Maamtrasna the Murders & the Mystery

by Jarlath Waldron

Presentation copy, signed by the author on title page, some light wear to covers, and foxing to fore edge, some pages have taken a corner bump, but only minor

Genres: History

335 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's Ireland in the 19th century so everything is horrible, and if it isn't horrible just now, something horrible will be along in a moment. Here we go: five members of the same family murdered brutally in one terrible night. What follows is a tortuous and tortured tale of malice and revenge and injustice and judicial murder that rocks the country, echoing all the way to the Houses of Parliament for two tempestuous debates. Men are hung, men are imprisoned. Some are guilty, some are most assuredly not, and someone most assuredly got away with it. Most haunting and poignant of all, to me, is the sketchy fate of the surviving boys, thrust into the tender mercies of the orphanages and industrial schools and largely, though not completely, vanished from history.

A solid piece of historical non-fiction that works hard to be fair and even-handed about a notorious and ugly story, even as it struggles in vain to fully understand the causes and motivations.

[Robert Sidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

True story of the horrific murder of five members of the family of John Joyce at Maamtrasna Co Galway 18/08/1882.

A wonderful read of the murders and trial of those accused. I have visited the area a few years ago and it remains as barren now as it did then.

[Sam Geraghty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully detailed account by a local historian. Covering the trial in great detail, the political landscape at the time and the influence this case likely had on the progression of Home Rule.

A woeful miscarriage of justice in 19th century Ireland that certainly deserves to be remembered.

[Mary Simonsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Local historian, Father Jarlath Waldron, has written an exhaustive account of the murders of the John Joyce family in the Maamtrasna Mountains in Galway in the summer of 1882. Although the murders gave every indication of being tribal, the British government used the massacre as evidence of agrarian violence during Ireland's Land War--violence that required the implementation of extreme legal remedies under the various coercion acts. Despite testimony from two members of the Joyce family, Crown Prosecutor George Bolton suppressed evidence that would have cleared Myles Joyce, who was executed for a crime he did not commit, as well as four men who spent twenty years in penal servitude. The failure of Gladstone's government to investigate this miscarriage of justice was one of the reasons it fell in 1886.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and tragic.