The Framing of Harry Gleeson by Kieran Fagan

Author:Kieran Fagan [Fagan, Kieran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-84889-908-7
Publisher: The Collins Press

DAY NINE

Wednesday, 26 February 1941

James Nolan-Whelan continued his summation of the defence’s case for the first hour. Then, for the prosecution, George Murnaghan said that the evidence of Harry’s guilt was coercive. Moll McCarthy had last been seen alive going towards the dug-out field. It was in the middle of the country (in open country, we might say today) and she must have been on her way to keep an appointment. The second shot was unquestionably fired at the scene where she was found, and the suggestion that the first had been fired elsewhere and the body moved was too farfetched to merit consideration. He conceded that the evidence connecting Gleeson with the victim was circumstantial. The bag that Michael McCarthy said belonged to his mother was found on the Caesar farm, confirming the prosecution’s contention that she had gone to meet Gleeson in the expectation that he would give her potatoes. Nothing could explain why Gleeson had not looked to see whose body was lying in the field. And did the jury really believe that he did not know where his uncle kept his gun cartridges, and, if not, why did he lie about it?

Then Judge Martin Maguire started his lengthy summing up. He told the jury that he would decide how the law applied, and advise them on the facts of the case, but it was for them to reject his interpretation of the facts if they thought he was wrong.

He then made an outrageous assertion about Moll McCarthy’s actions following the last sighting of her by her son Michael at about 5.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 November, going across the fields in a north-easterly direction. ‘Someone must have gone to meet that woman somewhere in the neighbourhood of the dug-out, must have gone there with a gun, must have loaded it and waited for the victim, if she were not already there, must have fired and fired again.’

Maguire had adopted as fact the prosecution case. This is bedrock fact, he told the jury. Never mind that the jury had heard confirmed evidence that the body was moved, that the victim’s coat had been buttoned up after she had been shot, the judge decided that everything happened in the field. He had also determined, without doubt, the time of death. Even the most cursory reading of the evidence suggests that Moll McCarthy could have been killed elsewhere and her body placed in the field, and there was no conclusive evidence to verify the time of her death, because the two doctors who examined the body had reached contradictory conclusions.

To underline the enormity of this leap, the judge immediately continued by saying, ‘Now before putting to you the case for the prosecution …’ and went on to give a concise summary:

1. Harry Gleeson shot Moll McCarthy between 5.30 and 5.45 p.m. on Wednesday, 20 November 1940, at or near where the body was found.

2. Thomas Hennessy heard the shots.

3. Gleeson used John Caesar’s gun and ammunition.

4. He left his victim there dead or dying and went to Caesar’s house just after 6 p.

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