Irish miscarriages of Justice

Just before Christmas President Michael D. Higgins signed a posthumous presidential pardon for John Twiss who was executed in Cork prison on 9th February 1895. This was the fifth presidential pardon granted since the country was declared a Republic in 1937. Twiss was a member of the Moonlighters whose physical force activities were directed against 19th century Irish landlordism. James Donovan, an ‘Emergency’ man who was caretaking a farm from which tenants had been evicted, was attacked and killed on the night of 21st April 1894 at Glenlara in the Pass of Kerry. The local R.I.C. investigated the crime and soon arrested Eugene O’Keeffe and John Twiss who was known to be associated with the Moonlighters and who had served terms in jail for his moonlighting activities. They were tried separately and the first trial saw O’Keeffe walking free following a not guilty verdict. John Twiss was of Palatine stock, a descendent of the refugees from the Palatinate of the Rhine who had settled in Ireland and particularly in west Limerick in the 18th century. His trial took place in Cork starting on 7th January 1895 before the Chief Baron Christopher Palles, described as one of the most popular judges in Ireland. By all accounts the Judge’s summing up for the jury was fair and balanced but he was not to know that the R.I.C. had improperly secured a witness since O’Keeffe’s trial who claimed to have identified Twiss near the scene on the night of the murder. The witness later claimed he was drunk when he signed his statement, but it was his statement allegedly created by the R.I.C. which resulted in a guilty verdict for John Twiss. The trial was an example of a great wrong caused by either inept, dishonest or corrupt policing practices. Harry Gleeson was a 38 year old Tipperary farmer who was hanged in 1941 for the murder of an unmarried mother of seven, Mary McCarthy. Mary, who like her mother turned to prostitution to escape abject poverty, was believed to have children by seven different men, the last having been born 6 months before she was murdered. On the morning of 22nd of November 1940 Harry Gleeson discovered Mary McCarthy’s body lying in a field at New Inn, Co. Tipperary. He immediately reported same to the local Garda Station but soon found himself the centre of a subsequent police investigation. He was eventually tried before Mr. Justice Martin Maguire of whom Gleeson’s Counsel Sean McBride wrote, ‘from the word go the trial Judge had taken the bit between his teeth and decided that the accused was guilty and should be convicted. He was prejudiced against my client.’ Another element of the trial which led to the wrongful conviction and the execution of Harry Gleeson was Garda fabrication of evidence prejudicial to Gleeson. The Gardai encouraged witnesses to make false statements and beat one witness, Tommy Reid, who had provided an alibi for Gleeson in order to get him to change his statement. Superintendent Mahony who was in charge of the murder investigation wrote to the Department of Justice following Gleeson’s conviction while the Minister for Justice was considering a reprieve stating ‘Gleeson is the type of man capable of committing the crime, there can be no doubt. He is possibly something of a sadist.’ This was not a view shared by Gleeson’s counsel, Sean McBride, or by the Mountjoy jail chaplain Fr. John Kelly who was with Gleeson in the days and hours before his execution. The chaplain’s note of his meeting with the prisoner painted an entirely different picture of Harry Gleeson which current Department of Justice officials acknowledge ‘portrayed Mr. Gleeson in a different light to the Garda Superintendent’s assessment.’ Harry Gleeson, an innocent man, was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on 23rd April 1941 in Mountjoy jail. His conviction and death were a sorry indictment of faulty justice and policing systems as they existed over 80 years ago. Gleeson was granted a posthumous presidential pardon in December 2015. Nearer to our time another miscarriage of justice saw the conviction and jailing of Nicky Kelly for what was claimed to be his involvement in the Sallins train robbery in March 1976. Kelly was one of 26 members of the Irish Republican Socialists party arrested in connection with the robbery. Following his arrest Kelly was held in Garda custody for 60 hours during which time he suffered serious personal injury. Towards the end Kelly who up to then had denied any involvement in the robbery signed a false confession in order to prevent further beatings. Patrick McEntee S.C. at Kelly’s trial voiced his concern: ‘is the situation that in Ireland in 1978 we have to solemnly sit around and wait for a dead body in a police station before a reasonable doubt is raised? Robert Barr S.C. for the prosecution countered by claiming that ‘there must have been a most incredible conspiracy among the Garda Siochana to lie and prejudice themselves as well as to behave so disgracefully as is alleged against them. That is so enormous as to be patently absurd.’ The Special Criminal Court in recording its verdict apparently agreed with prosecuting counsel. Their guilty verdict was eventually overturned when Nicky Kelly received a presidential pardon in 1992. His highly publicised case was another example of unacceptable policing practices which were a hallmark of a minority of police officers in this State. Eight years after Kelly’s arrest the Kerry babies case unveiled yet another extraordinary example of Garda incompetence and allegations of false confessions and intimidation. As we approach the centenary of the foundation of the Garda Siochana we must record not only the excellent service of the many Gardai of the past and present, but also guard against a recurrence of those cases which brought shame on the Guardians of the Peace.