McCann Melancholy Madness (A Coroners Casebook)

1. Auflage 2004
ISBN: 978-1-78117-879-9
Verlag: Mercier Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 464 Seiten

Bizarre tales of murder and investigation in the drumlins, valleys and towns of Monaghan in the nineteenth century, based upon a casebook just recently discovered that has never been lodged in any archive anywhere. This is NEW information and highlights such cases as: The Illigitimate Half-Sisters Of Oscar Wilde - Emily and Mary Wilde died tragically at Drumaconner House while dancing by the fire - their deaths are kept quiet so as not to shame Sir William Wilde. The Legend Of The Sleepwalking Nun - Sister Mary Keogh is discovered drowned in the Convent lake near the Crannog - to this day, local legend tells the story of her death.

Autoren/Hrsg.

McCann, Michelle

Leseproben

Chapter Two

Infanticide
Child Murder in Monaghan

I saw where in the shroud did lurk,

A curious frame of nature’s work;

A flowerette crush’d in the bud

A nameless piece of Babyhood,

Was in her cradle-coffin lying;

Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying;

So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb,

For darker closets of the tomb.

– Charles Lamb, ‘On an infant dying as soon as born’

Upon close examination of the infant deaths recorded by the coroner in Co. Monaghan, it is apparent that most of these newborns were murdered. They were the ‘illegitimate’ children of unmarried mothers – women who were either abandoned by the father, fearful of becoming social outcasts or simply found themselves in trouble with no one to count on. Infanticide and ‘baby-dropping’ (the dumping of anonymous babies in exposed places) were commonplace in nineteenth-century Ireland and the tiny bodies of infants were bundled, tied, and drowned, strangled with cords or bare hands, suffocated with bed covers, violently beaten or left to the elements of the countryside, hidden from sight or found by animals and unsuspecting passers-by.

Some babies, as well as their mothers, died as a result of the trauma of childbirth, even with the help of midwives and physicians. In some cases, misdiagnosis and dated procedures often encouraged death rather than a passage for life as doctors lacked the pre-natal technology to save the mother’s or baby’s life. Mothers died from haemorrhaging and infants of premature and stillborn birth. Midwifery in the nineteenth century was under the scrutiny of the medical profession, as obstetrics was being more carefully studied and there was a growing interest in overcoming the large number of deaths. The midwife’s knowledge, judgement and years of experience were often discounted even when using the same techniques as a physician, simply because they were not proper scholars of medicine. Skilled in the art of delivery, these women were also accomplished in techniques of terminating life that were often undetectable upon investigation. An unmarried mother could request the use of these talents to end the life of her baby immediately after the birth. Contrary to premeditated fatalities, a midwife might find herself in jail if death occurred while delivering a legitimate child to a married woman. The law investigated her delivery techniques and attempted to point out the errors made by the medically untrained ‘witch’.

The Scourge of Illegitimacy

As one would expect, infant murder was much more likely to occur in conjunction with illegitimacy, poverty and brutality.1 Women and children were part of a value-system that attached a label, either ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’, to every newborn infant, as well as a distribution of resources that placed the illegitimate child and its mother, but not its father, in serious danger of destitution.2 These women were the object of public scorn, viewed as sexually loose women, looked down upon by the Church and their children considered outcasts. If they did not have the support of their family, some found ways to provide for their children by begging, gaining admission into the workhouse, and in some severe cases resorted to prostitution. Of course, all these options could be averted by simply hiding the pregnancy and ending the child’s life soon after birth. Given the options, it is not surprising that many women giving birth to illegitimate children were driven to commit infanticide.

One personal account of illegitimacy from an anonymous man, born in 1906, depicts how these children were treated in the early twentieth century. One can assume it to be a similar experience to those children born forty years earlier.

I was reared in a workhouse, in fact I was born in a workhouse. I was illegitimate … I was supposed to be very good looking as a grown up boy and if I dated a girl or a girl dated me the next thing she’d drop me all because I was illegitimate. That was a horrible crime in the Victorian age. Oh Lord God of Almighty, you were like the untouchables in India, the right type of company wouldn’t go with you. You were an outcast and you had to go for the lowest of the lowest, somebody in the same category as yourself. If any woman years ago got into trouble with a man and made her in the family way, the quicker she was got away to America overnight the better. They’d be ashamed that it happened. They were taken undercover at night, put on a boat and over to America. They were never let back again.

For adultery you were chased. The parish would chase ye. The priest and all, ye couldn’t live it down.3

Married women too had reasons for disposing of their infants, yet this occurred less frequently. Another child on an already financially-burdened family, domestic disharmony or post-natal depression are some possible reasons for disposing of a legitimate infant, but because a married woman was in a respectable position (i.e. having a husband), it was not as likely. In one case, a woman named Mary McMahon was charged with the murder of her child after it was found floating in the Ulster Canal.4 The evidence showed the child alive and well at 6a.m., but by 7.30a.m. it was found floating in the water. The argument presented at her trial was: ‘There was no motive for the crime; for this was the case of a married woman, and not that of some unhappy being who, in her anxiety to hide her shame, might be tempted to destroy her offspring.’5 She was acquitted by the jury. This case emphasises that in the eyes of society and the justice system, unmarried women had motive to commit infanticide and married women did not.

Abortion

If a woman by her magic destroys the child she has conceived of somebody, she shall do penance for half a year with an allowance of bread and water, and abstain for two years from wine and meat.

– Penitential of Finnian (7th century)

In the nineteenth century, infanticide and abortion really were alternative ways of disposing of unwanted (usually illegitimate) children.6 Abortion could be procured sometimes through ‘the most drastic purgatives and emmenagogues, of which aloes and gamboges are the chief ingredients … certain herbs and plants, particularly rue and savine pulled in a particular manner are believed by the country people to have a like end.’7 Other products used to induce abortion were ‘innocent’ items on sale, like cantharides and diachylon (lead) plasters, or purgatives like juniper oil. Some newspaper advertisements boasted propriety remedies for menstrual disorders, ‘female ailments’, but everyone knew they were thinly (but legally) disguised abortifacients.8

The Master Gets Rid of Evidence

The Death of Rose O’Neill, Latlorkin, Monaghan Parish, April 1862

Rose O’Neill had lived for ten years as a servant with the family of Mr John Crow of the Eight Tates.9 She fell ill and her sisters Alice, Biddy and Ann went to visit her. Alice arrived first and found Rose speechless. She was not replying to any questions, but instead had a ‘wild look’. Rose had always been a strong healthy girl, not subject to fits, but had more than one when Alice was present. During these fits, Rose’s arms were working violently with fists firmly clenched and she had to be held down.

Ann also saw her going through these fits, each one lasting about ten minutes. Ann stated, ‘Up until the time of her decease, all that time (from early in the day until early evening), she never once appeared to recognise me.’ Ann knew that Rose was known to take medicine when nothing ailed her, and knew that she had taken medicine to procure an abortion six years earlier. The sisters believed Rose to be taking medicines and herbs to destroy the foetus inside her. Savin, made from the shrub Juniperus Sabina, is a very common poisonous plant used to bring about abortions. At high doses, it causes convulsions, haemorrhages, vomiting and convulsive coma.

The master of a house employing domestic servants was obliged to supply food and lodgings but not medical attention or medicine for his servants.10 Ann told the coroner that there were some powders in Rose’s room which her master, John Crow, desired to be thrown in to the fire. Why did he destroy evidence that might have been able to answer the cause of her death? Was John Crow the father of the child? Or was he just a caring man concerned that she was taking a substance that would kill her?

Her body was exhumed and the authorities ordered a post-mortem examination which revealed that Rose’s brain, heart, lungs and abdomen were healthy and she was indeed four months pregnant. No cause of death could be determined and the jury requested the stomach of the deceased and its contents be sent for analysis. Dr...