The Convictions of John Delahunt (40 page)

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 peculiar 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

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.

Andrew Hughes was born in Co. Wexford in 1979 and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. A professional archivist, he worked for RTE before going freelance. It was while researching the histories of the Georgian houses in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin (a social history published as
Lives Less Ordinary: Dublin
’
s Fitzwilliam Square 1798–1922
by The Liffey Press) that he stumbled upon the story of John Delahunt.
The Convictions of John Delahunt
is his first novel. Andrew Hughes lives in Dublin.

ALSO BY ANDREW HUGHES

Lives Less Ordinary:
Dublin’s Fitzwilliam Square 1798–1922

DOUBLEDAY IRELAND
An imprint of The Random House Group Limited
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First published in 2013 by Doubleday Ireland, a division of Transworld Ireland

Copyright © Andrew Hughes 2013

Andrew Hughes has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Arts Council.

Map of Dublin on
here
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448169771
ISBNs 9781781620144 (cased)
9781781620151 (tpb)

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