Capital Punishment in Ireland - Early History

Early History

Early Irish law discouraged capital punishment. Murder was usually punished with two types of fine: a fixed éraic and a variable Log nEnech; killing the murderer was done only where he or his relatives could not pay the fine. The execution of the murderer of Saint Patrick's charioteer Odran has been interpreted as a failed attempt to replace pagan restorative justice with Christian retributive justice.

See also: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

After the Norman conquest of Ireland, English law provided the model for Irish law. This originally mandated a death sentence for any felony, a class of crimes established by common law but extended by various Acts of Parliament. Reforms passed from 1827 to 1861 allowed judges to sentence to transportation, and later penal servitude, for many hitherto capital crimes. The Capital Punishment (Ireland) Act 1842 brought the law in Ireland closer to that of England by reducing the penalty for numerous offences, and abolishing the capital crime of serving in the army or navy of France. The last public hanging in Ireland was in 1868; after the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868 executions were confined to behind prison walls. Irish doctor Samuel Haughton developed the humane "Standard Drop" method of hanging that came into use in 1866. The last peacetime execution under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was of William Scanlan in 1911 for murdering his wife.

Execution of Irish republicans created political martyrs, such as the "Manchester Martyrs" of 1867. The Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act, 1882, was enacted during the Land War and introduced on the day of the funeral of Lord Frederick Cavendish, one of the Phoenix Park murder victims. This empowered non-jury trials to impose death sentences, prompting Francis Alexander Fitzgerald to resign in protest as baron of the exchequer. In fact no death sentence was handed down under the act's provision. In 1916, the execution of the Easter Rising leaders turned public sympathy in favour of the rebels. 24 rebels were executed during the 1919–21 War of Independence, starting with Kevin Barry. In Munster, which was under martial law, 13 were shot in Cork and one in Limerick. "The Forgotten Ten" were hanged in Mountjoy Prison, which helped turn opinion in Dublin against the Dublin Castle administration. The last United Kingdom execution was of William Mitchell, an RIC constable who had murdered a justice of the peace.

Although the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, which fought the 1919–21 War against the British authorities, established its own Republican Courts, these were not empowered to impose death sentences. However, the Irish Republican Army was empowered by the Republic's Dáil to court-martial and execute pro-Unionist civilians for such crimes as 'spying' and collaboration. The procedures at such trials depended on the local IRA leadership; many were kangaroo courts imposing summary justice. Besides executions, IRA members also carried out combat operations, assassinations, extra-judicial killings, and personally-motivated murders, with varying levels of sanction from the Republican leadership; the dividing lines between these categories can be blurred and contentious; a case in point being the 1922 Dunmanway killings.

The draft version of the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State included a ban on capital punishment, but the Dáil did not adopt this, so the relevant British laws continued in force. This was done because of the outbreak of the 1922–3 Civil War; further, a resolution of the Third Dáil on 26 September 1922 authorised military tribunals to impose death sentences on the anti-Treaty forces. During the war the Free State government executed 81 captured anti-Treaty fighters by firing squad, as well as ordering extra-judicial killings.

See also: Category:Executed participants in the Easter Rising and Executions during the Irish Civil War