The Dodder Mystery - 1900 Part Three

 Chapter Three

 

The Dodder Mystery took an unexpected twist on the next day Friday September 13^th when the body of Sergeant Hanily was discovered in his lodging room of the barracks with his throat slit, having taken his own life with a razor. Hanily who was single joined the DMP in 1881 and was promoted to Sergeant in March 1884. At an inquest held the following morning once again at the morgue on Londonbridge Road, the coroner was told that on the previous morning Ellen Byrne, the barracks chef had delivered breakfast to the Sergeant in his room in the station and he was quiet and in ‘a dull mood’.

 

At 10am he was called along with another Sergeant and a constable to Superintendent Whitaker’s office as there was an ongoing investigation in some lapses in record keeping at the station. His brother, who was visiting the city from his home in Ardagh, Longford deposed that his brother had told him during a visit earlier that week that he had been ‘knocked about by the Dodder business’ but the coroner was at pains to say that the only connection he knew that the Sergeant had with the case was the recovery of the body and the fact that he brought Margaret Clowry to the station in its aftermath. It was also stated that the Sergeant of recent weeks had become somewhat paranoid that someone at the station was trying to drug his food but even after a report was sent to the Dublin police commissioner there seemed to be nothing in the allegation.

The house with the conservatory looking out onto the 

River Dodder was once the City Morgue and the venue for inquests.

Shortly after the meeting in the Superintendent’s office the dying body of Hanily was found in his room. He had used his own razor to inflict a deep fatal wound to his throat. He placed the razor back on a bedside cabinet. A suicide note smeared in his blood was also found on the cabinet. In it he said he could not ‘bear being watched anymore’ and ended the note with the words ‘good bye’. A local priest Father Smith was called who delivered the last rights but before the doctor arrived some fifteen minutes later, Hanily was dead. The jury returned a verdict of having ‘committed suicide under temporary insanity’. His body was released to his brother Michael and it was transported to the Broadstone railway terminus and placed on a train to Roscommon where he was buried near the village of Kilcock.

 

An inquest chaired once again by local coroner Christopher Friery was convened at Irishtown Barracks and following the sensation of the Dodder Mystery, this second inquest was a newspaper sensation. The jury of fifteen mostly local businessmen was gathered in the station, they included four local publicans Joseph Lenihan, Thomas Ryan, Nicholas Walsh and James Murtagh. 

On Wednesday 14^th September 1900, Flower’s trial began in front of a jury of twenty three men. Flower decided against taking to the witness box and instead a statement was read by his legal representative Harrington. Before he refused to answer any questions that the coroner asked including,

‘Tell me did you know Bridget Gannon?’

‘I did not’ he answered.

Harrington then read Flower’s statement to the jury.

‘7 Irishtown, August 24^th 1900. I beg to report that between 8 and 9 on the 22^nd inst, I left this station off duty and in plain clothes for a walk. I went along Sandymount Road as far as Sandymount and returned by the Strand Road where I went into Walsh’s public house on Bath Street to have a drink and there I met Constable Toal and Simpson 38E and 101E about 8.30. We left about 10pm, I returning to my barracks. I know nothing about either Miss Clowry or the deceased nor never saw them. ‘

 

To back up this version of events his fellow officer Constable Simpson took to the stand and backed up Flower’s alibi by stating that he Flower in the hallway of Walsh’s pub at about 9.30pm and then Nicholas Walsh whose public house backed onto the barracks said that Flower was in his pub and drank a pint of porter and a half of malt whiskey before leaving about 10.30. According then to desk Sergeant Masterson, Flower returned to the barracks at 10.45pm. 

 

The case continued on October 2^nd as Flower appeared at the Southern Division Police Court and was remanded once again.

On Tuesday October 16^th , at Green Street courthouse, Mr. Justice Gibson recounted the facts before the jury and at 2.35pm after fifteen minutes deliberations concluded by saying that on the depositions as they stood a petty jury could not convict on the charge to which Flower had been returned. The Grand Jury threw out the charge and Flower was freed.  Disgraced Flower left Ireland never to be heard of again with rumours being that he immigrated to Australia. Margaret married County Meath born James Brady in September 1904 only for James to pass away just fifteen years later. But over forty years after the first news of the Dodder Mystery emerged, Bridget Gannon’s good friend Margaret Clowry dictated her dying statement and claimed that in fact it was she who had killed Bridget and now Flower. But we may never know the truth to the unfortunate demise of the young and beautiful Bridget Gannon.

 

 

Sources

Trevor James

Ken Harrington

The Irish Newspaper Archives

The National Archives of Ireland

The British Newspaper Archives

The Royal Irish Constabulary Forum

Garda Siochana Museum