Mullingar murder of 1815 recalled in book
Allen Foster spent a great deal of time in the company of murderers – in dusty libraries reading accounts of their crimes in old newspapers and books – while researching his new book, ‘Foster’s Book of Irish Murder’.
One of the most unusual tragedies in County Westmeath features in the book.
Trial by battle was once a method in British law for deciding cases. It was abolished in 1819 as a result of a high-profile English murder case. The accused man had offered to settle via trial by battle, but the brother of the murdered man refused to fight, so the accused walked free. The legal option was eliminated in Britain – and, as a result of the union between them at the time, in Ireland too.
Ireland had its own notorious trial by battle case a few years before. In 1815 a farm labourer named Thomas Clancy shot and killed retired naval Captain Bryan O’Reilly in front of several witnesses on the high road near Mullingar.
Clancy shot his victim at close range with a pistol, but although the wound was mortal, O’Reilly lingered in agony for half an hour before he died. He lived in Tullaghan, Mullingar, and was land agent for his relative Margaret Talbot of Malahide castle.
Clancy was caught and, before Westmeath Magistrate John Charles Lyons, he made a full confession, declaring he had been hired to commit the murder by a tenant of Mrs Talbot who was in arrears in rent. Clancy had been promised 30 guineas, and had received 10 guineas in advance payment.
Lyons had this confession drawn up as a deposition and signed and sworn to by the murderer.
Clancy was brought to trial at the Mullingar Summer Assizes a short while later. As the prosecution believed Clancy’s confession was all the evidence they needed for a conviction, they did not call on any witnesses to testify.
When the trial began, the defence objected to the confession being received in evidence, on the grounds it had been sworn to, and according to law, was inadmissible.
The prosecution fought to have the confession heard, or at least be allowed a delay to produce the witnesses to the murder in court, but the court ruled in favour of the defence and as the accused had been put forward for trial before a jury, the trial could not be delayed or postponed, so Clancy had to be acquitted.
O’Reilly’s brother appealed the verdict to the Court of King’s Bench and the matter lay before the courts for some time. After much legal discussion and several adjournments, Clancy was urged by his defence counsel to offer trial by battle to the dead man’s brother.
The matter was due to be heard in court in Dublin in November 1817, but a compromise agreed between the two sides put an end to the long-running farrago. Under the deal, Clancy withdrew his claim for trial by battle, pleaded guilty to the murder and was transported to Australia, in order to save his life.
At least that was the state of affairs as reported by a newspaper of late November 1817. Another reputable source recorded that the court continued to postpone judgement of the issue for so long that the act repealing ‘Trial by Battle’ was passed and came into law through Britain and Ireland.
On August 24, 1819, the court, having read the act, ordered Clancy to be discharged.
At the end of his deadly research, Allen Foster selected – if one can use that word in such cases – the strangest, most sinister and notorious crimes.
The Westmeath murder of Bryan O’Reilly is only one out of 39 murders from across the country featured in Foster’s Book of Irish Murder chronicling the dark and macabre tales from Ireland’s history.