by Maidhc Dain
‘It is peculiar,’ Seeds observed, ‘that no trace of those bullets was found in the wall of the house. But, pray, continue.’
‘Lucinda was crying when she told me,’ Stacey continued. ‘She told me to search Sly’s pockets because she thought he should be carrying a large sum of money as he had sold two yearlings at the fair. When there was nothing in his pockets she told me to search his waistcoat for his pocket watch which was very valuable. But there was neither a watch nor chain in his waistcoat.’
Before Stacey left the witness box, he answered a few more questions for the Crown.
‘Some of his moustache was singed by the bullet and the side of his head was black …’
And, ‘He was a comfortable farmer with a reasonably large holding …’
The attorney asked him if he had ever seen Walter Sly with a gun.
‘I never saw him with a gun,’ Stacey answered, ‘but it was said that he had bought one as he had many enemies. Trouble follows anybody who has land for rent nowadays. If it isn’t the Whiteboys looking for revenge on behalf of the small farmers, it is the horse buyers complaining about a bad animal you have sold them.’
Campion didn’t question Stacey as he felt that he had done little to damage his case.
Four more witnesses were called but the Crown’s case was not completed yet by Seeds. The clerk of the court called Catherine Landricken, another neighbour of the Slys.
She was not long giving evidence when the case turned tragically against Lucinda and Dempsey. She testified that she had seen Dempsey pulling a sheaf of oats from the stack that was furthest from the stable and putting it back in its place. She became suspicious and informed the police. A policeman named Joseph Flanagan found Walter Sly’s watch in the stack on 10 November, she said. When Flanagan was put in the witness box a doubt was put in the jurors’ minds when he answered a question Campion put to him concerning the watch. He informed the court that two men were helping him to search the stack in Sly’s haggard – Tobin and Brennan. It was Tobin who found the watch in the stack, he said. It was only afterwards he found out that Sly had evicted Brennan from his holding a few years previously.
Flanagan’s evidence put another twist in the story because there had been bad blood between Sly and Brennan. Some of the jurors had a different opinion, particularly those who thought that they knew beforehand that Lucinda and Dempsey had murdered Sly. The attorney for the Crown was not pleased and, without more comprehensive evidence, he felt that the two would go free on some technicality or other.
One thing was certain – Walter Sly and the local police knew each other very well and were friendly towards each other. A couple of weeks before the Carlow Fair, John James, a policeman, had gone to Sly’s farm to kill a pig. When he was cross-examined, he testified that on the day of the pig killing he saw Lucinda and Dempsey touching hands behind her husband’s back. That left the jury in no doubt that there was a sexual relationship between them. But it was pointed out to the attorney for the Crown that more evidence was needed in relation to the murder. If so, they would be depending very heavily on the two witnesses who were yet to appear. These were Bridget Massey and Michael Connors, both neighbours of the Slys.
Bridget Massey and her husband were living two fields above the Slys. They were of the tinker tribe but they had their own little house by this time. Bridget told the court that she knew the Slys very well. She said that they had a stormy relationship from the time they first got married.
‘Many times Lucinda told me about the lashings of the horse’s whip she got from Walter,’ Bridget informed the court. ‘When we were cutting the turf last summer she showed me the marks on her back she got from Walter’s whip.’
She said that she also knew the servant boy, John Dempsey. Sly had hired him as there was no girl available at the time. One evening when she visited Sly’s house she came upon Lucinda and Dempsey in the bedroom together. When the attorney questioned her as to what she thought they were doing in the bedroom she looked at him as if it were a simpleton who put the question to her. She continued with her evidence without answering his question as everybody in the court knew the answer. She said that she often saw Lucinda with her arms around Dempsey’s neck. She said she saw things happening that she couldn’t describe before a crowd of people when the two of them were digging a meal of potatoes in the field. As she put it, ‘The learned man can take a hint.’
Bridget also testified that Lucinda visited her the day that a man named Potts was killed in a quarry on the other side of Carlow town. It was Lucinda who told her the news.
‘“Did you hear about a man named Potts who was killed in the quarry yesterday?” Lucinda said to me,’ Bridget reported. ‘“I did not,” I replied. “It is a pity it wasn’t Walter who was killed,” Lucinda remarked, “because if any man deserves to be killed, it is him.”’
‘Another morning,’ Bridget continued, ‘Lucinda came to my door asking me to go gathering potatoes. While I was getting ready to go with her, she saw rat poison on the settle. She asked me to give her some of the poison but I asked her had she any rats. Lucinda told me that she had one big rat, Walter, in the bed with her and that she would give him the poison.’
Seeds instructed her to tell the court what time of year it was when that happened.
‘It was last October,’ Bridget replied.
Then John Dempsey was put into the witness box.
It took the attorney for the Crown only ten minutes to get him talking. Dempsey blurted out exactly how they had murdered Sly. He said he would have to make his peace with God as he couldn’t go to his death with such a grave sin on his soul. Lucinda fell in a weakness listening to him. From that moment on, the beatings and whippings she received from Sly from the day they married were of no account. The attorney said that he wouldn’t put Lucinda in the witness box as he felt that the case was lost.
The court was adjourned until eleven o’clock the following morning. Michael Connors was yet to be questioned as was Captain James Battersby, the County Inspector. Michael Connors gave his evidence precisely. He stated that he could neither read nor write and that there were a few times in his life that he had hard words with Walter Sly, but that the thing that most upset him was the evening he was eating supper in Sly’s house after spending the day working for him. It happened that Sly was away at a fair and Dempsey was milking the cows.
‘While we were eating a bite of food,’ he began, ‘Lucinda let me know that she was half killed by Walter and that he was forever threatening that he would take her name from his will and leave her with nothing. She told me that if I could take Sly from this life that I would get a couple of acres and that I would have the land I was renting free from rent as long as she lived. I told her to shut up immediately and that I would pretend I hadn’t heard a word.’
‘It wasn’t long afterwards,’ he continued, ‘that I met Dempsey on a fair day in Carlow town. I had a drink with him and he told me I was only a stump of a fool not to have taken up Lucinda’s offer … Some time later, I was helping Walter to move a horse from one part of his land down to the bog. I told him that it didn’t look right that his wife and John Dempsey were so fond of each other. A fortnight after that he met me in a tavern in Carlow town. He had a few in. He told me off for spreading lies about his wife. While he was insulting me he raised his whip over my head. I caught the whip and wrapped it around his neck and told him not to do such a thing again. After that he was as friendly with me as a cow in a cock of hay. I worked for Walter and Lucinda a day here and a day there after that but I minded my own business. If I saw her naked in bed with a man, I kept my mouth shut. Hunger is the best sauce, your honour.’
When James Battersby went into the witness box every eye in the room was on him. He was the one who had gathered all the evidence from Sunday, 9 November until the trial began. He would not be cross-examined but would read out a statement before the judge and jury. This is what he read:
‘I was present in the vi
llage of Oldleighlin near the house where Walter Sly’s body was found on Sunday 9 November, 1834 in the haggard five yards from the stable and seven yards from the door of the house. I saw the injury to the side of Walter Sly’s head and the hole near it where the bullet entered. I was present when the box in which the gun was kept was found. Lucinda Sly said to me that she had no key for the box and that she did not know what was in it. I found the key in her apron pocket. After the gun had been examined it was established that it had been fired some hours previously as the smell of gunpowder was still fresh. I asked Constable Hudson, who was present, to insert his finger in the barrel of the gun. When he had done that, he showed me the sweat on his finger. I was virtually certain then that the shot that killed Walter Sly was fired from that gun. I looked over at John Dempsey. I realised that he was very edgy when I was staring at him. He informed me that he would tell me the whole story when he made his statement in the barracks. I knew then that it was Dempsey and Lucinda Sly who planned the murder. But when I questioned Dempsey some days later in his cell in Carlow Gaol he said that he had no part in the murder. But I went to him a week later and told him that I thought he was not telling the truth. Dempsey told me the truth in the presence of two attorneys who were with me.’
That strengthened the case for the Crown. Campion said that he had no more witnesses to call for the defence. It would do his case no good if he put Lucinda in the witness box. She was just recovering from the tremor she got when she heard Dempsey’s testimony.
Before the judge instructed the jury to retire to the jury room to arrive at a verdict he told them about their grave responsibility.
Lucinda Sly and John Dempsey were before the court and had not yet been found guilty. The Crown was depending on them to consider the evidence dispassionately. He instructed them to go into the back room and not to come before him until they had reached a verdict.
The jury spent four hours discussing the evidence. They would be close to a decision when one of them would come up with another question and so on until in the end they reached a verdict.
An unnatural silence descended on the courtroom as the jurors took their seats. Every eye was on them.
‘Have you reached a verdict in the case of the Crown versus Lucinda Sly and John Dempsey?’ the judge asked them.
The foreman of the jury stood.
‘We have reached a verdict, your honour,’ he began. ‘In the case of the Crown versus Lucinda Sly, we find Lucinda Sly guilty of the murder of Walter Sly. In the case of the Crown versus John Dempsey, we find John Dempsey guilty of murder.’
The judge looked at the two of them. He put on his black cap.
‘Lucinda Sly,’ he spoke in a grave tone, ‘it is the judgement of this court that on the 30th of March at half past two in the afternoon outside Carlow Gaol you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.’
When the crowd in the courtroom heard this, they cheered. Lucinda fell in a weakness for a second time. Then the judge brought his gavel down on the bench.
‘Silence in court,’ he ordered. ‘Now, John Dempsey,’ he continued, ‘on the same date, at the same time and in the same place, you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy on your soul.’
On 30 March the sky was clear with not a cloud to be seen. There was a cold, light breeze blowing from the north with a harsh streak to it. Crowds were gathering from early morning in the space before the Gaol. It was a big day in town. It wasn’t every day that two criminals were hanged.
Everybody wanted to be present and to have the best view when the trapdoor beneath their feet was sprung and they were hanging, their feet shaking for their sins until the life was gone from their bodies.
The gaol door opened and a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest walked out with four policemen escorting the two prisoners. Lucinda appeared weak and drawn but Dempsey walked out the door with his head held high like a man who was ready to go before God. He had made his confession to the priest a few days earlier and had told the authorities – and had admitted in court – that Lucinda and he had planned the murder of Walter Sly and that it was they who had murdered him. Lucinda had not admitted that she had any part in the murder. A column of the British army and a large group of police were present in case there was any trouble during the hanging.
There were steps leading up to the gallows. The ropes were put around the prisoners’ necks. The minister and one of the policemen had to keep Lucinda standing while the hangman was putting the rope around her neck. The crowd stood there baying for blood.
‘Hang the witch! Hang the two of them!’ they shouted.
Dempsey made an attempt to speak to the crowd but they were calling for his and Lucinda’s blood and nobody heard him.
‘Hang them! Hang them!’ they shouted.
The trapdoors were sprung at the same time. Within a few minutes, they were dead.
Envoi
The old man who had sat beside me every evening for a fortnight turned towards me; he had the same woollen hat on him that he was wearing the first evening I met him in Carlow town.
‘It is a fortnight since we met,’ he began. ‘That is the story of Lucinda Sly and John Dempsey. She is the last woman who was hanged in Carlow town or county but, do you know, I don’t think she is satisfied in eternity because – do you see that shop in the place where she was convicted and hanged? It was there the court that convicted Lucinda and Dempsey was convened in 1835. I don’t think she is happy in the place she went to after she was hanged and perhaps she is not in heaven yet. People see her ghost from time to time and strange things happen in the dead of night in the restaurant and in the shop. There are people who say that her spirit is haunting the place waiting for release from this world.’
I looked at the old man.
‘Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts,’ I said.
‘Oh, I believe strongly in them,’ he assured me. ‘Not only that, but maybe it is I who will make the connection. Have you finished your work here in Carlow?’ he enquired.
‘I’m going home tomorrow,’ I told him.
‘My work isn’t finished yet,’ he said, rising from his seat. He began to walk towards the grocer shop.
He was just out of sight inside the shop when an important question struck me. I went after him into the shop. I looked all around but there was no sight of the old man. The attendant was looking at me expecting me to buy something.
‘Where did the old man who came in just before me go?’ I asked him.
He looked at me.
‘You are the first customer that came in the door in half an hour,’ he said.
I looked around again. The attendant looked at me carefully.
‘Are you the man,’ he enquired, ‘who was sitting on the seat out there every evening for the last fortnight writing in a copybook?’
‘I am,’ I told him, ‘and the old man I am looking for was sitting beside me.’
The attendant stood there still staring at me.
‘I saw no old man beside you,’ he spoke in disbelief, ‘but a few times I passed the seat I thought I heard you talking gibberish to yourself.’
I didn’t say another word but walked out the door.
I am constantly wondering since then about the man with the woollen hat. Was he from this world or was he sent from the other world to somehow help Lucinda Sly?
I set this down exactly as the old man told me and, no matter what the shopkeeper said, it is he who told me about the events in Oldleighlin.
Copyright
Irish edition published in 2008 by Coiscéim
English translation published in 2013 by
Liberties Press
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Copyright © Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé, 2008
English translation © Gabriel Fitzmaurice, 2013
The authors assert their moral rights.
ebook ISBN: 978–1–909718–03–6
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