CORONERS WHO CONDUCTED inquests into sudden and suspicious deaths in nineteenth century Ireland were viewed with disdain and disrespect in a society that was highly politicised and deeply divided.
Inquests revealed to the public the injustice and corruption at the heart of county society, the local impacts of poverty and preventable deaths during The Great Famine and shed new light on the nature of local community life.
The men who served in the role of coroner in nineteenth century Ireland represented the authority of government and the need for social order and justice, but it often put them at odds with the local elites and the community in a politically polarised society.
This book offers a history of the role of the Coroner and uses the inquests of William Charles Waddell (1798-1878) who served as Monaghan county coroner for over three decades. It places Waddell and the investigation of death within the fabric of local government and Monaghan society.
The primary duties of the coroner were to investigate the causes and authorship of sudden, violent or otherwise unnatural deaths in the community and to collect debts or monies owed should a responsible person be found guilty of homicide by trial.
Inquests were open to the public and intended to establish if a crime had been committed. Inquests were initiated once the coroner was informed of a death by a local official and he then summonsed medical men, witnesses and jurors.
The body was laid often where it was found or at a local public house. Witness testimony and medical evaluation of the corpse were assessed by the jury in order to reach a decision on the cause of death.
‘Sire… the fact is: Coroners in Ireland are (generally speaking) the lowest and most contemptible of characters.’ – Revd Peter Browne, dean of Ferns to Prince Frederick, duke of York and Albany, 7 June 1819‘[The disgrace] of the present system of coroners’ inquests [is] a gross burlesque on jurisprudence.’ – Sir Dominic John Corrigan, physician, 9 Sept. 1840
In Pre-Famine Ireland, a general mistrust of the authority of the coroner when investigating sudden, suspicious or violent deaths. They were paid a fee per inquest plus expenses and could collect deodands (a thing forfeited or given to the king, specifically in law, an object or instrument that becomes forfeit because it caused a person’s death) as another means of compensating themselves.
The results of such a form of payment resulted in their reputation as being seen to ‘profit’ from death. The predominant belief was that those in Irish local government abused the system to support their own politics and interests and many citizens were disturbed over how revenues were spent and misappropriated.
A coroner, prior to Poor Law Act of 1838, was the only elected official in local government. Approximately one hundred men, more or less, would hold the role of coroner across Ireland. These were most often men with no professional qualifications, landowners who aspired to attain or maintain the status of ‘gentleman’.
Within the comfortable monopoly of local government, the role of the coroner posed a potential threat.
On 25 June 1823, radical MP Joseph Hume (1777-1855) read a list of offices and posts where Catholics were under-represented to the House of Commons. Of the 108 county coroners, only 29 were Catholics. Still, the office of county coroner had the largest percentage of Catholics of any position in government, 26.9 per cent. This shows Catholics had taken up the role to improve their social status.
However, the coroners in Ireland were predominately Protestant men who shared their religion with others in local government and thereby contributed to its homogeneity. As such, Catholic coroners may have suffered from prejudice from the local Protestant elite.
Evidence shows that the people serving as witnesses and jurors in the coroner’s court were sometimes at risk and under threat. In an impassioned speech in 1833,
Prime Minister Earl Grey (1764-1845) conveyed his shock as to the man atrocities suffered by Catholic jurors and witnesses and provided insight into the pressures applied to coroners’ witnesses should they participate in an inquest.
Grey told the story of a man who witnessed the murder of his father-in-law but sent a message that he’d sooner ‘submit to penalty of the law imposed rather than appear as a witness at the inquest, for he could not do that without eventually forfeiting his life to the vengeance of those who had murdered his relation.’
Waddell, a descendant of planted Scottish Presbyterians, made a significant contribution to the history of the social, political, and economic landscape in Co. Monaghan. He owned and resided in his family’s ancestral home, Lisnaveane House, worked as a land agent and merchant, as well as served as an elected Poor Law guardian and worked on various local communities.
He was a member of a new generation of middle-class professionals who used their patronage, social networks, determination, and hard work, to improve their social status. In April 1846, Waddell secured himself the role of County Monaghan coroner, no one that no doubt he set out to attain using his patronage networks, just as Ireland was about to endure the treacherous years of the Great Irish Famine.
‘How is it that the GRAND INQUEST of the nation has made no inquiry as to the death of thousands of people?’ – Isaac Butt, April 1847
In July 1846, the Whig-Liberal administration, led by Lord John Russell (1846-52) dramatically changed the policies put in place by his predecessor, Sir Robert Peel.
They adhered to a strict belief in not interfering with the markets and food pricing. They allowed the food depots to run until they were empty and cut grants to aid in relief. During these years of Russell’s leadership, public inquests uncovered unnecessary, preventable deaths and revealed inadequate relief politics for society’s poorest.
National and regional Irish newspapers published verdicts of inquests that reflected negative public opinion of government policy and show how the inquests was used as a platform for ‘the voice of the people’. In January 1847, the Limerick and Clare Examiner, a nationalist newspaper reported a coroner’s inquest taken at the Galway workhouse:
‘We find that the deceased Mary Commons, died from the effects of starvation and destitutions, caused by a want of the common necessaries of life…WE FIND THAT THE SAID LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND THE SAID SIR RANDOLPH ROUTH, ARE GUILTY OF THE WILFUL MURDER OF SAID MARY COMMONS.’
Legislation, politics and ideology worked against society’s poorest as shown through analysis of inquests during the Famine years of 1846 to 1852.
In 1841, the population of Co. Monaghan was over 200,000 and it had a rural density of 370 persons per square mile, most of whom were landless labourers. By 1851, the country had experienced an exodus, with a reduction in population to 141,00 and a loss of over 10,000 homes, which significantly and dramatically changed the landscape.
“When excluding the towns, Monaghan experienced the third heaviest rural decline in Ireland at almost 30 per cent between 1841 and 1851.”
The deaths captured in inquests by Waddell reveal the causes of the vast scale of poverty in Co. Monaghan. The inquests, when studied in chronological order, show how the removal of relief (such as the soup kitchens) induced significant distributional shifts of starvation and death, and how price shocks, the shortage of food, increase in evictions, the lack of employment and restrictive distribution of relief all contributed to deaths.
One of many inquests held by Waddell included that of Rose Sweeny of Killycarnan in the parish of Tedavnet on 26 May 1847. Sweeny was a widow with four children to feed and no means of support other than the charity of her neighbours. She was receiving two rations per day at the soup kitchen, although her name was on the list for three, but she died from ‘great destitution’ before her third ticket was released.
Under the Soup Kitchen Act, Sweeny was entitled to three rations: one for herself, and a half-ration for each of her children per day. This would indicate why the inquest was held as Waddell would have suspected mismanagement or potential corruption on the part of the local committee managing the soup kitchen.
The function of the coroner contributed to the erosion of the power of the local elite that started during the Famine and continued gradually through the years in post-Famine Ireland. In the years after the Famine, Waddell’s investigations of institutional death in workhouses, gaols and asylums exposed local corruption and mismanagement by institutional officers.
Evidence of malpractice and misadventure on behalf of institutional officials (who often secured their positions through patronage and nepotism) resulted in their dismissal and proved embarrassing for local elites.
He found evidence of unethical behaviour by institutional leaders that directly contributed to the deaths of infants at the workhouse, infanticide at the gaol, abuse of mentally ill asylum patients by their attendants and unfair practices towards gaol inmates.
The office of coroner survived amid local government reform and dissolution of many other judicial offices. The judiciary used its power as ‘an instrument for intervention in political and economic life’, and participation in judicial office served as social conditioning for members of the local elite.
Michelle McGoff-McCann, PhD is a professional historian, published author and visiting scholar at Queen’s University Belfast. She is currently working on several new publications including a unique volume set of the original inquests of coroner William Charles Waddell (1846-77) to be published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission.
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