The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

by Wilkes, Roger

  These five persons were all reputable folk of the place, credible witnesses, whose testimony cross-examination failed to shake. So we have the fact clearly proved that about seven o’clock that night there rang out upon that little isle three lamentable screams of terror and distress, so piercing as to be audible a mile off upon the mainland. Yet Mr Kirwan, rendered deaf by anxiety for, or indifference to the fate of his vanished wife, or wholly engrossed with his sketch-book in making the most of the failing light, as appears, heard nothing.

  At twenty minutes to eight o’clock Patrick Nangle, and his cousin Michael, accompanied by other two men, left Howth harbour as arranged to bring back the pleasure-seekers. The boat reached the island about eight o’clock, and landed close to the tower. It was then getting very dark and they saw nothing of their party; but on their calling out, the voice of Mr Kirwan replied: “Nangle, come up for the bag.” Patrick went ashore; he found Mr Kirwan standing by himself on the bank and received from him his bag and sketch-book. Patrick, taking these down to the boat, met Michael going up, who, seeing Mr Kirwan coming towards the boat and finding he was alone, at once exclaimed, “Where is the mistress?”

  “I have not seen her for the last hour and a half,” was the reply.

  “Sir,” said Michael, “you should have had the mistress here, and not have to be looking for her at this hour of the night; what way did she go?”

  “She went that way,” said Mr Kirwan, pointing in the direction of the Long Hole. “I was sketching at the time. She left me after the last shower. She did not like to bathe where I told her to bathe, because there was a bad smell there.” Michael and Mr Kirwan then went to look for her along the strand, Patrick going back to the boat. “Maria, why don’t you answer?” called her husband. “The boat is waiting.” Michael too kept calling “Mrs Kirwan!” but there was no response. Their search included the Long Hole, so far as the state of the tide permitted, and while there Michael could hear Patrick hailing from beside the tower.21 Returning, they found he had been equally unsuccessful. “This is a fine job,” said Michael, “to be here at this hour of the night! Where are we to find this woman? Let us leave the other two men in the boat and we will go round again; if Mrs Kirwan comes in the meantime, they can go on the top of the bank and hail us.” The three then started to retrace their steps. Descending the rocks into the Long Hole Mr Kirwan stumbled and fell. At that instant Patrick Nangle cried out that he saw “something white” below.

  The Long Hole is an inlet, some 360 feet in length, narrow at the entrance and wider towards the head, enclosed by steep banks and frowned upon by cliffs. From low to high-water mark the distance is 163 feet. This area is divided into two channels by a large rock in the middle, 22 feet high, on which the tide rises on the landward side about a foot at high water. The surrounding strand is of coarse gravel, interspersed with lesser rocks, and 12 feet above low-water mark a low barrier of these stretches across the channel, here 28 feet in breadth. Just within this barrier, at the base of the southeastern side of the gully, is a small rock, 3 feet long and 12 inches high, upon which was found the body of the dead lady.

  The tide was out. She lay upon her back, the head hanging down over the edge against the barrier rock, the arms extended, the knees bent, and the feet in a shallow pool. Her wet bathing dress was gathered up about her armpits, leaving the whole body exposed, and beneath her was a wet bathing sheet, upon which she partly lay. Her bathing cap was missing—it was found a fortnight later at high-water mark, the strings tied in a tight knot—but she wore bathing boots; seaweed and gravel were entangled in her hair. The body was still quite warm and flexible. The mouth was frothing; there was blood upon the face, blood upon the breasts, and blood was flowing from the ears and from other parts. Patrick, for decency, adjusted the bathing dress, straightened the arms and legs, and tied the sheet twice about her at the neck and knees, all before Michael and Mr Kirwan, who had been searching the other side of the cove, came up. “Mr Kirwan said ‘Oh, Maria, Maria!’ ” and told the men to look for her clothes: “we would get them there on the rock”—pointing to the high centre rock before mentioned. Patrick went up and searched as directed, but could find nothing. Mr Kirwan then went up himself, and coming back in a few minutes with a shawl and “something white” in his hand, bade Patrick go up again, which the latter did. This time he at once found the clothes in a place where he had already looked without result: “I had searched the very same place before and did not find them.” The shawl was then wrapped about the head; what the “something white” was we shall see in the sequel. Patrick next proposed that the boat be brought round for the body, so he and Michael left accordingly. Mr Kirwan refused to go, and threw himself upon the corpse. It was now about nine o’clock and it took them an hour to fetch the boat; when they reached the Long Hole they found Mr Kirwan just as they had left him, “lying with his face on the breast of the body”. The remains, wrapped in a sail, were carried to the boat by one of the men, who got wet up to the knees during the operation, but none of the others got wet, nor according to them did Mr Kirwan, who took no part.

  Arrived at Howth the body of Mrs Kirwan was taken on a dray to her lodgings and laid on the floor of her room. Mrs Campbell, the landlady, was short-sighted and much upset: she did not examine it closely; but she saw that Mr Kirwan’s legs were wet, and she helped him to change his stockings. Other three women in the house that night proved that his boots, stockings, drawers and trousers were wet, and that as he sat on a chair by the kitchen fire drying them, water dripped from him on to the door. These dames—one, Mrs Lacy, was a sick-nurse of forty years’ standing—were ordered by him to wash the body. When they pointed out to him that the police would not allow it to be touched until an inquest was held, the bereaved husband made this remarkable retort: “I don’t care a damn for the police; the body must be washed!” So washed it accordingly was, and laid out as for burial before it was seen by a medical man. Whatever the propriety and whatever the motive of Mr Kirwan’s action there is no doubt that it resulted in the loss of very valuable evidence. The washing was done by Anne Lacy and Catherine M’Garr, one taking the right, the other the left side, while Mary Robinson held a candle. The account given by these women of the appearances noted by them is of the last importance. There was a large quantity of blood on the sail where the lower part of the body had lain. The body was quite limber.

  “The face was covered with blood; the blood came from a cut about the eyes, and on the cheek and forehead; the ears were also loaded with blood, which was still running from the inside of them; I sponged and washed the ears, but the blood continued flowing afterwards for nearly half an hour; I had to put a flannel petticoat to prevent it flowing down.”

  There was a cut on the right breast, which bled freely, and a discharge of blood, which was not natural, from another part. The right side of the body was black from shoulders to feet. The lips were much swollen, the eyes “as red as blood”, the neck was slightly twisted. The body was healthy looking and finely formed: “she was a beautiful creature”. Thus Mrs Lacy, whose long experience gives weight to her testimony. Mrs M’Garr noticed wounds about the eyes, “as if torn”. The nose was “crooked”, the lips swelled and covered with slime, blood flowed from the ears, the left breast, and from another part. Mary Robinson observed that the eyes were bloodshot and the ears bleeding. These details, though repellent, are essential to a determination of how this lady came by her death.

  Between one and two o’clock on the following day, Tuesday, 7 September, by order of the Coroner the body was professionally examined. Of distinguished members of the faculty there was then, as now, no lack in County Dublin, and it seems unfortunate that the duty was entrusted to a medical student named Hamilton, who stated his qualifications as “having been attending lectures during the last six years”. He made what he himself describes as “a superficial examination”, the result of which will presently appear, and having no reason to suspect foul play, he assumed it to be a case
of simple drowning and reported accordingly. The inquiry opened later in the afternoon before Mr Coroner Davis, the authorities having apparently no suspicion that the death was other than fortuitous. The Nangle cousins were examined. “Mr Kirwan took an active part in the investigation,” said the Coroner at the subsequent trial; “I remember his interrupting one of the witnesses who was giving his testimony; I do not remember what he said to him; I believe the witness in question was one of the Nangles.” Now, as appears from the evidence of Patrick Nangle at the trial, just as he was beginning to tell the Coroner about the sheet and the finding of the clothes, he was interrupted by Mr Kirwan and was “put back”, another witness being called. Thus as to these most material facts he “was not allowed to speak”. The evidence of Mr Kirwan was as follows:

  “I am an artist, residing at No. 11 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin. The deceased lady, Maria Kirwan, was my wife; I was married to her about nine or ten years. I have been living with Mrs Kirwan in Howth for five or six weeks. I was in the habit of going over to Ireland’s Eye as an artist. Mrs Kirwan used to accompany me; she was very fond of bathing, and while I would be sketching she would amuse herself roaming about or bathing. Yesterday we went over as usual. She bathed at the Martello tower on going over, but could not stay long in the water as the boatmen were to bring another party to the island. She left me in the latter part of the day, about six o’clock, to bathe again. She told me she would walk round the hill after bathing and meet me at the boat. I did not see her alive afterwards, and only found the body as described by the sailors.”

  It will be observed that no mention was made by Mr Kirwan of the three screams, and that he did not allege, as was later done in his behalf, that his wife was subject to epilepsy. The five witnesses who heard the cries had not then come forward. Neither the landlady nor the women who washed the corpse were examined. Upon these insufficient premises the jury founded a verdict of accidental death. Unfortunately for the ends of justice, a grave was chosen in the wettest part of the cemetery at Glasnevin, the remains of Mrs Kirwan were buried there, and the affair seemed in a fair way to be forgotten.

  If Mr Kirwan was innocent of his wife’s death he was curiously unlucky in his reputation. The fact that he had a mistress with seven children became generally known and raised a strong prejudice against him in the public mind. He was even said to have committed bigamy with her, but the woman, as appears, was merely a chronic concubine. One Mrs Byrne, his next-door neighbour in Dublin, did not scruple to promulgate his guilt. Indeed, this lady had foretold the event: “Kirwan had taken his wife to some strange place to destroy her”; and being but human, she was naturally gratified by the fulfilment of her prophecy. She further alleged that “Bloody Billy”, as she impolitely termed him, had murdered her own husband. Two other charges of murder were also brought against Mr Kirwan in the Dublin Press. It was there stated:

  1.

  That in 1837, he, Kirwan, burglariously entered Bowyer’s house in Mountjoy Street, and carried away Bowyer’s property, which he converted to his own use; and that for this offence he was tried before the Recorder, and only escaped upon a point of law.

  2.

  That having thus obtained possession of Bowyer’s property he murdered him.

  3.

  That in order to keep Mrs Bowyer quiet, he paid her an annuity of forty pounds a year, blood money.

  Whatever be the truth as to these allegations, it is plain that Mrs Bowyer, like Father Paul of the Bab Ballads, did such things “singularly cheap”. The other charge of murder related to his brother-in-law, Mr Crowe. “That Kirwan murdered him, according to the statement of the parties preferring the charges, was beyond all doubt, because he accompanied him to Liverpool, and Crowe was not heard of since.”

  The Nangles and the nurses talked of the amount of blood they had seen about the body, and the report spread that the deceased had been done to death with a sword cane. Then Mrs Kirwan had been a Catholic and her husband was a Protestant, facts which in Ireland are still of more than spiritual import, and belief in Mr Kirwan’s guilt or innocence became largely a matter of faith. Finally, the authorities realized that the case was one which called for further investigation, so the body was ordered to be exhumed. On 6 October—thirty-one days after death—Dr George Hatchell, assisted by Dr Tighe, made a postmortem examination, the results of which will presently appear. The coffin was found to be lying in two and a half feet of water, due to the dampness of the soil. Following upon the doctors’ report Mr Kirwan was apprehended on a charge of murder. The warrant was executed at his own house in Dublin, where the police found Miss Kenny and her young brood installed in the dead wife’s room.

  The trial, originally fixed for November, was at the instance of the accused postponed, and did not open till Wednesday, 8 December 1852, when it took place before a Commission of Oyer and Terminer held at Green Street, Dublin, the presiding Judges being the Hon. Philip C. Crampton and the Right Hon. Richard W. Greene. John George Smyly, QC, Edmund Hayes, QC, and John Pennefather conducted the prosecution; Isaac Butt, QC, Walter Burke, QC, William W. Brereton, QC, and John A. Curran appeared for the defence. The charge against the accused was that on 6 September, at Ireland’s Eye in the county of Dublin, he “did wilfully, feloniously, and of his malice prepense kill and murder one Maria Louisa Kirwan”, to which he pleaded “Not Guilty”. Mr Smyly, in the absence of the Attorney-General, having opened the case for the Crown, proceeded to call witnesses in support of the indictment.

  The first was Alfred Jones, surveyor, who had prepared plans of the locus and made certain calculations and measurements at the Long Hole. The place where the clothes were found was about the middle of the central rock, 5 ft 6 in. above the strand, and at high tide 1 ft 6 in. out of the water. On 6 September it was high water at three-thirty p.m., and at that hour there would be 7 ft of water over the “body” rock; at six-thirty 2 ft 6 in.; at seven, 1 ft 9 in.; at seven-fifteen, 1 ft 4½ in.; at seven-thirty, 1 ft; at eight, 3 in.; and at nine-thirty the tide would be 2 ft below the “body” rock. The distance from the Martello Tower to the Long Hole was 835 yds; from where Mr Kirwan was standing when the boat arrived, 792 yds. Cross–examined by Mr Butt, a person about to bathe might step down to the strand from the rock where the clothes were found.

  Mrs Margaret Campbell told how the Kirwans came to her as lodgers in June, and of Mr Kirwan’s habit of absenting himself three nights a week. During the first month of their stay she noticed quarreling between them more than once.

  “I heard angry words from Mr Kirwan to his wife. I heard him say he would make her stop there; I heard him miscall her; I heard him call her a strumpet. I heard him say ‘I’ll finish you!’ I do not think they had been a month with me at that time. On the same evening I heard her say to him, ‘Let me alone, let me alone!’ Next morning I heard her say to him she was black from the usage she had got the preceeding night—across her thighs.”

  Witness heard a rush in their room, and “thought he beat her”. There was no one else in the house at the time except Anne Hanna, who was with witness in the kitchen. Mrs Kirwan used to bathe every day at the ladies’ bathing place. She was in good health all the time she was at Howth. On the Thursday and Friday before her death she and her husband spent the day on Ireland’s Eye, returning home about nine o’clock. Mrs Campbell then described the bringing back of the body, and the condition of Mr Kirwan’s nether garments, as before narrated. Cross-examined by Mr Butt, she had heard them quarrelling at different times; it was on the first occasion that she heard the threatening language; subsequently “they had an odd word now and again”; he never used violence but the once. She had heard Mrs Kirwan’s mother, Mrs Crowe, caution her not to be too venturesome in bathing.

  Anne Hanna, who washed for Mrs Kirwan, corroborated as regards the first quarrel. She heard the furniture being knocked about, and a man’s voice say: “I’ll end you, I’ll end you!”

  Patrick Nangle described the happenings on the island, wit
h which we are already acquainted. When he recovered the sail in which the body had been wrapped, he found a great deal of blood on it: “I had to scrub it with a broom.” Cross-examined by Mr Brereton, he was sure the body was not stiff when found; none of the limbs was stiff. There were several scratches about the eyes. The mouth was frothing. Blood flowed from the lower part of the body. The scratches could not have been caused by crabs; there were no crabs where the body lay. Mr Kirwan did not say, when he (witness) saw him on the bank, that his wife must be in the boat. There was no swell that night to bruise the body. The injuries could not have occurred by scraping on the gravel. The sheet was under the body when he found it; he saw no shawl until he came back with the boat. He did not care how dark it was: he had searched the rock and found nothing, where, after Mr Kirwan had gone up, he found the clothes. He demanded and got two pounds for his trouble that night. No one could have been on the island after four o’clock without his knowledge. Mr Kirwan could not have got wet in the pool where the feet lay: there was not enough water in it.