Edmund Burke Publisher

"Cloonagashel", 27 Priory Drive, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland. Telephone: +353 (0)1 288 2159

Maamtrasna The Murders and The Mystery

Jarlath Waldron

WALDRON, Jarlath. Maamtrasna. The Murders and The Mystery. With location map and engineers map of the route taken by the murderers in 1882, depicting the roads, rivers, mountains, and houses with names of occupants. With numerous illustrations and genealogical chart of the chief protagonists. Dublin, Edmund Burke, 2004, 5th. Pages, 335. Mint in softcover. €12.99

Maamtrasna - the word echoed around Ireland in 1882 and progressed from this beautiful area to the British House of Commons. It may seem a long step from the majestic mountains of Connemara to the Mother of Parliaments, but following a particularly brutal murder and a seeming miscarriage of justice this is what happened. In a vivid retelling of a true story Jarlath Waldron has followed the fortunes of ten men accused of the murder and raises great doubts as to the guilt of some of them. The deaths of three, the suborning of two and the life imprisonment of five makes compelling reading.

Moving from Galway to Dublin for the trials, back to Galway for the hangings and on to Mayo for a dramatic confession in Tourmakeady church, the story arrives in London and we hear great voices thundering through the clouds of history. Parnell, Redmond, Sexton, Gladstone, Salisbury, Healy, and Harrington along with many other prominent names debate the suppression of evidence the guilt or not, of Myles Joyce, the whisking away of a vital witness and the rights and wrongs of British justice in Ireland.

As well as drawing on his intimate knowledge of the country and the people and steering a clear course through the intricate relationships involved, Jarlath Waldron spent ten years researching the story in newspaper files and in the State Paper Office records and so brings us a fully authenticated retelling of a story which many nowadays probably regard as folklore. He poses various questions which readers must decide to their own satisfaction - did Anthony Joyce leave his bed on that fateful night - why did Anthony Philbin agree that he was one of the murder party - is it justice to bring men almost two hundred miles to be tried in a language of which they had no knowledge, with the sporadic intervention of an interpreter who just happened to be a Policeman and who spoke an unfamiliar dialect.