THE HANGING OF MILES JOYCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 77, 22 November 1884, Page 6

THE HANGING OF MILES JOYCE.

Lord Spencer Making an Inquiry Into the Confessions of Casey and Philbin. London, October IS.— lt is now believed that Lord Spencer is inclined to favour a full inquiry as to the confession of Thomas Casey and Anthony Philbin, -who have sworn that Miles Joyce and others were hanged on perjured testimony for the Maamtmsna murders. The Lord Lieutenant has been greatly agitated by the revelations obtained by Timothy Harrington, M.P. for Westmeath, in his search for information among the Connemara peasants who lived near Maamtrasna when John Joyce, his wife, and their three children were murdered. Mr Harrington's discoveries seem to show that political exigencies required an exhibition of the English Government's power in Connemara ; that the Joyce murders, which were brutal and revolting, but in no way connected wi£h politics or agrarianism, were seized upon as a pretext for a wholesale admonitory hanging, which was made needlessly horrible by the drunken bungling of Marwood, and that all these facts were known to George Bolton, the Crown Solicitor. It is certain that this episode will form a prominent featuro in the next Parliamentary debates on Irish affairs, and the adhesion of the Parnellites to the Liberals or the Tories will hinge largely upon the Government'saetion in this matter. Lord Spencer is now said to teel some twinges of conscience regarding these hang ings, which have time and again been stigmatised as judicial murders. He has sent a force of Government detectives to examine the locality and pick up all the information possible as to the murders, the trial, and the executions. The reports of the detectives are to be submitted to Dublin Castle in time for Lord Spencer's report to be in the hands of the Government before the reassembling of Parliament, and great curiosity is manifested regarding the Lord Lieutenant's report. Ifc is rumoured that Earl Spencer desires to resign, and that ho will be succeeded by the Duke of Connaught.