The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories

by Brian J. Showers

  I suppose you can well imagine for yourself the panic that followed. Police Commissioner Sir John Ross arrived shortly thereafter, along with Detective Owen Kerr who, with the help of the other inspectors, searched the building, then questioned and re-questioned every member of staff. It was first established that neither the front door nor the safe had been forced, and so the thief must at some point have had access to the keys. But the strangest thing was the fact that the thief had removed the badge from its decorative ribbon collar - you will remember that it was attached with two tiny screws - and left it neatly folded in the lock box. Surely any thief who values his neck would spend as little time as possible at the scene of the crime. Why the thief spent the estimated minute and a half removing the badge from its collar is a mystery in its own right.

  Detective Kerr asked Vicars if he suspected anyone. Vicars alone had sole responsibility for the jewels. His job was at stake and he almost immediately went on the defensive. The first person he singled out was Phillips, his coachman, whom he promptly dismissed from service. Phillips, he claimed, had access to the duplicate keys Vicars kept in his desk drawer at his home in Clonskeagh. The police summoned Phillips, and after thorough questioning established his innocence to their satisfaction. Six months later he was fully exonerated by the viceregal commission of inquiry. Embarrassed by the slanderous error that shattered his coachman's honour, Vicars paid for Phillips’ passage to America, where he could begin a new life.

  The second person Vicars decried was Francis Shackleton, feckless brother of the celebrated Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton. As a suspect, Frank Shackleton had a number of strikes against him. He worked as a herald in the Office of Arms, and was therefore an unquestioned presence in the Bedford Tower. He also shared with Vicars the house in Clonskeagh and so, like Phillips, would have had access to the duplicate keys. Shortly before the theft, Shackleton had fallen into financial difficulties when he lost much of his money on a land deal in Mexico. His one saving grace was that he had been out of the country for a full month before the jewels were stolen. He had only returned to Dublin after the theft. With an alibi established, the viceregal commission eventually cleared his name from their list.

  At about this time Vicars’ own reliability came into question. Stories of after-hours parties held in the Office of Aims began to circulate around Dublin. Inevitably the commission turned its inquisitive eye on him.

  Every newspaper and tabloid in Ireland and England reported the facts of the sensational mystery. Every man on the street had his own theory, and the police seemed desperate for one of their own. As with most highly publicised mysteries of the era, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, perhaps guided by the Great Detective, offered his assistance. Although the Metropolitan Police politely declined, they curiously did accept the help of a local clairvoyant, who made the audacious claim that her spirit guide knew where the jewels were hidden.

  Commissioner Ross and Detective Kerr were both present at the séance. The clairvoyant placed the safe key in the centre of the table, closed her eyes and went into a trance. 'Where will we find the jewels?' she intoned at measured intervals. Her hand began to move, her pencil scribbling on page after page. This went on for half an hour. The commissioner's patience wore thin. Just as he rose to leave, the candles flickered and a low, disembodied groan filled the room. ‘Where will we find the jewels?' repeated the clairvoyant. The moan intensified and deepened. The clairvoyant’s pencil scribbled faster, and letters began to appear in the scrawls: ‘min min ded r AT MINE DEAD MINES.'

  ‘Who are you? Show yourself!' shouted the commissioner as he threw back the window drapes. The moaning stopped; the clairvoyant slumped forward, hitting her head hard on the table. The light was bright enough for everyone to see the clairvoyant’s face. It glistened scarlet red, shredded by a series of thin scratches. She was moved to a couch and someone went for a doctor. When the doctor arrived, he revived her with smelling salts. ‘The jewels,'she struggled to whisper,‘they're hidden in a graveyard in Rathmines.’

  On Sir John Ross' order, Detective Kerr hurried to Rathmines. When he arrived, he found the township possessed no cemeteries; the nearest burial ground was Mount Jerome in Harold’s Cross. Though undeniably startling, the whole matter was swiftly hushed up by the already embarrassed police force.

  Eventually both material and psychical leads were exhausted. The viceregal commission of inquiry adjourned without a conclusive verdict, but they did request a resignation from Vicars. Disgraced, Vicars quietly retired to his home in Kilmorna, County Kerry. On the night of 15 April 1921, a company of IRA men knocked on his door. Feeling that Vicars had been too sociable with the local British officers, they set fire to the house and dragged Vicars out to the lawn where they shot him in the head. Vicars’ body was found the next morning propped against a tree as if made to watch his own home as it burned. Around his neck hung a sign: ‘Traitor'. Reid mice had already begun to nest in his pockets and feast on his body. The eyes were the first to go.

  Even in his final will and testament Vicars maintained that Shackleton was guilty. ‘I was made a scapegoat to save other departments responsible,’wrote Vicars.‘[T]hey shielded Francis Shackleton, the real culprit and thief (brother of the polar explorer who didn't reach the South Pole).’ Eventually Shackleton was arrested in Portuguese West Africa in 1912 for defrauding a bank. Before he was informed of the charges, he said to the arresting officer in an apparent reference to the 1907 theft: ‘Vicars owes me. That was the deal!’In early 1913 he was sent to Mountjoy Prison; when released five years later he was destitute and outcast. By 1914 he is listed in Thorns Street Directory as living at Welton Lodge, a gentleman’s boarding house in Rathmines, where he offered his heraldic skills to the general public. An ad he placed in The Irish Times read: Antiquary and Genealogist. Pedigrees traced. Coats of Arms painted or engraved. Welton Lodge, 44 Fortescue Terrace, Rathmines Road.’

  A lengthy summarisation of the Crown Jewels theft was published beside Shackleton's obituary in 1941. The landlady who ran the boarding house had found his body. ‘He was seated in that chair by the window, like he always was, day and night,’ she said. ‘I never had any trouble with him. He was ever a gentleman, but the poor man always seemed like he was carrying some great burden.’ Shackleton’s rooms were at the back of the house, and his sitting-room window afforded him a clear view of the Blackberry Fair.

  As with most of my obsessions, I read every book I could find on the subject of the Irish Crown Jewels. One of the worst I encountered was by an author whom some of you may already be familiar with: Harrison Bews Jr. Bews is known in the industry as a coat-tail author. He writes any book that will sell based on the short-notice success of other publications. His books are poorly researched, written in haste with an eye for deadlines and profit margins and tided to please retailers. In many of his books he is audacious enough to pass off spurious inventions as fact. In addition to coundess volumes about the Freemasons, Bews has produced no less than three books on the Whitechapel Murders, each one identifying a different suspect conclusively’ as Jack the Ripper. You get the idea. Bews’ books are not to be recommended.

  Shortly after Myles Dungans excellent recounting of the case, Bews published his book entitled Solved! The Mystery of the Irish Crown Jewels. It is a muddled account that contradicts itself from page to page. Naturally, Bews offers his usual array of theories: everything from the Freemasons’ involvement with the theft to Jack the Rippers. Still, in the name of thoroughness

  I slogged through it. You can imagine my surprise when I was rewarded with a curious detail I had not yet come across.

  Bews’ central pieces of ‘undiscovered’ evidence are a classified Dublin Metropolitan Police report written by Detective Owen Kerr and two brief memos, one by Kerr and the other written by Police Commissioner Sir John Ross. All three are dated 24 February 1909. Bews goes on to claim that ‘an anonymous clerk at the Garda Archives’ supplied him with copies of the documents. I have searche
d for references to these files, if not the files themselves, but all my visits to the archives ended in failure; the ‘anonymous clerk’ maintains his silence. Here is a summary from the relevant chapter from Bews’ book: At around 10 p.m. on the night of 24 February, Mr McBride, the landlord of Welton Lodge, summoned Police Constable Kelly after hearing three gunshots from the Blackberry Fair. When P.C. Kelly arrived, McBride assisted him in gaining access to the market. McBride fetched a lantern so that the two of them might make an inspection of the premises. Near the southern wall, adjacent to the church, they discovered two fresh corpses, one lying slightly on top the other. The man on top, who was wearing a bowler and a frock coat, had his hands wrapped around the other man’s throat. He had been shot once through the forehead and twice in the chest. The strangled man was lying on his back, eyes still protruding with surprise, his mouth agape in horror. In his right hand was the revolver that fired the three shots. Between the bodies and the statue of the Virgin Mary was a trail of blood. The statue itself was spattered with blood, and a substantial pool had accumulated at its base. When P.C. Kelly realised a double murder had taken place, he secured the area and contacted his superiors at Dublin Casde.

  Detective Owen Kerr arrived forty-five minutes later. He surveyed the crime scene and then proceeded to inspect the bodies of both men. He determined that the man with the revolver was probably German; a patch sewn to the lining of his jacket read: H. Löher; Schneider, Bad Münstereifel. The inner pocket of his jacket contained a single ferry ticket to Holyhead, and in his trouser pocket was £8,000 sterling.

  Next, Kerr inspected the man wearing the bowler hat. He found the man's hands were dirty and fingernails caked with earth. In one pocket Kerr found a neatly folded piece of tissue paper. In the other, he very nearly overlooked two tiny screws caught in the threads at the bottom of the pocket. With growing suspicion, he hastily wrote the following dispatch to Commissioner Ross:

  ‘Dead man in Rathmines resembles jewel suspect Phillips. Request permission to contact Inspector Kane at Scotland Yard. Kerr.’

  He received a swift reply from Ross: ‘Denied. Return to Exchange Street at once.’

  Commissioner Ross’ terse response is puzzling and seemingly obtuse. His failure to recover the Crown Jewels in 1907 was still a sore point between the Dublin Metropolitan Police and King Edward VII. Anything that reminded the public of Ross’ shortcoming would only lead to further embarrassment. And given the increasingly volatile relationship between Ireland and the British crown - remember, at this point the Easter Uprising was only seven years away - Sir John Ross must have felt compelled to classify the report and keep the murders from further public scrutiny. This seems to have worked.

  I have yet to locate any contemporary newspaper articles concerning the double murder.

  Kerr's noticeably muted report concluded the following: the man in the bowler met the German to sell ‘an object or objects of great value’. The two men argued over the price. In anger, the German shot the other three times with his revolver, probably with the intention of taking the valuable object from the dead man. However, the object, whatever it was, was not found on either of the two bodies. Kerr determined from the blood splatter that the man wearing the bowler must have been shot near the statue. And given the amount of blood that had soaked into the ground at the foot of the statue, he must have died on the spot.

  What Kerr does not explain, possibly on orders from Ross not to delve too deeply, was how the man in the bowler hat, who fell dead at the foot of the Virgin Mary, crawled the distance of fifteen metres, and then strangled the man who shot him. I shudder even to consider the notion implied by this.

  Obviously we must take Bews' unsupported evidence with a grain of salt. Besides, by the final page, his book makes no real assertions anyway. Still, in the light of my own research, the facts on offer, and how they might relate to the Blackberry Man, are tantalising. The implied question remains: Did Phillips conceal the stolen jewels somewhere in the market before his fatal meeting with the German? And would the Blackberry Man take an interest in you if you sought the answer? Quis separabit... Who will separate us? I do not think I care to find out.

  As I was passing by the old market the other day, I noticed a ‘sold’ sticker taped over the 'for sale’ sign which described the property as having ‘obvious development potential. For days, workers carried an endless stream of scrap metal and broken furniture from the long-vacant buildings and lots the fair eventually came to encompass. It is little wonder that so many rats made their homes there. Will the broken windows trimmed and the padlocks taken off the doors?

  Whatever the new owner intends to do with these houses, we know two things for sure: number 44 will always be ‘in the way’, and the Blackberry Man - whatever it is — will forever haunt the folklore of Rathmines...

  Lavender and White Clover

  You will have already noticed, as we came over the bridge, one of the most recognisable features of the Rathmines skyline. In fact, you can see it even from as far away as the foothills of the mountains, or indeed from any point within Dublin that elevates you well enough above the city. I am, of course, referring to the Byzantine copper dome of the Church of Mary Immaculate, Refuge of Sinners. From my desk near the window, I can see its egg-shaped curve, circular windows and stoic cupola even as I write this. Most people already know that this dome was the church’s second to stand above the treetops of Rathmines. Here is what happened to the first dome.

  On the morning of 26 January 1920, a great conflagration nearly destroyed the entire church. The flames crawled up the walls, melting the stained-glass windows, and weakening the edifice; the weight of the dome could not be supported. It crashed down through the roof into the nave. The noise it made when it smashed into the ground,‘like a hammer striking some great bell, was even heard by the fishermen in the bay. The new dome was constructed in Glasgow and it would have been shipped to St Petersburg had not the October Revolution broken out in 1917. Fortunately for the Scottish dome-maker, it was possible to give it a home here. But as I said, most people already know this story. Allow me to tell you some things about the church that you may not know.

  The church that you see now is the latest of three to stand in this general area since the late eighteenth century. Following the Catholic Relief Act of 1782, the Parish of St Nicholas Without on Francis Street, of which Rath-mines was a part, purchased a large parcel of land from the Earl of Meath. According to records, the property measured ‘2 acres 2 roods and 38 perches’. This piece of land roughly corresponds with the area defined by the Grand Canal to the north, Mount Pleasant Avenue to the east, Richmond Hill to the south and Rathmines Road to the west. Unlike today, the land had not yet been built upon. Its only residents were the (now subterranean) Swan River, which trickled from west to east down the centre of present-day Richmond Hill, and an ancient Celtic cemetery which had existed since before recorded memory and was occasionally, even then, still in use.

  A temporary church was built beside this cemetery with plans to build a larger, more permanent structure as soon as funds could be raised. However, these plans were dashed until 1823 by continued opposition to Catholic emancipation. Eventually a parish was established, and in 1830 Archbishop Murray consecrated the newly built, Gothic-style church to SS Mary and Peter. The Catholic population of Rathmines continued to grow, and as soon as 1845 the church was already too small for its congregation. Parish priest Fr William Stafford hired noted architect Patrick Byrne to prepare plans for a larger church.

  Fr Stafford envisioned a Greek cruciform church built on Richmond Hill; this latter specification he repeated to his successor, Fr William Meagher, on his deathbed in 1848. The parish planning committee adopted the cruciform design, but rejected Fr Stafford's Richmond Hill wishes. They declared that: ‘they would be ashamed to have the House of God thrown into the background, which a century ago might have answered well for the little crouching Chapels of a trampled race, but was unfit for the pre
sent day and the structure now in contemplation., Instead they decided to build the church facing Rathmines Road, just south of the old cemetery. In order to fund construction costs, most of the land acquired by the church in 1782, including the cemetery, was sold to developers.

  Before building his terrace to the north of the church, Mr Fortescue had the cemetery's bodies exhumed and relocated to Glasnevin along with the grave markers. The disinterment progressed without incident until one of the workers discovered a deposit of loose stones three feet beneath the surface of an unmarked plot. The discovery caused some excitement and before long the workers had excavated the stones and uncovered a plain coffin half a length longer than most standard coffins. As two of the workers hoisted the box, one of them lost his grip. The coffin splintered open to reveal the well-preserved body of a man who measured an astonishing seven and a half feet. Fr Meagher was quickly summoned, and the mummy, for it was said to resemble the similarly described corpses in the vaults of St Michans, was examined.

  The unclothed body had been lying face down in its coffin. Its ankles were bound with a piece of twine that had been dipped in wax. The waxen twine still held strong and showed no sign of decay. There was no indication of when the man had been interred; no record of such a burial could be found in any known archive.

  When the workers turned the body over they found that the features of the mans face, though extraordinarily pallid and sunken, were still distinguishable. According to The Freemans Journal, he was possessed of an aquiline nose with strangely arched nostrils, his chin broad and strong. Thin tresses of white hair, fresh and untangled, grow from his head as if recently sprouted'.