History Archives | Page 9 of 55

Annacloughmullion Cairn

April 30, 2021 by John McCullagh

Should you be fortunate enough to come across the only remaining relic, a single Menir (Pillar Stone) in a field in Lislea, you will have little or no understanding of what has been lost!

This Pillar Stone just to the north-west on the Slieve Gullion Ring Dyke is a menhir, – a tall, upright stone that once formed a tiny part of the Annaghcloughmullion cairn, an edifice in its time worthy of those at New Grange, Howth and Dowth in the Boyne Valley.

Archeology of the Carlingford Lough Region

April 29, 2021 by John McCullagh

The most recent Ice Age, which lasted in this region from c.30,000-12,000 years B.P. not only determined the topographical character up to the present, but eradicated almost all archaeological evidence of earlier habitation.

Linen Industry in Newry

April 26, 2021 by John McCullagh

Newry was late on the scene in establishing powered flax mills, exploiting the boom that inevitably followed the closure of American ports during their Civil War.

Nicholas Bagenal 1509-1590

April 10, 2021 by John McCullagh

The much quoted Nicholas Bagenal 1509-1590 (the first of that line to come to Ireland) was born the son of John Bagnall, Mayor of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England and Elinor, daughter of Thomas Whittingham of Middlewich, Cheshire, England.

Bishop Carroll and Irish Labour

April 9, 2021 by John McCullagh

On this date in 1961 the Newry Reporter carried a story of a presentation to newly-created Bishop Carroll who was, the next month, to be consecrated Bishop of Monrovia (Africa) in Newry Cathedral by Bishop Eugene O’Doherty of Dromore.

In the hands of the enemy

April 2, 2021 by John McCullagh

After the order for surrender came, we were marched to O’Connell Street and halted between Parnell’s statue and Nelson’s Pillar. Each volunteer laid his arms and ammunition in front of him. We were then eased off from our original positions to make room for further Volunteers.

Tom Kelly, Labour Champion

March 26, 2021 by John McCullagh

When the Irish Citizens Association won the day at the Council elections of 1949 – and continued to dominate local politics here over the next decade – the sole surviving Labour voice was that of Tom Kelly (pictured here). Single-handedly he championed at Council level the cause of the poor, deprived and oppressed of the town over that decade, because the populist green Tories led by Max Keogh and Joe Connellan were more interested in flag-flying and coat-trailing and self-advertisement in Keogh’s Frontier Sentinel.

The change began when Irish Labour won a clear-cut victory at the 1958 elections. Tom Kelly became chairman and enthusiastically led the social and housing reforms that were to quickly transform our town. The major house-building programme that had begun with The Meadow and Dromalane Estates was accelerated. Kelly, though a shy and quiet man, was an inspirational character and encouraged other Labour men of conviction and quality to follow his way. Thus after Tom’s retirement and early death we had leaders such as Tommy McGrath and Hugh Golding.

Tom Kelly was born in Newry in 1903 the only son of Michael and Margaret (Larkin). As a young man he was inspired by the writings and the life of James Connolly and he was a volunteer in the War of Independence. He was arrested by the Black and Tans along the railway line in Newry on 23 May 1921 and suffered a severe beating which left him with a lifelong hearing defect. He was sentenced to 15 years for possession of firearms but later benefited from a general amnesty.

In jail the contemplative life inspired his faith and on his release he in 1924 joined the Jesuits. His six years in the order strengthened his faith again and his conviction that peace and justice must be pursued through non-violent means.

Working as a carpenter in Dublin he often returned to Newry and on one such visit he met Sarah O’Gorman of Damolly whom he would later marry. The new Mrs Kelly wanted to live in Newry and on his return Tom gained occasional employment at the Docks in Newry, Warrenpoint and Belfast. In Newry they lived first in High Street and then, for the next thirty years at Rooney’s Terrace.

Through all these years Tom worked on behalf of the working class, helping to fill out claimant forms, for example, for the unemployed who needed such help, fighting tribunals for the redundant and championing the cause of the poor. He became a regional representative of the Woodworkers Union and took an active part in the wider Trades Union movement. It was not till he heard an address at Newry Town Hall in 1943 by the famous Jack Beattie of Belfast that he joined the Labour movement.

When the Labour Party split at the end of that decade over the declaration of the Irish Republic, Tom held fast to his convictions and remained with the Irish Labour Party. Thus it was that he was elected as the only Labour man to the Ballybot ward in that year’s elections. Among those who canvassed for Tom was Turlough O’Donnell, son of the well-known Labour activist and who himself would rise to become High Court Judge of Northern Ireland. (When last I heard, Turlough, an interesting and obviously very articulate man, was living in retirement in Blackrock).

For the next ten years, though the ICA blocked his membership of key committees at every turn, Kelly’s reputation as working-class hero only grew and he topped the poll at a number of subsequent elections. He championed the use of a merit points system for the allocation of houses before any party adopted this as policy. He opposed the building of further sub-standard ‘orlit’ homes and called for the total removal of slum housing. The Labour Party, and Kelly in particular suffered from the breaking of a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in 1955 that saw the rise and election of Joe Connellan to the South Down parliamentary seat and deprived our people of the voice for social justice we deserved on that wider stage.

The election of 1958 saw Tom Kelly become Chairman of the Urban Council and Newry’s first citizen. A bitter split in the ranks in 1962 affected Tom’s already poor health. Despite the onset of Parkinson’s Disease he contested a final election in 1964. He remained Chairman of the local Irish Labour Branch and saw it successfully reassert itself against Tommy Markey’s dissident Newry Labour.

Despite a stroke he attended the famous first Civil Rights Marches in Newry. On 12 April 1969 at age 65 Tom Kelly died. A member of the National Graves Association contributed a tricolour to his widow to adorn the coffin, in tribute to his lifelong patriotism. Stephen Ruddy, an Irish Labour colleague brought a Starry Plough. This became the flag of preferment for a man who had dedicated such a large part of his life to the Labour movement.

May this working-class hero long be remembered.

Patrick Rankin, Newry Republican

March 24, 2021 by John McCullagh

Patrick Rankin was the only Newry person to take part in the 1916 Rising. He cycled to Dublin to join the rebels in the GPO in Sackville Street. 32 years later he wrote his memoirs.

Robert McGladdery

March 23, 2021 by John McCullagh

The Last Hanging In Ireland

The trial captured the attention of the general public and Lord Justice Curran presided throughout. Pearl Gamble was found strangled and stabbed in a field near her home in Upper Damolly, Newry on Jan 28th after attending a dance at her local Orange Hall.

Her dead body had been dragged or carried across three fields before it was left partially concealed in a clump of whin bushes at a place known as Weir’s Rocks at Damolly. Mc Gladdery who had danced twice with Pearl that night denied having any part in the killing.

This was part of the ‘speech from the dock’ – certainly not one of the classics of the genre – by Robert Andrew Mc Gladdery who was found guilty of the wilful murder of 19 year old shop assistant Pearl Gamble.

The speech came after a jury had returned a guilty verdict on the seventh day of his trial on October 16 1961.

He claimed that after leaving the dance hall he walked home alone by the Belfast Road. He had been in the witness box for almost six and a half hours in an attempt to save himself from the hangman’s noose.

His defence was conducted by Mr. James Brown Q.C. and Mr. Turlough O’Donnell (instructed by Luke Curran of Newry). Turlough O’Donnell , originally of Bridge Street Newry, later became Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

The defence took 100 minutes in their closing address. At the end of this Mr. Brown asked the jury to retire to their room and ‘weigh well all these grave matters,’ and bring in a verdict which the defence submitted would be the proper one – Not Guilty. The Attorney General, Mr. W. B. Maginness, with Mr. C. A. Nicholson Q.C. and Mr. R. J. Babington appeared for the Crown.

Their address took 80 minutes to deliver and they submitted that ‘if the jury was satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that on that awful morning of Jan 28 the man in the dock killed the young girl in a ghoulish fashion, then as men and citizens, helping in the administration of justice, they must do their duty and bring in a verdict of guilty.’ Although no-one actually saw the killing there was a lot of circumstantial evidence and a number of witnesses were called to testify to prior events on that fateful night.

The point of what clothes Mc Gladdery had been wearing on the night of the murder was investigated in great detail during the trial; in particular, the articles of clothing which corresponded in description to those which witnesses claimed Mc Gladdery had been wearing at the dance and were subsequently found hidden in a septic tank (close to the scene of the murder).

There were thirteen witnesses and although some disagreed about the exact colour all agreed that it was a “light suit”. Mc Gladdery denied he had ever owned a light suit and claimed he wore a blue suit at the dance. He later tried to implicate his pal, Will Copeland, by claiming that he had loaned him some clothes similar to those which were discovered in the septic tank.

Copeland, it emerged from evidence and on the trial’s completion, was entirely innocent of any involvement in this heinous crime.

In his week of ‘freedom’ when he was being trailed by RUC detectives wherever he went, McGladdery contacted the press about ‘police harassment’. It was probably an ego trip on his part. He managed to have an interview with him printed in the “Daily Mail”, where he ranted on about being followed by the police.

I remember especially he was photographed stripped to the waist holding home-made weights (metal bars with big moulded chunks of concrete on the end). “This man is a fitness fanatic.” In the early stages of the trial, his lawyers tried to impute that a fair trial was impossible, because of the previous press publicity.

Pearl Gamble

I also remember hearing in evidence that the weapon was a triangular-cross-section file which, it was proved, was bought by him in Woolworth’s in Hill Street. A Mickey Spillane book of McGladdery’s – The Long Wait – was produced as evidence, because it had about thirty puncture holes in it, claimed forensically to have the same dimensions as Pearl Gamble’s wounds. He was said to have practised his stabbing technique on it.

Lord Justice Curran took two hours summing up. The courtroom was crowded and many more stood outside unable to gain admittance. After 40 minutes of deliberation the all-male jury brought in a guilty verdict.

Lord Justice Curran fixed the date of the execution for November 7th.The defence counsel immediately entered an appeal on Mc Gladdery’s behalf. Back in prison Mc Gladdery wrote a sixteen page autobiography which was submitted to the Cabinet as part of his appeal.

All his attempts at avoiding the hangman failed and his execution was re-scheduled to take place at 8.00 a.m. on December 20. Before eight o’clock Mc Gladdery sat in the condemned cell and for the first time since his arrest, and perhaps realising that he might soon be facing his Maker, and after listening to the advice of his religious ministers, he confessed to the murder of Pearl Gamble. After the trial was over, it was revealed that he had a prior record of sexual and physical abuse of young women.

Prior to McGladdery, the last to hang in Ireland was a Limerick man in 1954. In 1964, three years after McGladdery, two murderers were hanged (at roughly the same time) in Liverpool and Manchester. This ended capital punishment in the U.K.

Total number of executions in Northern Ireland during the 20th century : 16.

Date	Name	Prison	Victim(s)
11/01/1901	William Woods	Belfast	Bridget McGivern
05/01/1904	Joseph Moran	Derry	Rose Ann McCann
22/12/1904	Joseph Fee	Armagh	John Flanagan
20/08/1908	John Berryman	Derry	William Berryman, Jen Berryman
19/08/1909	Richard Justin	Belfast	Annie Thompson
17/08/1922	Simon McGeown	Belfast	Margaret (Maggie) Fullerton
08/02/1923	William Rooney	Derry	Lily Johnston
08/05/1924	Michael Pratley	Belfast	Nelson Leech
08/08/1928	William Smiley	Belfast	Margaret Macauley, Sarah Macauley
08/04/1930	Samuel Cushnan	Belfast	James McCann
31/07/1931	Thomas Dornan	Belfast	Isabella Aitken, Margaret Aitken
13/01/1932	Eddie Cullens	Belfast	Achmet Musa
07/04/1933	Harold Courtney	Belfast	Minnie Reid
02/09/1942	Thomas Joseph Williams	Belfast	Patrick Murphy
25/07/1961	Samuel McLaughlin	Belfast	Nellie (Maggie) McLaughlin
20/12/1961	Robert McGladdery	Belfast	Pearl Gamble

All were for murder. There were twelve executions at Crumlin Road prison, Belfast, three at Derry and one at Armagh. (A total of seventeen men were hanged at Crumlin Road prison between 1854 & 1961).

Albert Browne, a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was found guilty of killing a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in October 1972 for which he was sentenced to death but this was later commuted to life imprisonment.

William Holden, who had killed a soldier, was the last person to receive the death sentence in Northern Ireland and his was also commuted. The death penalty was later abolished as part of the Emergency Provisions Act.