so removing her
out of his way.

Here surely is a warning, an awful warning, to thoughtless
youth, against giving way to wicked passion, and a solemn call
to those who are exposed to similar temptations, to pray for
that Grace of God which can alone preserve them from the snares
of the arch-enemy of their souls.

Having thus briefly endeavoured to warn my young readers of this
story of real life, I shall recur, in the following chapter, to
the circumstances which immediately followed the delivery of the
verdict.



CHAPTER VII.

The Knight of Glin, who took such prompt and active measures to
trace out and arrest the perpetrators of this horrible crime,
had, during the progress of the inquest, received information
that Lieutenant Scanlan, who had just been pronounced guilty by
the coroner's jury, was lurking somewhere in the neighbourhood,
determined at once to use every exertion in his power to have
him arrested.

We were now on the Clare side of the river, and the Knight's
residence was several miles up, towards Limerick, on the
opposite bank. As he knew he could not, by any possibility,
return home that night without giving up the pursuit, and,
feeling that his young and beautiful wife might feel uneasy at
his absence, without receiving intimation of the cause of it, he
addressed me thus: "Richard, will you have the kindness to
return at once to Glin Castle in the yacht, and tell Betty that
I have felt myself called upon, after the dreadful revelations
which have come to my knowledge since I saw her this morning, to
endeavour to arrest the villains, who, no doubt, are the
perpetrators of this shocking crime, and I have strong reason to
believe that one of them is not far off from where we are now
standing. To-morrow morning come yourself, if you can, or, at
all events, send the yacht to meet me at Cahercon, when I hope
to be able to report the capture of one or both of the murderers
of this poor young woman."

After some further conversation, I got the vessel under weigh,
and in about an hour's sail up the river, reached the beautiful
baronial mansion of my kinsman, where I found the family on the
tiptoe of expectation and anxious to know the result of the
excursion which was so hurriedly undertaken in the early part of
the day.

Having given them a brief description and the leading
circumstances of the inquest, and having stated who the persons
were against whom the verdict had been pronounced, all were
struck with amazement when they learned that an officer, who was
connected with some of the first families in the county, was
declared guilty (with scarcely a shadow of doubt) of the fearful
crime of murder.

After the exertion and excitement of that long and fearful day,
and having partaken of the hospitality of Glin Castle, I was
truly glad to seek repose, as I had again to leave at an early
hour the next morning to join the Knight of Glin at the
rendezvous he had appointed.

Having enjoyed a comfortable and refreshing slumber, I took a
hasty breakfast, and was soon skimming over the waters of the
beautiful Shannon, and ere long reached Cahercon, where, with
his usual punctuality, I found the Knight of Glin waiting for
me.

"Well, Richard," he said, addressing me, "I have not been so
successful as I had hoped; the villain Scanlan has escaped me
for the present. Had I been an hour sooner on his track, you
would, more than probably, have seen him now in the hands of
justice. I have, however, made such arrangements that I think it
scarcely possible he can escape much longer, and I shall be
greatly disappointed if, at the next assizes, he does not plead,
before God and his country, respecting the atrocious crime with
which he and Stephen Sullivan, his companion in guilt, stand
charged."

Notwithstanding all the exertions that this active and unwearied
magistrate could make, and every plan which the authorities and
police force (which, in consequence of the disturbances that
then prevailed,<13> was very large) could devise, no trace could
be had of the hiding place of Lieutenant Scanlan, who, it was
almost certain, was still in the country; but it was generally
believed that his man, Stephen Sullivan, had escaped to America.

A very decided impression had got abroad that several
influential persons in the county, with whom the wretched
criminal was closely connected, had helped to screen him from
justice, hoping that means could be adopted to convey him to
some distant land. With, however, these few exceptions, almost
every man's hand through the country was against him, and, after
many unsuccessful searches, he was at length arrested where it
would have been least expected that he would venture to lie hid.

My recollection of the capture is as follows:—

Reliable information having been received that Lieutenant
Scanlan had been several times seen lurking about his father's
house, Mr. T—— S—— R—— <14> , an influential magistrate, heir to
a large fortune in the county, accompanied by a troop of Lancers
and a large police force, surrounded the mansion.

Every room in the house and every out-office was diligently
searched, and not a corner where a human being could be
concealed, escaped the scrutinising eyes of the large force
which had been disposed throughout the premises, with the most
consummate skill, by the civil and military officers; still no
capture had been effected.

Just, however, as orders had been given to the troops and police
to retire, one of the Lancers made lunge of his weapon through a
heap of straw which, by some means, had been passed over, when
the wretched criminal, who narrowly escaped being run through,
as the lance grazed his skin, suddenly sprang from his hiding
place, and with eyeballs staring from his haggard face, cried
out for mercy. Short work was now made of the matter.

The no doubt guilty wretch was at once taken into custody, his
wrists bound together with handcuffs, and, amidst the cries and
tears of his broken-hearted family, was taken off to the county
jail.

As the proofs of his guilt were all circumstantial, great care
was taken by the legal authorities that not a link should be
wanting to complete the case. The very able functionaries, whose
skill and acuteness in sifting evidence in these eventful times
(when "Captain Rock" and his troops were doing all in their
power to unloose the bands of society) had unfortunately too
often to be tried, determined, as far as in them lay, to leave
nothing to mere conjecture, and, when putting the unhappy
accused on his trial, resolved to bring the matter in such a way
before the court and jury, as would thoroughly 'convince them of
their guilt.

While I leave the wretched prisoner, after his arrest and
subsequent committal, to reflect upon the terrible position in
which he was placed (a position which would no doubt have been
fearful in the extreme to the humblest peasant in the land, but,
unquestionably, far more so to one who was born of gentle
parents, and was brought up with every comfort, if not in the
lap of luxury), I shall briefly relate an incident that I
witnessed myself, which was so touching in its nature, and so
truly pathetic in its bearing, that it indelibly fixed itself in
my memory.

Shortly after the discovery of the body of poor Elly, the
conclusion of the Coroner's inquest, as already related, and the
consigning of her mutilated remains to the grave, I was one
morning with the Knight of Glin in his dressing-room, a short
time before breakfast.

While we were chatting together about the events of that
remarkable period of Ireland's history, the room door was
suddenly thrown open, when two countrymen rushed in (rather, as
the reader may judge, an alarming sort of visit in those
perilous times), and at once prostrated themselves with their
faces to the ground, at the same time exhibiting signs of the
deepest and most agonising grief, and crying out in language
that would have touched the most obdurate heart, "Oh! Knight,
Knight, if we could only see her, alive or dead! Oh! if we could
but see her darling face once more!"

These poor, seemingly almost broken-hearted men, were the father
and uncle of the murdered Elly. <15>

Having long searched in vain to discover the whereabouts of
their lost, ruined, and deceived child, they, at length,
received tidings of the finding of her murdered remains, and,
having heard of the active part which the Knight of Glin took in
the whole transaction, they thus unceremoniously rushed into his
presence, and, though startling at the moment, this early visit
was to him, and to me, when we learned the real state of the
case, we readily did all in our power to comfort the poor
afflicted ones, and promised, as far as practicable, that their
wishes should be gratified in seeing the body of their poor
child, which, of course, they should have liberty to do, if they
should think fit to raise it from its then resting-place.

The time of trial now approached, and everything that rank and
influence (if not for the sake of the miserable prisoner, in
order, if possible, to avoid the stigma which they supposed
would attach to his relatives, some of whom were of noble
blood), could do to secure an acquittal was actively resorted
to.

The magistrates, at the same time, who sifted the whole matter
from the beginning, and were so well-acquainted with the facts
that they entertained no reasonable doubt of the prisoner's
guilt, gave their untiring assistance to the able and
experienced Crown Solicitor of that day, who had the most
talented counsel the Government could retain to assist him in
preparing for investigation this remarkable case, which, it was
expected, would bring to light such deeds of atrocity as were
seldom laid before a criminal court.

All pomp and circumstance which usually attend the arrival of
the Judges of Assizes were carried out to the full; and
curiosity was wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement when
it was known that the trial of an officer and gentleman of high
birth for one of the greatest crimes known to law, the crime of
murder, was to take place.<16>

The Honourable Rd. Jebb, fourth Justice of the King's Bench, and
the Honourable Henry Joy, first Sergeant, took their appointed
seats.

Amid the deep silence of one of the most crowded courts that
ever was known in the city, the prisoner was put forward, and
with firm, unflinching step he walked to the bar, which he
clutched with apparently an iron grasp, and, when arraigned as
the murderer of Ellen Hanly, alias Scanlan, to the usual "Are
you guilty or not guilty?" he responded, in a clear and rather
musical voice, "Not guilty."

The trial then proceeded. The several witnesses, before alluded
to, were closely examined and cross-examined, and the counsel
for the Crown, while they faithfully did their duty, gave every
facility to the counsel for the defence to sift the credibility
of the witnesses by all the ingenuity they could command, so as,
if possible, to cast doubt upon their testimony, and to break
the circumstantial chain, which, in order to secure a
conviction, it was necessary to preserve indissoluble.<17>

In this the Crown prosecutors perfectly succeeded, for though,
for the defence, an amount of talent was extemporised on that
occasion from the powerful bar which was on circuit, such as no
ordinary prisoner could possibly command, the several links of
evidence were so firmly welded together, that no human energy
could break them, and, after as patient and searching a trial as
ever took part in that court, the terrible verdict of "Guilty"
was brought in, and I have now before me an exact and veritable
copy of the Court document, which is couched in the following
words:—

"Verdict, Guilty—to be hanged by the neck until dead, on
Thursday, the 16th of March instant, and his body to be
given to the surgeon of the County Limerick Infirmary to be
dissected and anatomised. True. Bill 64—John Scanlan
committed by the Mayor, 14th November, 1819. Judgment and
for Murder of Ellen Hanly on 4th of July, 1819. True Bill—
Stephen Sullivan extra."<18>

No sooner was the wretched prisoner convicted, no doubt with the
decided approval of everyone in that court (his own immediate
friends and relatives excepted), than the senior judge, with
slow and solemn movement, placed on his, head the black cap, at
that time the emblem of certain death, and then pronounced, in a
clear and distinct voice, the fearful sentence of the law
awarded to a capital crime:—
"John Scanlan, you shall be removed from the place where
you stand to the jail, and from thence to the common place
of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until
you are dead, and your body given to the surgeons for
dissection. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul."

While this dread ordeal was passing, not a muscle seemed to move
in the countenance of the wretched convict. Not even the
presence of his unhappy relatives (many of whom were in court,
under the almost certain conviction when they entered it that he
must be acquitted} could in the slightest degree affect the firm
demeanour he assumed, which they attributed to conscious
innocence, but which was no doubt (as the sequel proved) the
result of hardened guilt. There he stood unmoved and apparently
unappalled, during the few moments which elapsed between his
sentence and his removal to the condemned cell, which he would
never leave until the morning upon which he would be launched
into eternity.

Within five days from the time he was arraigned, he was brought
forth for execution, and, as the jails were not at that time
provided with these drops on which many a convicted criminal has
since that day expiated his crimes, he was taken to Gallows
Green, under the gaze of an immense multitude, who, with quiet
and becoming demeanour, assented to the justice of his sentence.

He was allowed the privilege of a carriage to convey him to the
place of execution, and it was only after the greatest exertions
on the part of his friends that such a vehicle could be secured.
They had scarcely started from the jail, when the horses sulked,
and though, in addition to the repeated lashing of the driver,
the soldiers used their bayonets, and prodded the restive
animals to force them onwards they determinedly revolted against
all their efforts, and would not move ten inches towards the
fatal spot.

The convict himself, seeing no chance of a forward movement,
sprang alertly from the carriage, and walked with firm and
undaunted step towards the place of execution. This resolute
manifestation of unshaken courage, under the dreadful
circumstances in which he was placed, led several of the
uneducated and credulous spectators to assert that he was
innocent, and that the horses instinctively refused to
participate in the death of a guiltless man; and they were loud
in their exclamations of pity.

The law, however, which condemned him, should take its course,
as all the efforts of his friends do obtain a respite were
useless.

When he reached the fatal spot where he was to expiate the crime
of which he had been convicted, and when the executioner had
pinioned him and gone through all the preliminaries of his too
often necessary, and yet horrid, office, he drew the white cap
over his face, and, having placed him standing on the cart,
which was a substitute for a drop, he was just about to launch
him into eternity, when the Sheriff stayed his hand, and
directed him to remove the cap which he had put on him.

He then addressed the wretched convict in words to the following
effect:—
"Mr. Scanlan, you are to appear in a few minutes before the
awful throne of your Creator. You have been convicted of
the dreadful crime of which you stood charged, after as
patient and searching a trial as ever was given to man. A
jury of twelve honest, upright, impartial gentlemen, of the
class in life which you might adorn, have pronounced you
guilty, of the righteousness of which verdict neither the
humane and upright judges who tried you, nor the
overwhelming majority of those who heard the trial, have
any reasonable doubt. It would, therefore, be a
satisfaction to all, and would in some measure lessen the
atrocity of your guilt, if you would make a full confession
now, while life remains. Do not, I entreat you, suppose
that in my thus addressing you, you have the slightest
chance of a reprieve. I pledge myself to you, as a man of
honour, that I have no authority to hold out any hope, as I
believe in my conscience that your doom is inevitably
sealed." <19>

Notwithstanding this solemn and earnest address of the Sheriff,
the wretched convict, who had been offered this last opportunity
of acknowledging the justness of his sentence (as we shall
hereafter see was such as his fearful crime deserved), thus
replied:—

"I thought a few minutes ago that I should never, see the light
of Heaven again! May the gates of Paradise be ever shut against
me if I had hand, act, or part in the crime for which I am now
about to-suffer!!"

Scarcely were these words expressed when, at the signal of the
Sheriff, the cap was placed again over his eyes by the
executioner, the rope was adjusted, a lash was given to the
horse which was attached to the cart, and the miserable culprit
was launched into eternity.

We shall now let the curtain drop over so much of this sad and
real tragedy, which memory recalls with the most vivid and
painful recollections, of as shocking a picture of human
depravity as ever was recorded, and shall reserve for another
chapter some facts connected with the arrest, trial, conviction,
and final confession of, Stephen Sullivan, the other culprit
charged with being the aider and abettor of John Scanlan in this
cruel murder.



CHAPTER VIII.

After the execution of John Scanlan (which the general voice of
the public, and the majority of the nobility and gentry of the
county, felt and declared to be fit and right) a considerable
number of the friends and relatives of the culprit strongly
asserted that it was a judicial murder, and vented the
bitterness they no doubt (perhaps pardonably) felt, in loud
exclamations of condemnation against all who had taken an active
part in tracing out the murderer and bringing him to justice,
especially against my friend, the Knight of Glin.

About six months had passed away since John Scanlan had expiated 
his foul crime by an ignominious and terrible death, and,
notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions to capture, or give
information about, Stephen Sullivan, no clue could be got to
come across his track.

One of my brothers and myself were staying at that time on a
visit with a friend in Tralee, the county town of Kerry. A man
had been arrested in the small town of Castleisland, about eight
miles from Tralee, upon (as well as I recollect), the charge of
having absconded with a sum of money with which he had been
entrusted by his father-in-law, a tithe-proctor. That class of
men, in those bygone days of which I speak, were of rather
questionable repute, and were looked upon by the masses of the
people, by reason of their grinding exactions (of which I fear
they were too often guilty), in much the same light as the
publicans of old were esteemed by the majority of the Jewish
people.

Very little sympathy was felt for "the ould Jew." as they called
him, and they pronounced the act of his son-in-law in having
fleeced him as rather praiseworthy than otherwise, because, as
they asserted, he withheld the portion which he had promised his
daughter at her marriage; and it was therefore no harm,
according to their mode of reasoning, to spoil the "ould
Egyptian."

Little did those legislators (who, however wrong-headed and
impulsive they too often are, nevertheless exhibit frequently a
good deal of rude justice in the conclusions they come to) know
who the man was that they were endeavouring to justify for
robbing old Moses.

Shortly after the arrest alluded to a gentleman who had been
making a tour through the country, and had been inspecting the
several public institutions (the county jail of Kerry amongst 
them), having read in the "Hue and Cry" a description of Stephen
Sullivan, who stood charged as an accomplice of John Scanlan in
the murder of Ellen Hanly, in going through the different wards
of the prison, strongly suspected that he saw amongst the
prisoners a man agreeing thereto. He at once communicated his
suspicions to the jailer, who, as soon as his attention had been
drawn to the matter, and having closely inspected the man
alluded to agreed with the visitor that there was strong ground
for supposing that he might be the person who stood charged with
this dreadful murder.

By some means or other it reached the ears of the authorities
that my brother and I were in town, and, as we were residents of
the County Limerick, close to the town of Glin, the native place
of Stephen Sullivan, it was thought that we might be able to
identify him, if it really was he that was now in jail.

A polite message was sent to us by the Sheriff, requesting that,
as soon as we conveniently could, we would take a walk to the
prison and look through the different wards, and in case we
should recognise Stephen Sullivan, would we be good enough to
say so. When such a criminal was looked after, we could, of
course, offer no reasonable objection to the request, and,
accordingly, about ten o'clock next morning we repaired to the
county jail.

On our arrival, the Sheriff, accompanied by the Governor,
conducted us through the different wards, in each of which a
good many prisoners were assembled. Having stopped for a few
minutes in one of the rooms, I was particularly struck with the
demeanour of a prisoner who attracted my attention by the
remarkable change of countenance which he manifested when his
eye caught mine. He was smoking seemingly in the most
unconcerned manner when I first saw him, and as he was a
particularly athletic, tall, and by no means repulsive-looking
man, I fixed my eyes steadily upon him, without any particular
thought, just then, that he was the suspected person. Suddenly
the pipe fell from his mouth, he hung down his head, and
evidently averted his countenance from the direction where I was
standing.

It was only than that I remarked to the Governor of the jail,
who was standing near me, "See how my presence affects that man.
I can't say that he is Stephen Sullivan, as I have never known
him by the name, but he surely knows me, and I should not be
surprised if that is the very man you are looking after."

The Governor replied: "Yes, sir, that is the man that is thought
to be Stephen Sullivan, but as you don't know him to be such, we
must try and have him identified by some person who is
acquainted with his person."

That very day a messenger was despatched to Glin in the County
Limerick, his native place; and John Cullan, a constable in the
town, who knew him well, was sent for, who, the moment he saw
him, went up to him, shook hands with film, and said: "How do
YOU do, Stephen Sullivan?"

As soon as this interview took place, he acknowledged himself to
be the man who was accused of the murder of Ellen Hanly; but in
a very firm and decided manner denied his guilt.

A warrant was made out, under which he was transmitted,
accompanied by a strong escort of Dragoons, to the County
Limerick jail.

He remained in custody in that prison till the summer assizes,
1820, when he was arraigned before the Right Honourable Chas.
Kendall Bushe, and the Honourable Henry Joy, First Sergeant, on
the 21st July, and convicted on the evidence of the same
witnesses (one or two excepted) that were examined on the trial
of John Scanlan, and I have now the verdict before me:
"Tuesday—Verdict, Guilty; Stephen Sullivan, To be hanged by
the neck until dead at the common place of execution, and
his body to be given to the surgeons of the Co. Limerick
Infirmary, for disssection, on Thursday, 27th July, inst.
True Bill No. 1, Stephen Sullivan committed on transmit
warrant from County Kerry, 17th June, 1820."

Immediately after the conviction of the wretched man, he,
without hesitation, confessed his guilt, expressing at the same
time a wish to unburden his mind, and to reveal the whole
circumstances connected with this most atrocious murder in the
presence of the magistrates and gentlemen of the county.

Previous to this "denouement" having taken place, it was very
currently reported that some influential friends of the executed
convict, John Scanlan, who were magistrates of the county, and,
as such, had free access to the jail, paid a visit to the
condemned criminal in his cell, and asked him to declare the
innocence of John Scanlan, who had been, as they asserted,
innocently hanged. This he positively refused to do, stating, at
the same time, that though John Scanlan was not the actual
murderer, it was he that plotted the whole thing, and forced,
him, while in a fit of drunkenness, to perpetrate the crime.

The facts connected with this fearful tragedy he thus related,
and declared as a dying man that, they were strictly correct.

He first corroborated everything that Ellen Walsh, the principal
witness, had related to the Knight of Glin, and sworn to on both
trials, and acknowledged that he had, under disguise, personated
a Roman Catholic clergyman, when he celebrated the marriage
between John Scanlan and Ellen Hanly.

He further stated that he and John Scanlan, in order to ensure
the sinking of the body, as soon as the murder should take
place, and that there should be no danger of its ever rising to
the surface of the water (which it afterwards did, bringing home
guilt to the unmerciful murderers), had provided a large stone,
of a couple of hundredweight, in which they sank an iron staple,
which they leaded firmly into it, attaching thereto an iron
chain, to which they intended to fasten the body previous to
consigning it to the deep. When all was prepared for action, by
a preconcerted arrangement between them, Stephen Sullivan was to
come down in the boat from Glin to Carrig Island, where John
Scanlan and Elly were spending the honeymoon, and, under the
pretext of a pleasure excursion to a neighbouring island in the
River Shannon, where there were some remarkable monuments of
antiquity, these two atrocious villains had planned, when they
should reach the middle of the widest part of this great river,
where no human eye could be upon them, to beat the brains out of
their victim, and then attach her murdered body to the stone
which they had prepared, and sink it in mid-channel, never, as
they hoped, again to be seen.

In pursuance of this plan they launched off on their excursion
towards the island before alluded to, poor Elly in the highest
delight, with the anticipation of seeing the venerated image of
St. Sennanus (of whom she had often heard) and of worshipping at
his shrine. When they reached mid-channel John Scanlan made to
Stephen Sullivan the preconcerted signal, at which the work of
death was to commence, but the wretched villain, though hardened
enough before for any deed of wickedness, seemed to take no
notice of the repeated signs that he made.

At length, after various attempts to gain his attention, he drew
up close to him, and, in a whisper, asked him what he was about.
Stephen Sullivan quietly answered, in a low voice, that when he
looked upon her sweet, innocent face he could not bring himself
to hurt a hair of her head; and, when John Scanlan still urged
him to assist in the dreadful act, he gave him a very broad hint
that if he attempted any violence he would pitch him overboard,
which, being a very athletic man, he could easily have done.

John Scanlan, seeing it was useless to urge the matter further,
on some pretext or other, such as the weather looking lowering,
and the day likely to be unfavourable for a visit to the island,
turned the boat's head towards Carrig, which they reached late
in the evening.

The partners in this criminal plot, which by the better feeling
of the servant was frustrated on this occasion, now separated
for a season, and John Scanlan and Elly moved about from place
to place, the hardened villain no doubt (according as his funds
became exhausted) every day getting more determined, if he could
not succeed in prevailing upon his servant to help him in
perpetrating this deed of darkness, by some means to rid himself
of his burden, and, if necessary, to immolate her with his own
hand.

Several days passed away after this first failure of Lieutenant
Scanlan in accomplishing his fell intent to sacrifice the gentle
victim, whose support was now a burden too heavy for such a
worthless wretch to bear, and the many privations which poor
Elly had to undergo during her peregrinations from house to
house told fearfully upon her delicate frame.

Had the accomplished villain waited a little longer, the young
creature would inevitably have sunk under her trials, and thus
have saved the guilty wretch from adding the crime of murder to
his other deeds.

In the meantime, Stephen Sullivan had taken the boat up to Glin,
where, as the noble river which was the scene of this sad
tragedy, washed its shores, several of the inhabitants who
possessed small craft like that belonging to this wretched man,
earned a livelihood by fishing.

Just after he had separated from his friend, and when on one of
his trips to Clonderalaw Bay at the opposite side of the river
(where flat fish abounded), by a sudden lurch of the boat, the
large stone with the iron chain attached (which had been
prepared for sinking the body of the poor girl, whom they had
conspired to murder) fell overboard, and "sunk as lead in the
mighty waters."<20>

To this apparently casual misadventure may probably be
attributed the discovery of the foul crime, which shortly after
was perpetrated. And the chain, instead of the rope which was
used in sinking the murdered remains of poor Elly, being
attached to the body, it doubtless would have remained at the
bottom of the river till every link should be severed, and
though strong suspicion would probably have rested upon the
perpetrators, her simple disappearance would never have
sufficiently satisfied a jury so as to enable them to convict.

How different was the case when the rotting of the rope enabled
the body to rise to the surface, what fresh evidence of the
crime did the finding of the remains, as before described, bring
to light, supported by the sworn testimony of Jack King at the
Coroner's inquest, that the very rope had been his property,
which he lent to John Scanlan and Stephen Sullivan, that he knew
it by his own splicing; above all, the evidence of Ellen Walsh
as to the double sockets for the teeth; the discovery of the
victim's clothing with the relatives of Stephen Sullivan,
together with sundry other facts almost demonstrative of the
guilt of the accused.

With such a mass of clear circumstantial evidence no intelligent
jury could refuse to convict or entertain any reasonable doubt
that the prisoners who were arraigned were guilty of the
dreadful crime which was laid to their charge.

After Stephen Sullivan had returned from his fishing excursion,
he made up his mind again to seek out his master, who, bad as he
felt he was himself, he thought was much worse, and would
doubtless endeavour somehow to be revenged upon him, if he did
not strive to play him off, and give him hope that he would yet
be his instrument in completing this hellish plot.

Though Stephen Sullivan was by far the more powerful man of the
two, and in a fair stand-up fight, would easily have worsted
John Scanlan, still, knowing what a desperate villain the latter
was, he feared that he might some time take him unawares, knock
him on the head, and thus get rid of one who knew almost all his
secret thoughts.

Had this unfortunate wretch had the manliness and moral courage
to shake off this diabolical companion, whose superior rank,
instead of being used for good, exercised an evil dominion over
his unhappy associate in crime, he might have been rescued from
the criminal practices which he was following, and from the
ignominious death which he so justly suffered. But no! He seemed
spellbound by this unrelenting and cruel man, and in an evil
hour was made the instrument of perpetrating this dark deed of
blood, which, at the time it was committed, now nearly fifty
years ago, struck the whole community with the most unutterable
horror.

Never that I am aware (except in the novel and drama, which have
given very imperfect sketches of the facts) has this dark
tragedy been chronicled in the garb of a true and faithful
history of the sad occurrence, as a personal knowledge of almost
every fact here recorded has now enabled me to do.

The author of this narrative, though now in the sere and yellow
leaf, and fast verging towards that bourne from whence there is
no return, is still, blessed be God, robust beyond the vast
majority of his equal in years, and his memory of the facts he
has related is as clear and retentive as it was on that eventful
day when he saw poor Elly's mutilated remains consigned to the
grave.

Let not the reader of this sad history say the author is canting
when, in this brief episode, he earnestly tries to warn his
youthful friends against giving way to the promptings of their
naturally evil hearts, or yielding to the manifold temptations
to which they are constantly exposed. Let the fate of Lieutenant
John Scanlan, the once admired companion of the nobility and
gentry of the County Limerick, afford an awful warning to those
proud boasters whose end is frequently destruction, and who too
often glory in their shame.

How little did this convicted felon, when joining at the festive
board in the unseemly jest or ribald song (which at the time I
now refer to were prominent features at their convivial
gatherings), think that while the cheerful and too often
inebriating glass went round, he was rushing upon his fate.
While he thus stimulated his ungodly passions, he was sowing the
deadly seed which at a future time would spring up in all its
fetid rankness, would stupefy every sense of moral right and
wrong, and lead him to the commission of the fearful crime which
he perpetrated without compunction, and justly expiated on the
gallows.



CHAPTER IX.

When Stephen Sullivan had again resolved to rejoin his
diabolical master, an hour's run, with a strong tide in his
favour, brought him from his fishing ground to the western
island, which was the principal resort of this dark conspirator.
Poor harassed Elly still lived, but was now reduced to a mere
skeleton, the shadow of what she was when seduced from the home
of her uncle, to whom she was deeply attached, and whose aged
heart was well-nigh broken since she fled from his roof.

Immediately after his arrival, John Scanlan renewed his proposal
to carry out the dreadful design to get rid of the poor girl,
and to possess themselves of the little property, composed of
clothing and jewels, which she still retained. Bad as the
wretched man, whom he used every means to employ as his agent to
complete his nefarious plot, was, he remonstrated with him
against the crime of murder, and proposed to return her to her
sorrowing parents and to take all the blame upon himself. In
case she should object against that, he said he would endeavour
to prevail upon her to emigrate to America, whither, as the
reader will recollect, she told her author of this narrative,
during her first interview with him, she was anxious and willing
to go.

To these proposals, John Scanlan resolutely objected, and, lest
at any time an attempt should be made (after the fashion of
Yelverton against Yelverton, of late notoriety<21>) to establish
the legitimacy of his marriage, nothing short of her immolation
would satisfy this ruthless villian.

To work, therefore, again he went, and, after plying Stephen
Sullivan with a large quantity of inebriating liquor, he
persuaded poor, unsuspecting Elly, whose health was greatly
undermined, under the pretext of taking a short row for the sake
of fresh air, to embark in the boat with Stephen Sullivan, while
he feigned illness himself, and promised that, after she spent
an hour or so on the water, if he felt himself better, he would
join her for another excursion.

Just before they pushed off from the shore, he took an
opportunity of speaking in a whisper to Stephen Sullivan, who
was then well plied with drink and, while charging him not to
return without doing the job, he turned on him a withering and
determined look, and, in handing him a bottle of whiskey, he
vehemently swore that if he came back to him with Elly alive he
would surely be avenged. When this threat was delivered, he
handed him a gun which he was to use as an instrument of death,
immediately after which Stephen Sullivan pushed off the boat,
his poor doomed victim being his only companion.

While he pulled stoutly away towards mid-channel, which would be
at least four miles from the land, as his light bark skimmed
over the water, he occasionally took a gulp of the intoxicating
liquor from the bottle to nerve him to the performance of the
dread deed, which, in his sober sense, he revolted against and
could not bring himself to perform.

Poor Elly, whose rest had of late been frequently disturbed, and
her body enervated from a withdrawal of the comforts which she
had been accustomed to in her uncle's house, had fallen fast
asleep, and her arm was resting on the gunwale of the boat, when
the desperate villain, taking advantage of her unconsciousness,
struck her a fearful blow with the butt-end of the gun, which,
though intended for her head, only reached her arm, which
immediately hung broken and lifeless by her side. The poor
affrighted creature, thus suddenly and painfully roused to a
fearful consciousness, for the first time, no doubt, saw her
real danger, and all at once felt the whole force of the
conspiracy which was formed against her life.

With a heart-rending shriek, which the ruthless murderer
confessed was ever after ringing in her ears, she cried out for
mercy, but, alas! her cries and entreaties were in vain. The
desperate villain, excited almost to madness by the quantity of
whiskey he had drunk, with the fear of his atrocious master
before his eyes, the almost certain fate which awaited him at
his hands if he brought her back alive, and in case by any means
he should escape his vengeance, the certain penalty he would
inevitably pay to the outraged laws of his country, determined
to finish what in his drunken fury he had begun. He repeated his
blows with unfailing hand till he had completed the work of
death, and left the poor unhappy girl a frightful shattered
corpse at the bottom of the boat.

The murder, long discussed between the guilty parties, having
now been completed, what was the next step to be taken by the
cruel perpetrator?

Every article of clothing of any value was immediately stripped
from her poor crushed, mutilated body, and only a tightly-laced
bodice and the under-garment, which it would take too much time
and trouble to remove, remained. It was then Stephen Sullivan
felt the loss of the heavy stone and chain which, as before
related, fell overboard in one of his fishing excursions. What
was now to supply their place? As an over-ruling Providence
would have it, the very rope which was sworn to by Jack King at
the inquest, was extemporised.

One of the largest stones amongst those which were used for
ballast in the boat was laid hold of, the rope was tied as
firmly to it as time would permit, and as soon as the wretched
murderer had bound the neck and leg together (in which condition
I saw the body after it was thrown ashore) he attached his poor
victim to the rope and flung her overboard.

The intoxicated villain now made for Carrig Island, where the
prime mover, and more than equally guilty conspirator, was
waiting, and having reached the shore, he fully related to him
all the particulars of the bloody deed which he had done.

Though John Scanlan did not see the death-blows of the assassin,
or hear the groans of the dying victim, he felt assured that she
was no more, as he had narrowly watched the progress of the boat
from the time it left the beach till it reached the spot where
the murder was committed. Having clearly seen that no other
craft came near it from the time it left, and having never taken
his eyes from it till it returned to shore, without poor Elly,
who had left the land alive, he made certain that the deed he
had so long plotted had been done, and therefore heaped praises
on the felon who had so faithfully carried out his behests.

To reward him for his obedience to his orders, he now bestowed
on him a portion of the ill-gotten spoils, in addition to which,
when they returned to Glin, Lieutenant Scanlan gave Mary
Sullivan, the sister of the actual murderer (as sworn to in her
depositions new before me), a shift, a pair of shoes, a pocket-
book, a cap and ribbon. The deponent also stated that she saw a
plain gold ring on Stephen Sullivan's finger, and a figured one
with Lieutenant Scanlan, with whom also she saw four gold
guineas and a red leather pocket book, all of which, on the
trials, were sworn to by Ellen Walsh as having belonged to poor
Elly.

When she inquired about his wife, as Elly was called, Lieutenant
Scanlan first told her that he had left her with his sister at
Kilkee, a bathing-place on the western coast, and afterwards,
when she learned that this was untrue, he said that she had gone
off with the captain of a ship.

All that I have here related came to light after the conviction
and condemnation of Stephen Sullivan, who was to be executed in
a few days, and contains the substance of his confession and his
full corroboration of the general features of the two trials,
and the depositions of the witnesses on each occasion.

From this nothing could induce him to swerve, and lest, as he
said himself, his last hours upon earth should be disturbed by
any entreaties (no matter from what quarter coming) to alter the
statement he had made, or to lead anyone to imagine, by word or
hint from him, that Lieutenant Scanlan was innocent of the crime
for which he suffered, reiterated his assertion that he had
instigated him to commit the murder; and I believe it is a maxim
of law that the conspirator is equally guilty with the
perpetrator.

He also sent a petition to the judges who had tried him,
acknowledging the full justice of his sentence, and requesting,
at the same time, that he should not be interrupted by the
visits of any persons except those whom he might, with the
permission of the authorities, wish himself to converse with.

This dying request of the unhappy man was strictly complied
with, and, when the fatal day arrived, he publicly declared his
guilt upon the scaffold, and stated, in the presence of
thousands, that he had committed the fearful crime at the
instigation of Lieutenant John Scanlan, with whom, in an evil
hour, he had cast in his lot, and in whose drunken orgies and
vile practices he had too readily joined.

After this confession, the wretched murderer was launched into
eternity, and paid the penalty of the dreadful crime he had
committed by a violent and ignominious death at the common place
of execution.

The clear confession and closing scene of Stephen Sullivan's
wretched life will show the reader the fearful nature of the
determined denial of his guilt which sent Lieutenant John
Scanlan into eternity with an awful lie upon his lips.

"I thought," he said (as before mentioned), when the cap was
removed for a few minutes from his eyes, "I should never see the
light of Heaven again. May the Gates of Paradise be for ever
shut against me if I had hand, act or part in the crime for
which I am about to die!"

Oh, terrible addition to the many crimes with which his unhappy
soul was stained! How hardened to every sense of that contrition
for guilt which is often professed by some of the most
uneducated criminals.

It is almost incredible to think that one brought up in the
light of a gentleman, who had served the Crown for many years in
a military capacity, who, from his rank and station in life,
must have known the procedure of our criminal courts, could have
so deceived himself as to imagine that his obstinacy would have
saved him.

He may have served as a juror himself, he certainly had been an
auditor of some of the trials of that disorganised period, when
many Whiteboys and Rockites paid the penalty of their
transgressions on the scaffold. He knew full well that several
whose guilt was as clear as the noon-day sun denied it to the
last, and yet could not escape the sentence of the law. How such
a man could vainly imagine that a hardened denial like his would
save his life is almost utterly unaccountable.

Thus the curtain fell over one of the most distressing tragedies
that ever was enacted in Ireland, the remembrance of which is so
fresh in my mind's eye after nearly half a century that I can
even now trace the lineaments of nearly every face in the drama.
I almost feel that it was but yesterday that I issued from the
gates of old Trinity, that I sat beside Jim Dempsey on the
coach-box, that I helped to put out the fire in the house in
Limerick, that I sailed down the River Shannon with Lieutenant
Scanlan and poor Elly, that I saw her again at Kilrush and had a
hearty greeting from her, that I shortly after saw her mutilated
remains and was cognisant of all the facts connected with the
trial and execution of her murderers.

Having now faithfully related the most prominent features, and,
in my opinion, the most touching scenes in this remarkable
tragedy, I shall close my sketch by once more appealing to the
good feelings, especially of my youthful readers, who, perhaps,
after their hot pursuit of pleasure, too easily yield to the
romantic ideas which the sensation novels of the present day are
apt to inoculate them with.

The consequences, though it may be they are lightly thought of,
have a tendency, in a variety of ways, to be fatal to their
well-being here, and to their happiness hereafter. Instead of
storing their minds with useful studies, their imaginations are
wrought upon by exaggerated descriptions of things that never
occurred, and too often acts of daring and flagrant iniquity are
covered with the flimsy tinsel of excusable peccadilloes, which
both reason and religion most pointedly condemn.

Thus the youthful mind is frequently infected, especially when
any latent tendency exists, to follow the footsteps of the
aristocratic criminal, John Scanlan (whose deeds and end I have
faithfully recorded), and when the opportunity, as in his case,
presents itself, the moral feeling is blunted in the pursuit of
the object of his desire, and the enemy, who, like a roaring
lion, is watching for his prey, never ceases to fan the flame
till it is extinguished by the possession of his victim.

While I have been writing the brief history contained in these
pages, I have often fervently prayed that, should the perusal of
it (more especially as matter of fact) create any interest, it
might be the means of rescuing some thoughtless youth from the
quicksands which surround his path through life.

In conclusion, I wish it to be understood that the one great
object I had in view in recording these facts, which I have
written from personal knowledge, was to point out to those who
are entering upon the stage of active life, the immense
importance of guarding against the seductions which will daily
cross their path. Vast are the opportunities which present
themselves in this, our day, of cultivating such truly Christian
and moral principles as, with God's Grace, will be their
safeguard amid all the changes and chances of this dying world.

Thus, and thus only, will they be enabled rationally to enjoy
those social reunions which are so delightful to the well-
cultivated mind, especially to the man who from principle is
"not slothful in business," is also "fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord."

THE END.



Notes
Those notes marked WD are by William Danaher (1872-1956),
folklorist and schoolmaster of Athea, Co. Limerick, about 13 km
from Glin. Those marked TN are by the Ex-Classics transcriber.
1. Rev Dr. Fitzgerald: Richard Lloyd Fitzgerald. (WD)
Colleen Bawn: Irish, Cailín Bán,  literally "White girl",
meaning fair-haired and innocent(TN)
2. Feeltough: Irish fialtach, "a warrior, brave fellow." (TN)
3. Monnum: Irish m'anam, "my soul" (TN)
4. Cead mile failthe: Irish, céad míle fáilte, "a hundred
thousand welcomes." (TN)
5. Duine uasal: Irish, "gentleman." (TN)
6. The Knight's wife was Brigid Eyre. The Knight himself had a
very bad reputation.(WD)
The 22nd Knight of Glin, John Fraunceis Fitzgerald, was known as
Ridire na mBan "The Knight of the Women" for his indefatigable
lecherousness and sexual exploitation of his tenants' daughters.
He was however also known for his (otherwise) good treatment of
his tenants and generosity to the poor. (TN)
7. Cark a freigh: Irish, cearc a'fraoigh, "Grouse." (TN)
8. Vi et armis: Latin, "by force of arms." (TN)
9. Asthore: Irish, a stór, "my treasure." (TN)
10. Jack Murray — the old people say Jack Manaher (WD)
11. Some say Bill Murray should be Bill Moloney (WD)
12. The murder took place on the 4th July 1819. (WD)
13. There was widespread hardship in Munster at the time, which
provoked a spate of agrarian disturbances by "Rockites" i.e
followers of the fictitious Captain Rock. See WD's own account
of one such event at
https://www.exclassics.com/colleen/rockites.mp3 and Captain Rock
by James S. Donnelly Jr. (TN)
14. Mr. T—— S—— R——: Thomas Spring Rice. (WD)
15. These two were Michael Hanley of Ballyelan and John Conway
of Ballingarry, shoemaker, Elly's uncle. (WD)
16. Case tried at Limerick City Spring assizes 1820. Assizes
opened March 11th 1820. (WD)
17. Counsel for the prosecution, Messrs. Pennefather and Quinn.
Counsel for Scanlan, Daniel O'Connell, George Bennett. (WD)
18. Convicted on March 14th 1820. (WD)
19. Instead of the sheriff doing all this it is alleged that it
was the Reverend Henry Gubbins, Protestant minister, who did so.
(WD)
20. Sunk as lead in the mighty waters: Exodus 15:10. (TN)
21. Yelverton against Yelverton: A case in 1858 where a somewhat
similar clandestine marriage was pronounced to be valid. See
https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/the-
yelverton-affair-a-nineteenth-century-sensation/. (TN)


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