Old gaol find causes great deal of interest FF to pay £5,100 to traumatised infant

July 1979 July 2001

An old prison shirt bearing the name William Murphy has been found in Wexford’s old gaol, a building which is now being used by the County Council as a workshop and store rooms.

Discovery of the shirt and some 300 bullets was made by tradesmen Francis Bolger and Pat Kavanagh, who were widening one of the cells to make way for machinery. They found the beige and blue striped shirt pushed down into an air vent.

A tag accompanying the garment bears testimony to one ‘Willliam Murphy, Political Prisoner, Military Barracks, Wexford’. The man was obviously brought to the County Gaol from the building in Barrack Street which is now used by the FCA.

Immense interest is now circling around who the man was, how long he spent in prison, and the story behind his imprisonment. Workers at the Co. Council workshop are particularly interested in tracing anyone who may know these details. They feel that he is certain to have living relations in the Wexford area.

They have also decided to contact the keepers of the Co. Museum in Enniscorthy, who may find some historical value in the shirt.

Wexford Gaol ceased to function in 1918, when it was used as a home for inebriates, and it was taken over by the Co. Council in 1921.

The last hanging at the Gaol was for the murder of a woman at Bettyville about 70 years ago. Prior to that, James Parle and John Creane from Taghmon, and Patrick Hogan, Wexford, were executed on 13th March, 1923, for the carrying out of a series of weapons raids.

The last public hanging at the Gaol was on 4th April 1866, when a Bunclody man was executed for the murder of his father. A presidential salute with a difference has cost Fianna Fáil more than £5,000.

Wexford Circuit Court, in an infant ruling, heard yesterday how a one-year-old child took fright in his parents’ car after a poster bearing the image of Mary McAleese fell onto the bonnet during the last Presidential Election campaign.

Counsel for the child said the infant took fright and suffered from post traumatic stress after the incident at Kilmore on November 10, 1997.

Counsel told how the child’s mother was driving the car along the raod when the large poster came ‘ howling down’ onto the vehicle, as a result of whicht eh young infant took fright.

The child continued to show signs of stress and nervousness for ‘quite some time’ afterwards, he said.

The infant ruling case was brought against Martin Mackin, a nominee of Fianna Fáil. Judge Oliver Buttimer said she would make an order for £5,100, with costs, to the Plaintiff.