EXPLORER AND author Tim Severin was among a host of literary personalities in Cork yesterday for the launch of a new work of factual history as gruesome as any horror story.
Author Alannah Hopkin and researcher Kathy Bunney have published the story of a ship that sailed into Cork Harbour with seven dead bodies on board, the murder victims of a captain who went mad at sea.
It is hoped The Ship of the Seven Murdersmight prompt a response from descendants of those who died at the hands of Capt William Stewart, who beat the seven crew members with a crow bar and an axe.
Among the dead was 28-year-old Timothy Connell, a father of two from Passage West in Cork. Connell set sail as a minder for a cargo of mules and was returning home to Cork when he was murdered in cold blood on June 22nd, 1828.
Eyewitness accounts by three young deck hands, aged between 11 and 14, tell of rivers of blood flowing over the deck as Capt Stewart brutally beat his victims with a crowbar and an axe.
Capt Stewart’s trial in August 1828 became a courtroom sensation as survivors revealed a tale of danger and delusion but, over time, the story has ceased to be told.
It was reawakened by Kathy Bunney, who discovered a headstone erected in memory of murdered crewman Connell by his brother Patrick Connell, inscripted with a rhyming verse that told of his crude murder at sea.
Bunney and Kinsale-based author Hopkin engaged the services of psychiatrist Brendan D Kelly, a consultant at the Mater hospital and lecturer at UCD, to examine Capt Stewart’s insanity plea.
The captain, who was transferred in 1851 to what was then the Dundrum Asylum for the Criminally Insane, was initially imprisoned in Cork Gaol before being moved to the Cork Lunatic Asylum.
No marked graves for any of the remaining six crew members have been located, leading the authors to hope that the book might prompt new information into their lives and resting places.
“It’s a fascinating story, but little is known of the rest of the crew, so it would be remarkable if some information that filtered down through families might come to light now,” Alannah Hopkins said.