Ahead of a vote on capital punishment a look back at the history of the death penalty in Ireland.
The Republic of Ireland will vote on 7 June on a proposal to delete all references to the death penalty from the Constitution.
The death penalty was abolished in statute law in 1990 when it was replaced by a 40 year mandatory sentence for capital murder. If the proposal is carried in the referendum, a clause will be inserted in the Constitution preventing the Oireachtas from enacting any law providing for the death penalty.
In this context RTÉ News takes a look at the history of capital punishment in Ireland since the foundation of the Irish State.
Given the intimate link between the execution of the 1916 leaders and the struggle for independence, the enthusiasm for capital punishment shown by that newly independent State is regarded as a bitter irony.
During the civil war, the provisional government executed 81 people in a six month period. Historians argue that the adoption of the death penalty by the Dáil in 1922 reflected the poisonous atmosphere of the times as well as being a hangover from British law.
From 1924, there were a total of 24 executions. The last execution in the Republic of Ireland took place on 20 April 1954. 25 year old Michael Manning from Limerick was convicted of the murder of Catherine Cooper. Michael Manning's body still lies in an unmarked grave at Mountjoy Prison.
Frank Prendergast, who knew Michael Manning, recalls the aftermath of the trial and the lead up to his execution. Friends went to visit him the day before he was hanged and they played a game of handball.
He couldn’t have been more normal. It is arguably, it is unassailably true that in today’s more enlightened, understanding of psychotherapy and all of that area, that the man would never have been hanged.
Tim Carey, author of 'Mountjoy: The Story of a Prison’ describes what would have been Michael Manning’s final hours. He would have spent his final night in his cell with two prison officers. At 7.00 am, he would have been brought to the chapel for his last mass. Just before 8.00 am, the hangman Albert Pierrepoint who came from England the night before would have entered his cell accompanied by the prison governor, medical officer, Chaplin and prison officers. In his last few terrifying minutes of life he would have been pinioned and then walked a short distance to the trap door in the hang house. A rope would have been placed around his neck, a hood put over his head, he would have been positioned over the trap door and the lever would have been released.
He was the last to die at the gallows.
During the 1950s, Seán MacBride led a campaign to have the death penalty abolished. In 1964, under Charles Haughey as Minister for Justice, the death penalty was abolished for "ordinary murders". From then on, only the murder of a Garda or a prison officer carried the death penalty.
While a dozen Gardaí have been killed in the line of duty, the death penalty was only imposed on a handful of occasions. Noel and Marie Murray were convicted of the capital murder of Garda Michael Reynolds following an armed robbery in Dublin in 1975. However, their capital conviction was overturned and they received a life sentence.
The last people to be sentenced to death were Noel Callan and Michael McHugh for the murder of Sergeant Patrick Morrissey following a robbery in County Louth in 1985. However, their capital conviction was also overturned and they were sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Lawyer Eamon Leahy believes that the public now supports that a significant prison sentence over the death penalty is used as the deterrent to protect unarmed Gardaí.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 22 May 2001. The reporter is Tony Connelly.
This report contains content that is not RTÉ copyright.
