The Dodder Mystery of 1900
Chapter Two
The following
morning fourteen year old Paddy Keeffe from Bridge Street, Ringsend was making
his way home along the south bank of the Dodder. Patrick was the middle son of
the five children of Wicklow born Patrick and Kate Keeffe. The River Dodder
rises in the Dublin Mountains near Kippure and meanders down sixteen miles to
enter the River Liffey at Ringsend. The River Swan also enters the Dodder
between Londonbridge Road and Lansdowne Road bridges. The section of the River
Dodder from Lansdowne Road down to the Liffey is tidal.
As Patrick rambled home his attention was drawn to the river, which at the time was running about two to three feet deep. To his horror, he spotted the body of a young woman face down in the water, her lifeless head resting on her arm. After the initial shock, he quickly made his way down to Londonbridge Road, turned left and headed passed the Church of Ireland rectory and across Irishtown Road to the DMP Barracks. He informed the desk sergeant of his grim discovery and he despatched two constables to investigate. The two uniformed DMP men were that of County Armagh born Constable James Toal and Longford born Constable Henry Flower. They quickly made their way to the scene and were quickly followed by two more policemen Constable William Thomas (126E) and Sergeant John Hanily (7E). All four men were now at the point of the bank of the river where they could plainly see the body of the woman.
Local trader,
dealer and cart man John Humphrey’s of 10 Keegans Lane, Ballsbridge was making
his way along Newbridge Avenue where he noticed the four policemen standing. He
turned and drove his cart down along the bank. A ladder attached to his cart
was lowered down to the riverbed and Humphrey climbed down. He attached a rope
to the limp female body which he noticed was missing her skirt. The four
policemen above pulled the body to the bank of the river and it was loaded onto
the back of the wooden cart with two policemen’s coats placed over the top and
lower half of the body.
Humphreys led his
horse along the bank of the river towards Londonbridge Road, with the makeshift
hearse accompanied by Constables Flower and Toal. They crossed the bridge and
immediately turned left over the river and then right onto the small pathway
that led down to the city morgue. Flower briefly took a moment to lift the coat
over the head of the body and gazed on the ashen faced lifeless body. He
replaced the coat and continued his duty.
At the morgue the body was accepted by the local coroner Doctor Christopher Friery. Friery who had no medical training and before being appointed coroner for Dublin he maintained a successful law practice at Rutland Square West. The forty year old English born solicitor had built quite a reputation for himself on this side of the Irish Sea after settling in Dublin following his marriage to Dublin woman Mary. He had acted as an election agent for Redmondite Irish Nationalists and also became a newspaper celebrity when he acted for Maud Gonne in a libel action against Ramsey Colles.
When dealing with
any unexplained or sudden death in Ireland in 1900, there was a strict legal
path to be taken. Once the body had been discovered, the local constabulary,
whether it was the RIC or the DMP, were obliged to notify the local coroner and
the coroner would have the body either brought to the nearest morgue or in
rural cases to the local public house in order that an inquest could be held on
the deceased. He would then gather a jury of between twelve and twenty three
local ‘respectable’ citizens together to examine the body, witnesses and hear
relevant testimony before a verdict would be returned. Their verdict could be
that of murder, manslaughter, suicide, justifiable homicide or killing by an
irrational agent which usually was attached to a case where the culprit was
deemed insane at the time of the crime[1].
The coroners role in investigating overlapped with the work of the police and
the magistrate courts and often the attached publicity connected with an
inquest impacted on the court trial for any crime committed, murder trials
could last as little as a couple of hours as the inquest would be the basis of
the prosecution.
Once the inquest
verdict was announced it was up to the constabulary to arrest and charge any
defendant and then a magistrate would examine whether there was a case to
answer if there was the defendant would be sent for trial at the local assizes.
A jury would be called upon to decide the fate of the case. Much of the
complaints at the time both with inquest juries and trial juries that they were
‘loaded’ with jurors, often wealthy landowners and merchants, who would bring
in a favourable verdict for the crown prosecution.
At the
Londonbridge Road city mortuary, the coroner immediately asked the constables
if they knew the identity of the young woman but they both said they didn’t. An
autopsy was conducted on the unidentified body, deemed she died accidentally
from drowning probably in the river at high tide which was at 9.37pm the
previous night. An inquest was held with the only witness called being Sergeant
Hanily. The Coroner asked him if any of the constables at Irishtown barracks
could ‘throw any light on the death of this young woman’ and he answered ‘No’.
The verdict was that of accidental drowning returned on the body. As there was
no identification, no local reports of anyone missing and no one to claim the
body she was handed over the Poor Union who provided the unfortunate with an
unmarked pauper’s grave at Glasnevin Cemetery on the Northside of the city.
Before Maggie left Bridie the night before, she made arrangements to call on Bridie at 124 Baggot Street to catch up on all the gossip. But Bridie wasn’t there and the housekeeper said that her bed had not been slept in. Maggie headed towards Irishtown and met with Constable Toal who was back on his beat. Maggie asked if he had seen Bridie and he said he had not. She then asked where she could find Constable Flower and told her he had attended the Morgue in Irishtown at the inquest of a body found in the River Dodder.
With a sense of
foreboding, Maggie jumped on a tram which trundled its way to Nelson’s Pillar
on O’Connell Street. She walked down Talbot Street and onto Gardiner’s Street
and up to number twenty and the home of Mrs. Annie Wogan, Bridget Gannon’s
sister. Thirty eight year old Annie who was a widow and worked as a dressmaker had
not seen Bridie and so the two ladies made their way back towards
Northumberland Road and Mount Street Bridge, one of the last places Maggie had
seen Bridie. On the bridge they met Sergeant Hanily and Maggie told him that
Bridie had been out with Constable Flower the night before and now she was
nowhere to be found, missing appointments and work. The Sergeant asked the
ladies to accompany him down to Irishtown barracks where the Sergeant relayed
the story to Inspector Byrne. He asked for Constable Flower to attend to the
desk and then asked him if he knew Margaret Clowry or the identity of the dead
woman that had been found earlier that morning in the River Dodder, he denied
he knew either much to the amazement of Maggie.
Hanily and the two
women then walked down Londonbridge Road to the Morgue where they met with the
Coroner. After their story was heard, Dr. Friery immediately sent some of his
staff to exhume the body from Glasnevin and return it to the morgue at
Londonbridge Road. It took a number of hours before the body was back and ready
for identification. Annie Wogan identified the body as that of her younger
sister Bridget Gannon and the Dodder Mystery was born.
On the foot on
this new information that the last person to see Bridie was a Constable of the
police who had already denied knowing her, the coroner decided that a second
inquest would be required and a second autopsy, a more detailed autopsy if as
now suspected foul play had taken place. The story was now sensational. Dr.
Friery enlisted the assistance of two imminent doctors, local GP John
O’Donoghue and Dr. Edmund J McWeeney, a doctor at the Royal Hospital and a
Professor of Pathology. Their opinion was that Bridget Gannon died from
drowning in the high water of the Dodder but that she was unconscious before
she entered the water. There was evidence of water in her stomach but there was
water in her windpipe and lungs. To the doctor this indicated she did not
struggle when she entered the water and was therefore probably unconscious
before she entered the river. The contents of her stomach were examined and
they included the remnants of the plums she ate earlier that evening.
The coroner convened
a second inquest where he would interview all the relevant witnesses to
identify all the events leading up to the death of Bridget Gannon. Because his
name was now front page news and associated now with the Dodder Mystery,
Constable Henry Flower retained legal representation at the inquest. Mr. Timothy
Harrington MP represented Flower, while Mr. Edward Ennis from the Ennis and
Macken firm represented the interests of the Gannon family. Harrington was born
in Castletownbere, County Cork and after a college education at Trinity College
went onto to become a well-known barrister in the Four Courts involved in many
high profile cases. In 1883 he became a member of the House of Commons
representing Westmeath but in 1885 he was elected a Member of Parliament for
the Dublin Harbour constituency. Edward Ennis was a thirty three year old
solicitor born and bred in Dublin.
Proceedings were
immediately interrupted on the Saturday morning when Harrington questioned the
legality of a second inquest as the verdict of the first inquest accidental
drowning still was a matter of public record. A second inquest would require
the first verdict to be quashed. The Gannon family solicitors applied to the
Four Courts in front of Mr. Justice Barton for a Nisi Prius of the first
verdict. After some legal arguments and objections from Harrington, the coroner
entered the witness box and after his evidence, Justice Barton quashed the
first verdict as it was in the public interest allowing a new inquest to
proceed.
That Saturday afternoon September 8th a new jury of
twenty three men was sworn in. The jury were transported to Clonsilla Cemetery
where the body of Bridget once identified was buried by her family. The body
for the second time was exhumed and the veil over the face removed in order
that Bridget’s brother, Patrick officially identified the body of his sister in
front of the inquest jury. On September 12th the jury found that
Bridget Gannon was murdered and Flower would be charged with ‘wilfully and
feloniously killed and murdered Bridget Gannon’.
Two men who were
fishing along the Dodder on the night of the death were questioned. Michael
Moran from Keegan Cottages said that at 8.50pm between Ballsbridge and
Lansdowne Road, two women passed him and he identified one of the women as
Bridget Gannon, he said he did not know the other woman and was quizzed as to
whether he was sure it was a woman and not a man with Gannon. He said under
oath it was a woman. Joseph King of Pembroke Cottages swore that he was with
Moran fishing but was unable to identify who passed them on the bank that
night.
Flower was taken to Dublin Castle by the police in Irishtown.
Superintendent Whittaker and Inspector Byrne were in attendance and
considerable activity was visible among the heads of the Criminal Investigation
Department. A consultation of the chief officials was evidently in progress and
the police were in readiness to carry out whatever decision might be arrived
at. The consultation lasted a considerable time, and Mr. Jones, Chief
Commissioner, Mr. Mallon the Assistant Commissioner, and the other principal
police officers were closeted with the legal advisers of the Crown. As result
the deliberations at twenty past one on September 12th Constable
Henry Flower was charged by Inspector Whitaker with having ‘wilfully and
feloniously killed and murdered Bridget Gannon. But there was to be another
twist.
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