The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-06-04 00:00:00

THE EXECU rioN IN TIILLAMORE
GAOL.

On Friday Morning (the 21th tilt.), at eight o'clock,
Lawrence Shiela, aged 24, and Margaret Shiels, aged
29, brother and sister, were hanged in Tullamore gaol
for the murder of Patrick Donne, committed exactly
three months ago. The awful event is thus described
by a writer in the Dublin Freeman :
Perhaps in this laud of swift and sodden blood there never
was so bad steed for- so pour a Cause. This brother and
sister actually murdered the man for nothing. There had
been a wordy Jealousy about a path to turf.cntting.
time it grew into hatred, was proved by assault, avenged
In murder, and culminated in execution. The two beings
sob, were han ,ed this morning, a brother earnest Peter,
and an aged 9.17(1 infirm father lied together, and managed
some forty acres of land. The woman had always been of
quick temper, high paAsion, turbulent in words, and threaten-
ing. It is stated that she had been feared and avoided. Pat-
rick Dunne, aged 30, married, and supporting hid widowed
mother, was a hired servant ; and iii his disputes about
the path and the turf merely protected what he believed
was his employer's right. Peter Shiels assaulted Dunne,
and was sent to gaol for six months. Margaret Shiels made
no secret of her intent. She said she would shoot the man
when her brother came out Her neighbours, hearing her
dreadful threats, tried to soothe her, and advised her to go
to the priest. The woman replied that she would hold a
basin on one's breast while a man out hie throat. The fiend
was roused in the woman, and was never laid. She seems
to have taken her young brother Lawrence Into the bloody
business. I cannot help thinking that the Impunity which
follows many Irish crimes hardened this unhappy pair in
their murderous design. The young man openly took a
broken pistol to a blacksmith, who repaired it furs shilling.
Ile bought caps and shut in the town. A kuile was
sharpened for him. And the murder of Patrick Dunne,
perhaps suddenly conceived, was thus of deliberate malice
determined. There was really nothing to palliate this savage
revenge. The Imprisonment of their brother was not un-
usually long; and his assault must have been furious to
warrant A: moutluV Incaturagon, beturcley awing, We

26th February, Dunne passed the brother and sister as they
stood on the road to Toter. Be bade them good night, and
they replied with a bullet. The woman shot him twice. His
throat was roughly hacked with a knife. The pistol was
broken, but not until they had shot him eight times. Ile was
then huddled Into a drain hard by, and left with life
enough to live in agony. Be was taken up, made a
dying declaration before a magistrate, and expired in
a few hours. Be charged his death on the two Shish.
With the carelessness of consequence which they had
shewn from the first, they left the pistol and the knife
on the ground. Here was evidence circumstantial. The
man tied to Queenstown as an emigrant, but was arrested at
, the ship. The woman went home to her old father... .
I The days that seemed dreary and intertninable seemed swift
as night came on, and "the span" narrowed and Hod from
time as May 27 approached. The woman, whose youth had
lent to her cruelty an unrelenting vigour to her revenge an
abiding paPion, now yielded to the solicitations of religion,
and prepared for her miserable end. Her brother from the
first hail shewn signs of contrition. Ile seemed afflicted
while his sister was stubborn, and was more keenly sensible
of his unhappy position. But when every hope was
broken, and doom was as certain as death itself, they
become one In the awful preparation. The clergy were
with them always, and fortitude and calm took the place of
anguish and despair. They saw their relatives, for Mends
they had few. They parted from them calmly and without
a tear. They spent last evening in prayer, and retired late
to sleep the last sleep of earth. The young man slept through
the night, hut the woman roe(' at four. She prayed fervently,
arid waited in solemn quiet the coming hour. The Rev. Dr.
Kane, the parish priest, the Rev. Mr. Leonard, the Rev. Mr.
Gaffney, and the Rev. Mr. Flood, curates, came to them soon
after sta. At seven they went into the chapel, and Mass was
celebrated. Balt-past seven was told by the booming of the
gaol bell, which the law directs shall sound for the hour In
which the execution is done. Now • black flag is boiled Dom
the capitol in front of the prison, boding the dreadful work
within. Now a man of broken gait, his face hid in crape,
his eyes glaring through rudely slashed holes, comes through
the little door. And now a man with his hones pinioned
and a priest at either side: and now a woman with her
hands pinioned and a priest at either side. The mart's tace
was young, hut care sat on his faded check." His pinioned
arms but the more broadly opened his great chest and
showed his stalwart form. His brows ran in a deep black
line across his forehead. His hair my negligent and wild.
His lips were faded and Moved in prayer. His ester,
square and strongly built, spoke in a firmer tone, and her
supplication was heard above them aIL Each walked with.
cut assistance the hundred yards to the gallows, but
when a curve brought the thing full in view Lawrence
shiels faltered for an instant and looked behind. The
Litany of saints was continued, but his respons s were
MEM and broken. His sister, with unshaken voice, and
ta e that never paled, walked on. They now knelt
down and made an act of contrition. The woman arus
pinioned as she was, rose without assistance. She did not
observe the way whereby she might have walked erect to the
drop, tout quietly stooped to half her height under the bar
in front, then turned round, and locked straight Into her
grave. Site prayed loudly all the time. The young man
shook hoods with the gaolers, and then with the clergymen,
and walked on to the drop. Mutually they turned and
grasped the nearer hand of the other, and so they stood to-
gether. he hangman was nervous and disturbed. Ills
crape nail beim° awry, and he did not see well.
He pinioned the hands of Margaret Shields, and in.
eluded in the folds of her dress the rope which
hung beside her. He then pinioned the man, and
they neither seemed to blench. The error noticed must be
iindone. The mutian's dress is loosed, and the rope with-
drawn. Now Shiels looks at his sister, and then at the ten
men who silently stood by. The hangman, all distraught,
was walking down the steps into the vault when he was
recalled Ile came back, enlarged the noose, and put the
rope on the woman's neck, adjusting the knot to one side,
he did the earns for the man; and then put on their white
caps At this supreme moment the words of the absolution
were I card ; then the booming of that dreadful bell ; then
the bolt was drawn, and the hangman fell upon his knees;
and Margaret and Lawrence Stileis were gone to their great
account We all knelt down, and prayers were offered for
the repose of their souls; and the Litany was recited, and
the Miserere and the De Profundis. In half an hour there
was but little stir below, and there was no sign of the violent
deed that had been done. Later in the day an inquest was
held, death certified, and duly recorded. Their malefactor's
crave was ready, and received them; and what niayhap
began in a look, a word unkindly spoken, was ended in death
and dc,xadation.