OCTOBER 28TH, 1884:The murder of five members of the Joyce family in Maamtrasna, Co Mayo, in 1882 horrified the country with its brutality and turned into a cause celebre when it became clear that some of the 10 men convicted were innocent.
Demands for an inquiry were put forcefully by Charles Stewart Parnell and his colleagues in the House of Commons. In this extract from Parnell’s lengthy and well-argued speech to the parliament, he outlined what he believed had really happened.
THE GOVERNMENT case was that the murder was committed by 10 men. Three of those men have been executed. We admit the guilt of two of the three executed men . . . We admit the guilt of one of the five men who is now in penal servitude for life; but we strenuously assert, and say we can prove if inquiry be granted, the absolute innocence of the remaining four. We admit the guilt of one of the two approvers; but we say that the second approver was innocent, and that he was compelled by fear of death to swear to that which was absolutely false.
No motive was assigned at the trial by the Crown against any of these 10 men whom they accused of the murder . . . Our case, on the other hand, shows the strongest possible motive for the commission of the crime on the part of those whom we allege we can prove to be guilty. The motive may not appear strong to the House, but it is a motive which the history of Ireland has shown to be, unhappily, wonderfully strong in Ireland . . .
Our case is that seven men, not 10, committed this crime: that of these seven two have been executed; that one is in penal servitude and, strange to say, protests the innocence of the others; that one of the two approvers is guilty; and that two are at large at this moment in the locality – the ringleader and the paymaster of the gang – (cheers) – and that one is in England. We can prove that the murdered man was the treasurer of a Riband Society . . . that on more than one occasion he attempted to shoot the leader and paymaster of the gang who murdered him: that this gang, being also members of the Riband Society, and fellow conspirators with the murdered man, they had on more than one occasion several quarrels on other matters . . . that this murdered man was a notorious bad character and he was also a notorious sheep-stealer, and his murder was the decree of a local Secret Riband Society in punishment of his double offence.
We can supply also an abundant motive as regards the action of the independent witnesses in coming forward to concoct the story against these 10 men. These independent witnesses have all lived on the worst of terms with the great majority of these 10 persons . . . in fact the independent witnesses form one faction and the accused persons another, and the result was that when the murder was announced in the morning they held a hurried family council, and agreed amongst themselves from their general knowledge of who was likely to be in a Riband Society in the district, to get up evidence against, and thereby implicated three of the assassins, while at the same time obtaining a reward by communicating to the police the names of those whom they had reason to suppose were the murderers . . .
In this out-of-the-way part of Ireland . . . it was not surprising that . . . quarrelling on even insignificant pretexts should still exist, and that these people should have found gratification in what is fully described by the Solicitor General as one of the most atrocious murders ever committed in any country.
http://url.ie/2o6z