Horrid Murder in Queens County
HORRID MURDER IN QUEENS COUNTY
[From the Atlas, Oct 6.]
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Ballina Chronicle
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Ballina, Mayo, Ireland
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Wednesday, Oct 10, 1849
A correspondent of the Leinster Express gives the following
narrative of a frightful crime committed in that province.
His letter is dated Tolerton, Saturday evening;—
TOLERTON, SUNDAY EVENING-
"I have just attended an inquest in
case of murder, compared to which in atrocity that of the
Mannings sinks into the shade. It is not usual to have to
record such darkly demonaic traits in the Irish character as
that unfolded at this inquest, especially among the female
portion of our peasant class, whose demeanour for modesty
and womanly reserve has elicited warm eulogium from writers
of every class and every country. The murdered in the
present instance was husband, the murderess wife. She has
not only been pronounced guilty by a coroner's jury, but has
fully confessed her participation in the terrible tragedy.”
In order to give the foul transaction
in the smallest space, I condense the evidence.
Catherine Thompson, an interesting
peasant girl was wedded sometime ago to a person in her own
class of life, named Patrick Moore. The marriage was not a
happy one; the wife's prettiness had won her many admirers;
and the result was, that a casual separation took place; the
husband went to live with a relative of his, named Brennan,
while the wife remained with her mother, at Tulla, in the
Ballickmoyler district. Moore left for America, but on
reaching Liverpool, he could not divest himself sufficiently
of his feelings for home to prosecute his voyage; so he
returned. On Sunday, the 2d of September, Catherine Moore
sent out a young woman named Julia King over to Brennan's to
her husband with a message, the substance of which was that
she wished to see him on that evening. He came punctual to
the assignation. Between ten and eleven o'clock on that
night he was seen by two men leaning against a ditch, at the
back of his mother-in-law's house in company with his wife.
After this night he was not seen or heard of in the
neighborhood; he did not return to Brennan's; but a rumour
was set afloat that he had left for America; and the
following Sunday Mrs. Moore left Tulla for the ostensible
purpose of joining him in Liverpool, in order that they
might proceed together to New York. After she left, vague
reports were circulated through the village, the people
surmised strange things, and asked why the wife did not
accompany her husband. These indications of the feelings of
the neighborhood having reached H.B. Warburton, Esq., the
Sub-Inspector, at Ballickmoyler, that gentleman immediately
made particular inquiry into the matter and had the several
coal pits in the district dragged but without any successful
result.- While he was thus engaged a letter reached from a
brother of Mrs. Moore, who resides at Dundalk. It purported
that the writer had seen his sister and her husband off from
Dublin on their way to America; that they were in good
health and seemed perfectly reconciled to each other. This
removed any lingering suspicion which remained on the mind
of the intelligent sub-inspector. Thus matters remained
until word was brought him, on Wednesday evening, that the
body of a man, or something like it, was seen in a hole in
the centre of the lonely bog of Rossmore, and the dogs had
been devouring portions of it. He forthwith proceeded to the
place pointed out, on Wednesday night; and in the middle of
the lonely and wild bog of Rossmore, he perceived, by the
glimpse of the moon, a mangled arm protruding from the
depths of the bog-side. A stick was procured, the body was
stirred, when a most revolting spectacle presented itself. A
human head started out of the water; the nose and one of the
cheeks had been cut off, the eyes were gone, and the face
was otherwise fearfully mutilated. On examination the limbs
were found to be very much mangled, and the body in a state
of putrescence and decomposition.
To remove these hedious remains of mortality was a
matter impracticable at that hour of the night with the
assistance Mr. Warburton had; so he left his companion to
keep watch while he drove off to Tulla, which was seven
miles distant, it having struck him that the mutilated body
in the bog must have been that of the missing Patrick Moore.
When he reached Moore's mother-in-law's house, he made fresh
inquiry as to where Mrs. Moore and her husband were; the
confusion and prevarication that ensued confirmed him in his
idea of there being foul play. He then secured the
attendance of a person who knew Patk. Moore, and could
identify the body, if it was his. On returning to Rossmore
bog with this man and a reinforcement of police, they raised
the body out of the hole; while doing so, it fell into piece
meal, and the loathsome members had to be placed in bags.
The remains were immediately identified. On being removed
towards Tulla, it was met by a procession of colliers, who
placed the fragments of the body in a coffin, and bore it
onward with marks of deep sorrow for their murdered comrade.
I omitted to mention that in the morning, a
sub-inspector had placed the mother-in-law, brother-in-law
and sister-in-law of the deceased man under arrest. A jury
having been collected, the body was viewed by them, and
after a minute examination by Dr Samuel Edge, it was
consigned to mother earth.
The assistance of the coroner, Thomas Budds, Esq.,
could not be procured until to-day (Saturday) his duties in
Mountmellick and elsewhere having precluded his attendance
at Tolerton sooner. The jury having been sworn, held the
inquest at Grave's public-house. Several witnesses were
examined, and from them were elicited the facts just stated.
The most remarkable part of this dark tragedy remains to be
told. Never was the mysterious ways of Providence made more
manifest in bring retribution home to the heartless murderer
in this case. On the morning of the inquest who should
return from Liverpool than Catherine Moore; she had come
home with a pitiful tale of how her unnatural and brutal
husband had deserted her on the quay of Liverpool, leaving
her a lonely and unfortunate woman to beg her way home. Her
astonishment-her horror, on hearing of the discovery of the
mutilated remains of her husband, operated so strongly on
her feelings, that she confessed her guilt, and all the
appalling circumstances connected with it. It seems Moore's
brains were beaten out on the night he was last seen with
his wife; and that on the next day this wretched woman and
her mother dislocated the limbs, so as that they may be
fitted on an ass's car-being concealed by straw, they then
proceeded to Rossmore bog, which was seven miles distant,
and in the loneliest part of that lonely place they flung
their gore-clotted burden into an unclean hole.
The jury, after some brief deliberations, found a
verdict of wilful murder against Catherine Moore and Bridget
Thompson, mother and daughter.
Mr. Budds drew up a committal for them accordingly, and
they are to be transmitted to the county jail at
Maryborough, there to await for trial until next spring
assizes. The principal evidence against these wretched women
will be supplied by two persons connected with them by the
closest ties of sanguinity.
In closing this report, so illustrative of how far
truth may be stranger even than fiction, it is but justice
towards the sub-inspector, Mr. Warburton, to remark that his
exertions in pursuing this horrible tragedy through all its
dark details, deserve the highest commendation. On
expressing our astonishment at the coincidence of the women,
after an absence of nearly four weeks returning to the very
spot where 12 men were holding an inquest on the putrid
remains of the man whom she had murdered, we were informed
that Mr. Warburton, not being able to discharge from his
mind the impression of Moore's murder, wrote to the man with
whom he had stopped during the previous trip to Liverpool,
and who had been a friend of his, to ask if he and his wife
had arrived safe? and inquiring if he was aware of their
getting off to America as the neighbors were anxious to hear
of their welfare. Mrs. Moore happened to be at the time and
inmate of this very lodging-house at Liverpool; the man read
the letter for her. She expressed her uneasiness and said
she should return home, as something must have happened to
poor Pat. She accordingly left Liverpool for Tolerton and
reached at the very crisis when her presence was necessary
for the fulfilment of the ends of justice.--Leinster
Express.
CARLOW.—Strong proof of the
wretched manner in which labourers are housed in this county
was given at the meeting of the Carlow Guardians on November
11. The Medical Officer of Ballickmoyler district
reported that a house occupied by a labourer in the district
fell in, burying the labourer and his aged mother, and then
took fire. A neighbour extricated the inmates, who had an
almost miraculous escape. The doctor adds :—"I have also to
inform you that several houses I reported in an unsanitary
state are in danger of falling this winter, and 1 trust that
in the interests of the poor the Sanitary Authority will
take some steps to have this state of things remedied."
The Guardians took no action.
Sources: Ireland Old News,
Cathy Joynt Labath & Tom
LaPorte
