The Convictions of John Delahunt

by Andrew Hughes

  She didn’t lift her head.

  ‘Mr Delahunt, would you like to read what you’re about to sign?’

  ‘No, thank you. Though … I’m curious as to the grounds for annulment.’

  ‘Well, Helen was not of the legal age required in this part of the kingdom to grant consent when you were wed.’ He withdrew a pen from his breast pocket. ‘And you were cognizant of that fact.’

  Helen’s voice was quiet but clear. ‘We both were.’

  Sweetman cleared his throat, unfolded the document and took an inkpot from his case, even though mine was open on the table. He handed the pen to Helen, pointed to a space on the sheet and said, ‘If you just sign here.’

  She stood near me, close enough to touch her arm if I reached across. Her head bent over the document, and a lock of hair fell loose. She swept it behind her ear with her middle finger. When it fell again she left it be. Helen seemed to hesitate, and I wondered if she was having second thoughts.

  Then she turned to her solicitor. ‘Which name should I use?’

  ‘Your married name.’

  She nodded, and immediately began to write. The rest of us stood in silence as the nib scraped over the parchment.

  When she finished, I held out my hand for the pen, but she handed it to me through her solicitor. I signed my name directly beneath Helen’s, starting a little to the right so the Delahunts would align.

  Sweetman then called Turner over. The warder examined the document. ‘Where do you want me to sign?’

  ‘Just there, sir.’

  I noticed that Helen was studying me. Her eyes drifted across my face and over my prison garb, and I became self-conscious enough to rub a hand over my clipped head.

  ‘Where exactly do you mean?’ said Turner.

  ‘Beside the space that says, “Witnessed by”.’

  Turner began to write his name slowly, forming each letter with care.

  ‘Would I be permitted to speak with my wife … I mean with Helen in private?’

  Sweetman said, ‘I don’t think that’s appropriate.’

  ‘I’d prefer to hear her reply.’

  She stood still for a moment, and then lifted the hood of her riding cloak to cover her head. ‘No.’

  ‘But there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t want to speak to you.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  Turner finished his signature. Sweetman sprinkled the wet ink with pounce, and immediately folded the document into his satchel. He said, ‘Miss Stokes,’ and she looked at him. ‘You are under no obligation to remain here.’

  ‘Then I wish to go.’

  I said, ‘Helen, wait.’

  Sweetman pushed the cell door open, and Helen began to walk towards it.

  I wanted the last thing I told her to be truthful, so what could I say? That I was innocent; that I didn’t deserve my fate? But I wasn’t innocent, and I did deserve it.

  ‘I’m … not as bad as people think.’

  She had already left the room without glancing back. Sweetman followed after, and I heard another guard outside escort them away.

  I went over to the bunk and slouched down. Turner stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. I was about to ask him to go as well, but then he said, ‘Your message was received.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That he’ll think about it. There’s still time. If he does come here I’ll show him in.’

  I retrieved my statement from beneath the mattress and brought it back to the table. Turner looked at me as I leafed through to the final page and took up my pen.

  ‘The yard will be empty if you want to get some air.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘You won’t get another chance.’

  ‘I’m not finished yet.’

  It was dark when I finally put down my pen and flipped through the pages, dissatisfied with the scrawled writing, the strikes and interpolations. I decided not to read through it, lest I be tempted to purge certain passages or embellish others. I numbered the sheets, tidied the bundle and left it on my desk.

  At around midnight, the cell door opened and Turner came in. He nodded to me once, and then beckoned towards someone in the hall. Farrell came in wearing a dark coat. His shirt collars stood up against his jaw, and he wore his small round spectacles.

  Turner said, ‘He can only stay for a few minutes. No longer.’ He left his oil-lamp on the floor and withdrew.

  Farrell looked around the gloomy cell, and squinted at me through his glasses. He said, ‘Short hair doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘You got Turner’s message?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that you have some information for me.’

  I invited Farrell to sit on the bunk, but he preferred to stand.

  I picked up the ruffled pages of my statement and handed it to him. ‘It’s already written out.’

  ‘Usually we like agents to be a bit more succinct.’

  ‘I want you to keep this, Farrell. But you can’t let Sibthorpe see it. Or Lyster.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’ll know when you read it.’

  He scanned the first few lines. ‘If this undermines Sibthorpe in some way, then I’ll have to show it to him.’

  ‘But why?’

  He looked at me over the rim of his glasses.

  ‘Please, just read it first. All I want is for it to be kept somewhere. Maybe no one else will ever read it. Maybe it’ll be read and not believed. I just want it to be preserved.’

  Farrell decided to take a seat after all, and he perched at the end of the bunk. ‘Where do you expect me to put it?’

  ‘In the archive.’

  ‘You want me to keep a statement that lays bare the workings of the Department within the Department itself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He considered this for a moment as he flicked through a few of the pages. Turner pulled open the door. He looked in and said, ‘It’s time to go.’

  Farrell got up and came to stand over me, the statement held by his side in his right hand. I thought he was about to hand it back, but then he pursed his lips, undid the top button of his coat, and stuffed the manuscript inside. With that he turned on his heel and left the cell.

  Turner said that they would come to fetch me at dawn, and began to close over the door.

  ‘Thanks for your help, Turner.’

  He cocked his head. It was the least he could do.

  I remained sitting on the bunk, cross-legged with my back against the wall, and stared at the candle flame as it trembled and swayed in the cold draughts. It appeared as a brilliant white against the surrounding gloom. I pulled the blanket around my shoulders and let the hours drift by.

  I wasn’t fearful. I only experienced a numb unease, much as I felt before my first day at college, or when homesick while staying in Antrim. Thoughts of what might happen in the hereafter didn’t bother me. If I believed anything, it was that God would grant oblivion to those who wished it. But my mind couldn’t help turning to the mechanics of my execution, and I found the prospect troubling. I pinched the front of my throat and become alarmed at how little force was required to cause pain. Maybe there was a way to hold one’s neck that increased the likelihood of a break? Something to ask the hangman. But then I feared that in the commotion of the morning’s preparations, I might forget to seek his advice, so I rose from my bunk, took up my pen for the final time, and wrote ‘ATH’ in capital letters on the back of my hand. As the ink dried, I smiled at the thought of people trying to decipher this final message.

  An hour after dawn, the prison began to stir. I rose and changed into the clothes that Turner had left for me the night before: a dark grey jacket of coarse wool, corduroy trousers and a crimson waistcoat, all in a nearly worn-out state. They fitted quite well and I wondered where they came from. Then I lay on the bunk and looked down the length of my body, imagining what I’d look like confined in
a pine box. The morning light continued to gather in the portion of sky visible through my arched window, inexorable and indifferent.

  I heard footsteps. Three or four people approached, the clicks of their hard heels against the stone marking them as dignitaries. The steps grew louder, and torchlight began to flicker in the metal grille above my door. Someone spoke in a muffled voice, his tone quite conversational, and he was answered by another, in a pitch equally carefree. Then came the rattle of Turner’s chain. Metal knocked against the keyhole, then scraped and grated in the lock as he turned the key. The bolt released with an echoing thud. Turner pulled open the door, sending a draught through the room, which caused the candle to gutter and blow out.

  When that young turf-cutter found the Iron Age man in a bog in County Meath, the most remarkable thing wasn’t the dignity of his preserved face; nor was it the leather-bound psalter they found buried next to him; nor the tattoo on his forearm of a rearing horse in vivid blue ink. What every witness first noticed was the rope tied around his neck, the loose end frayed where it had been roughly cut. It was as if those who buried him intended for us to know.

  AN AFTERWORD

  I remember when I first came across John Delahunt’s story: it was while researching my first book, a social history based on the inhabitants of Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, called Lives Less Ordinary. One of the square’s residents was Edward Pennefather, Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, who presided over the trial of Daniel O’Connell in 1844 for conspiracy to repeal the Act of Union. In that book I found it was possible to retell much of Irish history through the perspectives of Fitzwilliam Square residents, by following them to political gatherings, or on to the battlefield, or, in the case of Mr Pennefather, into the courtroom. So I set about searching for descriptions of the trial. The following, for instance, was written by Anthony Trollope: ‘Look at that big-headed, pig-faced fellow on the right – that’s Pennefather! He’s the blackest sheep of the lot – and the head of them! He’s a thoroughbred Tory, and as fit to be a judge as I am to be a general.’

  The outcome of O’Connell’s trial was never in doubt, mainly because the jury was packed with twelve Protestants. Trollope again: ‘Fancy a jury chosen out of all Dublin, and not one Catholic!’

  Charles Gavan Duffy described the Repeal leader’s reaction to the guilty verdict: ‘O’Connell himself at that time whispered to one of the traversers that the Attorney General was moderate in only charging them with conspiracy, as those twelve gentlemen would have made no difficulty in convicting them of the murder of the Italian boy.’

  I paused when I came upon that passage, intrigued by the title given to the crime, the clues about the unnamed victim, and the fact that O’Connell could allude to its notoriety. Duffy added his own footnote: ‘The murder of the Italian boy was a mysterious crime which had recently caused a sensation in Dublin and baffled the skill of the police.’

  When I sought out articles relating to the murder, I first came across the names Domenico Garlibardo, Richard Cooney, and the crown witness, John Delahunt.

  Lives Less Ordinary stemmed from my fascination with the people who lived in Dublin’s Georgian houses, and the fragments of history they left behind: a coat of arms hidden in a stained-glass fanlight; a letter from a young lady to her mother describing her first dinner party; a simple childhood drawing of infant brothers playing in a nursery, while knowing one of their lives would end on a battlefield. The research carried out for that book provided a setting for Delahunt’s story, as well as a cast of characters. Bit-part players such as Professor Lloyd, Dr Moore, Captain Dickenson, were all, in reality, Fitzwilliam Square inhabitants. Some of Delahunt’s memories of childhood – his fear of coalmen, and the cargo net that spanned the bannisters in the stairwell – were based on the autobiography of A. P. Graves, Robert Graves’s father, who grew up in the square in the 1840s.

  As for Delahunt’s exploits, there were any number of sources to consult: medical, court and newspaper reports, editorials and satirical pamphlets, memoirs and reminiscences. The Convictions of John Delahunt is primarily a work of fiction, especially with regards to Delahunt’s character, background and family, but the set-piece events were based on real episodes: the attack on Captain Craddock, the murder of Garlibardo, and the murder of Thomas Maguire. There were two sources that I used directly. One was the report of the phrenologist, Dr Armstrong, upon which the first scene is based. The second was the convict’s final statement. Though presented as Lyster’s creation, the quoted passages were taken directly from Delahunt’s real confession.

  Printed in the newspapers on the morning of his execution, the confession exposed the inner-workings of Dublin Castle to public scrutiny and comment. Soon after, a pamphlet appeared in the stalls of booksellers and stationers in the city, written under the alias An Informer (the author was James Henry, a classical scholar and medical doctor, who also happened to live in Fitzwilliam Square – in fact, he was Edward Pennefather’s neighbour). The pamphlet began:

  Although the public had been previously, to a certain extent, aware of the nefarious system by which informations against criminals were obtained in Dublin, they were by no means prepared for the startling disclosure of Delahunt, that the nature of the system was such as to actually tempt the informer to commit the crime, for the sole purpose of prosecuting and convicting an innocent person of it, and thus entitling himself to the blood-money.

  The existence of a spy system in the Castle would have come as no surprise to Dubliners. Informers had thwarted the United Irishmen in the capital in 1798, and police infiltration would scupper the Fenians in 1867. But the revelations gave nationalist newspapers and politicians the opportunity to deride the regime as a whole, and Delahunt’s role was brought up in the House of Commons. Less than a fortnight after his hanging, an editorial appeared in The Freeman’s Journal under the heading ‘The Spy Establishment’:

  We asked some days ago if it was intended by the present administration to retain the colleagues of the late Mr Delahunt in office … In his place in parliament, the Secretary for Ireland stated in reply to Mr John O’Connell, that the system of administering criminal justice through the agency of stipendiary witnesses and professional informers was not at present to be changed. Lord Elliot did not dare to blink the shameful question. He said that he knew ‘some crimes must be attributed to the temptations held out by the system to depraved persons.’ Some crimes! A trifle of blood!

  Lord Eliot was the Chief Secretary; John O’Connell a Repealer MP for Kilkenny, and the son of Daniel O’Connell. The editorial continued:

  [Lord Eliot said] that ‘witnesses must be PROCURED, to convict persons charged with capital crimes.’ Procured;—fie—Lord Eliot,—fie! It is an infamous and filthy word, but we do confess most fit and applicable to its purpose.

  In reality, Delahunt’s evidence against Richard Cooney wasn’t believed, and the murder of the Italian boy remained unsolved. Frank Thorpe, a police magistrate writing his memoirs in 1875, said: ‘I strongly suspect that if Delahunt really knew anything about the crime, it was owing to himself being the perpetrator.’

  But Thorpe also wished to dispel the notion that Delahunt was in the pay of the Castle:

  For a considerable time after his execution, he was reputed, especially amongst the humbler classes, to have been a police spy, and to have been in receipt of frequent subsidies from the detective office …I feel perfectly satisfied that, instead of deriving the wages of an informer or spy from the metropolitan police or from the constabulary, he never cost the public one penny beyond what sufficed for his maintenance in gaol whilst under committal for his diabolical offence, and to provide the halter which he most thoroughly deserved.

  The Freeman’s Journal reported that a crowd of 10,000 people assembled to see Delahunt hanged on Saturday, 5 February 1842:

  Fortunately for society there has rarely occurred amongst our population a crime of so sanguinary a character, or marked with features of such peculia
r atrocity, and perpetrated for such an object, as present. The feeling or curiosity in the public mind to witness the murderer expiate his offence in this world by the forfeiture of his life was consequently excited to an almost unparalleled extent… The beam from which the rope was suspended had been put out at an early hour in the morning, and that done, almost all was in readiness to terminate the existence of the culprit.

  When Delahunt was brought up to the scaffold, his nerve failed him. He fainted on the platform more than once, and when the fatal moment came he was lying motionless on the grated trapdoor.

  In this position the bolt was withdrawn—the drop fell—the death struggle was brief—a very few minutes elapsed, and John Delahunt ceased to live.

  Delahunt’s body was left suspended for forty minutes while the crowd drifted away. He was then lowered and brought to an apartment in the rear of the prison, where a plaster cast of his head was taken under the supervision of Dr Armstrong:

  It was remarkable that the countenance presented scarcely any of those marks which the features of persons who have suffered death in a similar way so generally exhibit. The face was by no means of a livid colour; there was no protrusion of the tongue, nor were the eyes at all distorted; the only symptom of violent death visible was a slight distortion of the mouth, which appeared somewhat drawn to the left side.

  In the evening, Delahunt was placed in a simple coffin provided by the Governor of Kilmainham, Mr Allison. He was still dressed in the clothes he wore when executed: a dark grey frock coat of coarse cloth, corduroy trousers and crimson waistcoat.

  At six o’clock the body was consigned to its last abode, in a remote extremity within the bounds of the gaol, called ‘the gravel yard,’ and about which no prisoners are located.

  Andrew Hughes

  Dublin, July 2013

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wrote this book while attending a writers’ workshop led by the brilliant author John Givens, and it wouldn’t have been possible without his expertise, careful reading and guidance. I can’t thank him enough. I’m also grateful to all the other writers who attended the workshop for their opinions and ideas, particularly Caroline Madden, for her encouragement, friendship and for some very crucial suggestions, and Oliver Murphy, for his good sense and great humour. Many thanks to my agent Sam Copeland for taking on the project and for his terrific enthusiasm and support. Also, thanks to everyone at Transworld and Doubleday Ireland, particularly my editor Simon Taylor for his excellent work. Thanks to Naomi Mott for her well-timed tweet, and Jenny Dunne for tracking down references to Delahunt in the National Archives. I’m very grateful to the Arts Council for the grant they gave me in early 2012, which proved to be a timely boost, and to the Irish Writers’ Centre for initially hosting the workshops. As always, thanks to my siblings for reading drafts, giving their thoughts, and many other reasons. And most of all thanks to my parents, Margaret and Kevin, for all their support.