The “Magisterial Hearing” here today in the prison was ludicrous. The large room in the depths of the Galway jail was also used for hangings, a fact that could not escape the accused in their loose frieze prison garb. The immediate families were admitted and all the reporters who were interested. The hearings were in English, with Irish translations—occasionally.In the United States the case against the alleged criminals would have been dismissed out of hand. Here George Bolton permitted a shameful display and then adjourned the hearing to a later date.
Henry Concannon, a Protestant who appeared for the accused (later I would learn, at the insistence of the Bishop of Galway), tore the so-called independent and irreproachable witnesses apart.
“Mr. Anthony Joyce, how is it that you followed the accused for more than four hours on the night of August seventeenth without them once seeing you, even though the moon was full?”
Anthony Joyce, a thin, spiteful little man in a suit and
linens that the Crown had provided to make him look respectable, squirmed uncomfortably.
“They had the drink taken and didn’t notice anything.”
“Not so much that they couldn’t commit a murder?”
“No, not that much.”
“Now, how far away from the house were you? Let’s see, in the blackthorn bush was it?”
“It was.”
“And that was ten yards away?”
The faces of the prisoners were expressionless during this exchange as they had been through the whole hearing, perhaps because, like Sioux being tried by an American military court, they did not know enough English to understand what was happening.
“More than that.”
“Twenty?”
“More than that.”
“More like a hundred?”
“No, not that far.”
“Maybe seventy-five?”
“Probably fifty.”
“Ah, and by that time, if my memory serves me properly, the moon had already set.”
“I guess so.”
“Yet you were able to see the faces of Myles Joyce, Pat Joyce, and Pat Casey when they went into the house?”
“It wasn’t that dark.”
“Wasn’t it now? Isn’t it odd that the surviving member of the family, Patsy Joyce, could not recognize the killers because their faces were covered with dirt?”
“I wouldn’t know what Patsy said.”
Periodically I would glance at the families of the prisoners. Like the accused, their faces were blank, resigned. Many of them could not understand English, I knew. Nora Joyce, however, who could understand English, was
equally without expression. Perhaps they all took tragedy for granted.
“I see … . Now you reported that you heard cries of terror and anguish in the house.”
“Yes, sir. Terrible cries.”
“Yes, indeed, I suppose they would sound terrible even at a hundred yards. But let’s see here now … Yes, in your deposition to the police, you do not report hearing a gun shot. Yet in fact John Joyce died of a gunshot wound to the head. How is it that you did not hear a gun?”
“We didn’t hear it,” he said, the sweat pouring down his face. “Maybe the cries of the victims drowned out the sound of the gun. Perhaps that’s what happened.”
“I see … Now let me ask you another important question. Why did not you and your associates go immediately to the police hut and report the crime? Perhaps some of the victims might have been saved, like young Patsy Joyce was later saved.”
“We were frightened for our lives. There were ten of them, and they were mad with drink. Only when morning came did we realize that we should report it.”
“When it was too late for the police to see if the accused might still be in their own homes?”
“We did not think of that. We were frightened.”
“Frightened? Yet not so frightened that you couldn’t follow these men for several hours on an improbably circuitous route while they talked of murder?”
“We didn’t think they meant it.”
“Ah, I see … . Now isn’t it true that your family has been at odds with the family of your distant cousin, Myles Joyce, since your grandparents’ time?”
“We are not close friends … . We don’t associate with habitual sheep thieves.”
“A very proper attitude … Is it not true that you attacked Myles Joyce with a club in your boreen only three months ago?”
“He was trying to steal one of my sheep. He couldn’t see a sheep without wanting to steal it.”
“I understand … . You don’t think very much of him then?”
“I think he is the worst man in the whole County Galway.”
“Do you now? Enough to want to see him hang?”
“I don’t have to answer that question.”
“No, Mr. Anthony Joyce, you don’t.”
“Old Joe certainly destroyed him,” an Irish reporter sitting next to me whispered. “Bolton is in trouble.”
“Is he?”
“Indeed he is, but he’ll wiggle out. The bastard always finds someone to hang.”
Mr. Bolton announced a continuance of the hearing till September 4. The families sighed. They would have to walk back to the valley and return another day. I sought out Josie.
“Could I have a word with you, Josephine?”
“Call me Josie, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” she said with her mischievous smile.
“I’m giving you this envelope with twenty pounds in it … .”
She pushed the envelope away with a comment in Irish that meant, I thought, that she wanted Jesus and Mary and Patrick to defend her. I pushed it into her hand.
“You know what I want you to do with it?”
“Bring food to me cousin and take care of her.”
“You’ll do that for me, Josie?”
“I will,” she said bravely. “I promise you I won’t take a pence for myself.”
“I never thought you would.”
She shoved the envelope into a pocket of her skirt. “God bless you and keep you, Mr. Fitzpatrick. You’re a wonderful gentleman.”
Then I sought out her aunt, who was staring at the river, lost in thought. Or perhaps despair.
“Mrs. Joyce,” I said cautiously.
“What!” she exclaimed “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Fitzpatrick … . There is no hope for us in that prison, is there, sir?
“We must never give up hope, Mrs. Joyce,” I said, realizing how hollow my words were.
“That’s true … . They say the English don’t care about the truth.”
“Some of them do, I’m sure.”
“Perhaps,” she sighed.
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering the carriage again for the return trip.”
“Will you come back to Maamtrasna?”
“Not immediately … . The carriage is for my previous guests.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
“This time I insist that you ride in it, taking my place, as it were.”
How stilted I sounded.
“I cannot, sir.” The tears spilled out of her eyes.
“You can and you will, madam, and that’s settled.”
Her eyes pondered me, trying perhaps to understand why I was being so kind. I did not know myself.
“In Ireland,” she smiled ever so slightly, “it’s the women who give the orders.”
“As it is in Irish America. Nonetheless, you will obey me in this matter.”
She lowered her head and looked at the ground.
“That’s what my husband would say … . You must take care of the little one.”
“He would be right.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” she said meekly. “I will obey you this time.”
“We’ll see what the next time brings, madam.”
Head still averted, she slipped away.
I was still a shallow child. However, I had proven to myself that I could be authoritative with a woman when the situation demanded. My mother would have been very pleased with me.
“You have to learn to stand up to women, Eddie, including myself. Sometimes you’re just too nice.”
Sergeant Finnucane joined me at the riverside. The fog was rolling in from Galway Bay.
“Insisting that she ride back in the carriage with you?”
“You’re an excellent detective, Tommy. However you’re wrong on one point. I’m staying here.”
“And yourself giving money to that little imp that’s with her all the time.”
“Josie … Am I that obvious, Tommy?”
“Wouldn’t I be inclined to say that your goodness is obvious? … We don’t see that in many reporters.”
I felt myself blushing.
“Well,” he went on, “there’s a couple of new developments.”
“Ah?”
I dared not think what I was indeed thinking. If Nora would be a widow in a few months, she would need someone to take care of her.
“They’re saying that Johnny Joyce was the treasurer of the local secret society and that he held back ten pounds, a lot of money out there.”
“Who’s saying this, Tommy?”
“Some of the locals. It’s all very indirect, mind you. That’s the only way they can talk. They’re also saying that they thought Peg was an informer because she used to chat with our lads, as if talking to a policeman means you have something important to say to him.”
“Do they believe these are the motives for the murders?”
“They could just as well mean that I shouldn’t pay any
attention to these stories or that I should pay attention to them. My hunch is that they’re telling me these are excuses, which is just about as far as they’ll go with the Royal Irish Constabulary.”
I raised the question with Bishop Kane later that night as we were eating supper in his house by the bay.
“Do you think, my lord, that the people in the valley know who the killers are?”
“Absolutely, Edward, and why they were murdered. They probably can’t account for the violence of the murders, so they’ll ignore that. By now, however, they have an explanation with which they’ll live and which they will pass on to their children.”
“And they will not tell the police?”
“They don’t trust the police, though they like some of them. They think that if they try to tell anyone the truth, they won’t be believed and worse things might happen. And they’re probably right.”
“Someone like Nora Joyce will let her husband die for a crime he didn’t commit, as you yourself say, and not try to tell the truth?”
“She’s more intelligent than most of them, Edward,” he said, filling up my wineglass. “Still, she’s a fatalist. The rules against talking to the police are as natural for her as breathing air. Myles probably told her not to tell the Royal Irish Constabulary who killed his cousin. It would do no good, and she has no one to defend her against revenge.”
“Didn’t Tony Joyce break the rules?”
“On a spur of the moment opportunity for money and revenge without thought of what might result. People in the valley might shun him when he returns from his comfortable quarters in the inn in Outhergard. They’ll also have explanations for what he did that they may not approve but that will stand. Nor is there anyone likely to
want revenge against him, especially with Royal Irish Constabulary lads protecting him for the rest of his life.”
“He’d be safe and Nora wouldn’t?”
“Not unless she married again, which I don’t think she will in any event.”
“Not even to protect her child?”
“We don’t know yet that the child will be born or live or whether Nora will survive.”
How, I wondered, could everyone be indifferent to her fate? Perhaps because they saw its inevitability. I didn’t, however, though I wasn’t sure what that meant, much less what I could do.
“When will Bolton reconvene the hearing?”
Bishop Kane lifted the last of his small piece of apple pie to his lips. I had long before finished my very large piece.
“Those who say he never will wouldn’t be far from wrong. Next month he’ll announce that the hearing has been adjourned to Dublin, the day after he’s loaded the accused on a special train and carried them off to Dublin.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It will be easier to get indictments and convictions there. The judges and juries will have little time for savages from the West of Ireland. Bolton would not trust jurors, even Protestants, out here with the weak case he has.”
“Then there’s no hope?”
“None, as far as I can see. A few of them may end up with twenty years in Dartmoor. If Bolton is desperate enough he may even set someone free if they provide evidence for the Crown.”
“Does it not matter whether a defense lawyer could tear apart the case as Mr. Concannon did today?”
“You don’t understand, Edward. The defense doesn’t matter, especially not before a jury that is mostly Dublin
Protestants and a few Catholics who want to prove how responsible they are, especially after the murders of the new Lord Lieutenant and his secretary in Phoenix Park last year.”
“I told Nora Joyce today that she should never give up hope.”
The bishop sighed and put down his wineglass, which he had just picked up.
“That is true in so far as God is concerned. She should hope in God’s eventual goodness. She is far too intelligent to hope that good will triumph over evil in this world, especially for Irish-speaking peasants from Connemara.”
Back here in my hotel room with Galway Bay glowing in the moonlight outside my window, I feel the same despair. As an American I believe that good will always triumph over evil. That obviously isn’t true.
Yet the fatalism here in the West of Ireland is pervasive and insidious. These people believe that, when faced with the power of Dublin Castle and Westminster, they will always lose, no matter how unjust the English behavior may be. I try to remember my Galway-born grandparents. They were not so pessimistic, but perhaps that was because they left this terrible place when they were still young.
I make two resolutions tonight. I will continue to follow this case to its conclusion, and I will go up to Maamtrasna again to try to interview some of the people. Maybe while I’m up there I can slip a few more pounds into Josie’s grubby little hand.