Myles Joyce (drawing from book, "Maamtrasna, the murders and the mystery.")
James Joyce (1907) Poem (Gaeilge) & Song (English)
Comóradh 2012
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'No ingenuity can exaggerate the brutal ferocity of a crime which spared neither the grey hairs of an aged woman nor the innocent child of 12 years who slept beside her. It is an outburst of unredeemed and inexplicable savagery before which one stands appalled, and oppressed with a painful sense of the failure of our vaunted civilisation.' (Times Londain, 20 Lughnasa 1882).
IRISH ASSASSINS HANGED
Three of the Joyce murderers expiate their crimes. Galway, Dec 15 - Patrick Joyce, Myles Joyce and Patrick Casey, the three men convicted of participation in the murder of the Joyce family, at Maamtrasna, on the night of the 17th of August last, were hanged in the jail here at 8 o'clock this morning. The weather was raw and cold. The prison inside and outside was heavily guarded. Myles Joyce protested his innocence to the last. The three prisoners heard mass a few minutes before the time set for the execution. They refused to partake of breakfast. They ascended the scaffold with a firm step. Casey, who had uttered a moan at the first sight of the gallows, mounting the steps two at a time. Before the drop fell Myles Joyce spoke in Irish, as follows: "I am going before God. I was not there at all and had not hand or part in it. Lord, forgive them that swore against me." He continued to reiterate his innocence to the end. The drop fell at 8:25 o'clock simultaneously for all three men. Myles Joyce alone struggled slightly, there being some hitch with the rope. His dying speech was delivered with much vehemence. He was still speaking when the drop fell. At the inquest following the execution it was proved the the necks of casey and Patrick Joyce were fractured, and that Myles Joyce died of strangulation. The doctor who examined the bodies of the three men deposed that Myleas Joyce must have struggled for two or three minutes. It was shown that after the rope had been adjusted around his neck he turned and addressed the reporters, thus disarranging the ropw, The jury severely censured Marwood, the hangman, for his carelessness. (New York Times 16 Nollaig 1882) |