Crime in the nineteenth-century Irish home

Abstract

This article interrogates the Irish home as the scene of a crime. Using a sample of nineteenth-century textual records, namely coroners' inquest documents, police and witness statements, judges' reports of trials, and newspapers, it showcases how the home could become a focus of attention in court. Police (and sometimes the general public) infiltrated these domestic spaces in their search for clues; they often interfered with domestic materiality, or confiscated objects or fragments therefrom. In court, maps, plans and models illustrated the physical space and layout of the home for those who had not crossed the threshold. Witness testimonies accounting for the crime inadvertently reveal how the homes looked, some of their contents, and the nature of relationships between occupants and neighbours. These Irish homes were typically ordinary domestic spaces but as this article shows, the crime brought the intimate space to a more public arena. It also demonstrates how the home could both protect or expose a suspect.At around ten past five on the evening of 29 April 1881, Sub-Constable Thomas Dickson surveyed Artillery Street, Derry, from the door of the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks. 1 Suddenly, a crying woman in her thirties rushed up to him, pleading with him to follow her to nearby Fountain Street 'to see the sight'. Acting Constable Andrew Farry, overheard this conversation from inside the barracks, and joined his colleague outside. The woman in front of them was around five foot two, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Dickson pressed her for more details and after initially hesitating, Elizabeth Buchanan confessed her fears that her eighty-four-year-old husband had killed himself at their home. This information prompted an immediate response from the policemen at the station; suicide was still a criminal offence and, along with the associated link with insanity, could carry a stigma for surviving relatives. 2 Dickson accompanied Elizabeth back to her house, and Farry followed a few minutes later. By the time they arrived, neighbours and other curious spectators had already gathered outside, evidently having heard of the incident. Dr James MacCullagh entered the house shortly thereafter, to examine what