FRIGHTFUL MURDER IN IRELAND.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 72, 6 January 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

FRIGHTFUL MURDER IN IRELAND.

In our last publication (says the Clommel Chronicle) we detailed an occurrence at Ballymacarbery, nine miles from Clomnel, which presents a very susi)icious appearance. Fears were entertained tliat an old man, named Thomas Connelly had been foully dealt with. From intelligence which has reached us, it j becomes frightfully apparent that a crime, horrible in its nature and sickening in its details, has just been committed. We briefly recount a history of this painful case. It will be remembered by our readers that "in a cabin, upon a small retired form, near Ballymacarbery, lived an aged farmer, named Thomas Connolly, and his grandson, a youth j named Carroll. Some short time since, Car- j roll married the daughter of a man named Thomas Walsh, who under an agreement came to live at Connolly's house, with Carroll and his wife. The grandson left home to perform some harvest work, and after a week's absence returned to his house. On arriving at home he found his poor old grandfather missing, and, despite his most searching inquiries, could find no tidings of him. To his queries to his father and mother-in-law, (Walsh and his wife) the answer was that the old man, on the morning of the young man leaving home, got up and went to work in a potato field, since which time he had not returned. On further searching, Carroll found his grandfather's Sunday clothes in his box, and in a potato furrow he discovered' the old man's spade. Conuolly not appearing, Carroll, wearied and suspicious, at length had recourse to the police, and on Sunday he communicated with the Ballyraacarbery police, who laid the case before E. Mulcahy, Esq., J.P., of Ballymakec house. The result of an inquiry then set on foot was the arrest of Walsh and his wife, and their committal to Clommel gaol. A search made by the police for the body of the missing man (the conviction being that he had been murdered), aided by the country people, proved fruitless, and justice came to a stand. This pause was, however, only for a short time, for Walsh's daughter, almost immediately afterwards, confessed that the day her husband went from home she heard some peculiar kind of chopping in an out-house of the farm On going to see what it was, she—horrible to relate—saw her father with a hatchet chopping up the body of poor old Connolly, and she afterwards saw him bury the dismembered parts in a boggy portion of the land, crushing them into the earth with his feet. How far Mrs. Walsh is implicated in the foul deed ha 9 not appeared; but at present both parties are in prison, awaiting further proceedings. It would seem the tragic occurrence owes its origin to a dispute about the produce of an acre of land. Walsh's daughter, the informant is in the hands of the authorities." The Waterford News corroborates the details of this barbarous murder, and says that Walsh's daughter gives a most circumstantial account of this most un-Irish crime. Unhappily there can be no doubt about this murder. The suspicions of the magistracy, and of people around, have been fearfully realised; and we understand that both Mr. Mulcahy and Mr. Warburton, R.M., are now engaged in completing the chain of evidence necessary to place the perpetrator of this crime at the bar of justice.

A later issue of the same journal says:— We reported last week a most fearful murder in Clonmcl. The terrible details of this barbarous crime, so circumstantially described by the girl Hennessy, the wife of the grandson of Thomas Connolly, the deceased, have just received full confirmation by the discovery of the mutilated remains. The story told by the young wife—that her own father, Thomas Walsh, was found on her return home upon that fatal morning kneeling beside the corpse of the old man, and with hatchet in hand, bearing the appearance of having been the murderer—was somewhat incredible; the painful account of Walsh's obliging her to assist him in carrying out the body and removing the stains of blood from the cabin floor, with the description of those sounds that proceeded from the adjoining house, where it appears he had locked himself up with the mangled corpse—sounds as if the body were bring chopped up—this story, notwithstanding the discovery of the bloodstained clothes and hatchet by the j energetic constabulary, assisted by the people of the locality, was deemed by many to be beyond credence; but that a murder has been committed there cannot any longer be enter- j tained the shadow of a doubt. Upon Sunday last the search for the body was resumed, and was prosecuted in a direction pointed out by the constabulary authorities, who had private ) information as to the prisoner Walsh having been seen in a particular neighborhood on the morning of the murder, as if looking out for some place of concealment. The con-1 stable at Ballymacarbery (Gibliu), *vas assisted by nine sub-constabbs" and twenty country people, who. we should observe, have all through displayed a great desire to hunt up j this barbarous case, and to give the authori- j ties every assistance in procuring: the infor- ! mation necessary for the establishment of guilt. At about half a mile from the cabin of the murdered man, concealed in a bog, was j found the head of old Connolly, separated from j the trunk. It has been identified by the j grandson (Hennessy); a part of the body' about nine or ten yards off was also discovered, ! and one of the feet within a few yards of the spot where the head was found. An inquest was held at Ballymacarbery, on Tuesday, on such of the remains of the old man, Connolly, as had been discovered in the bog. Patrick Hennessy, grandson of the deceased, deposed to having left the old man at home on going to reap at Castlerea; and ascertaining that he was missing on his return,he joined the neighbors in searching for him. lie was present immediately after the finding of the head in the bog of Monacuighe, which he identified as his grandfather's. Mr. Flynn, who had made j an examination of the remains, said—" I fouud the scalp removed from the skull, and ! the nose hanging off attached by the skin; the | back part of the skull was broken in several pieces. On removing the bone I found some j congested blood on the membrane of the brain. I found the left foot with three chops in it— | it had been cut off a little below the ankle; I j also saw the portion of the trunk, the left side j with the exception of one rib; the right side i had been chopped off; the spine was complete, except that the right ribs were cut away; j the left side contained the heart and a portion of the left lung. I found the scalp with one ! ear, and a portion of another attached." Nei- j ther the accused, Thomas Walsh, nor his daughter, the wife of Heunessy, was present at the inquest, and the jury returned a verdict of " Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown."