Some cases of homicide are particularly complicated with the problem of finding out exactly what the circumstances are that led to a violent death. If we have a death in which two people struggled and grappled in extreme passion, with no-one else present, then everything in court is going to rest on exactly what went on and who did what. Today, with the modern sophisticated techniques of forensics applied to materials at the scene of crime, a detailed narrative of events leading to a death may be constructed with scientific support. But sixty years ago, when two women fought in a Dublin church, there was uncertainty as to exactly how the struggle resulted in a death.
The fight happened in the Glasnevin Church of Our Lady of the Seven Dolours. The church has now been replaced by a more modern building so again, we have to imagine the scene and its physical environment, but what happened was that Mary Gibbons, who was eighty-three years old and lived in Botanic Avenue, walked to church in August 1948, as she did every day. She walked through a warm summer day to the dark interior of the church and there she found a pew and began to pray. She was near the confessional, but was completely alone in the church – at least until the door opened again and someone else came in. The door closed after a beam of light had shot in momentarily.
Then we have another woman’s story before we find out what happened in the church. Mary Daly was very hard up. Her landlady said that she was living at this time in lodgings with her husband and child, in Botanic Road. They had a struggle to find the weekly rent. Mary had been to beg money from a priest, things were so bad, and he had given her the cash for the week’s rent. But it was always going to be a constant battle to survive. In desperation, Mary went to the church in Glasnevin that day, but she had a hammer in her shopping bag. Her motives will always be a mystery, but the fact is that she went to the church with that potential murder weapon.