Irish murder in Darlington in 1875: Michael Gilligan hanged

After Lizzie Pearson, the Gainford Poisoner, and William McHugh, the Barnard Castle Whiskey Drinker, had been despatched came...

READ FIRST: THE STORY OF LIZZIE PEARSON, THE GAINFORD POISONER
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An aerial view of Darlington town centre in 1954 with its slums intact where the murder took place. The roundabout at the bottom left is where the gang came over Stone Bridge with murder in mind. They searched the pubs on the east side of the river before heading right up Parkgate, past St Hilda's Church towards the Hippodrome. Somewhere here in the middle of the road, they caught up with their man...Michael Gilligan, the Darlington Fenian murderer

THERE was something extremely sinister about the murder of John Kilcran in Darlington town centre on Easter Sunday, 1875. He was an Irishman. He was attacked by Irishmen, and the man who hanged for his murder was an Irishman.

"The circumstances surrounding the crime are of a peculiarly significant character to our Irish population," said The Northern Echo on the day Kilcran died of his injuries, "proving the lamentable fact that party feeling and party outrages have not yet disappeared from among us.

"On the evening previous to that on which Kilcran met with his fatal injuries, another man, supposed to be a Fenian, was set upon by two or three Irishmen, known to be members of the Hibernian Society, and maltreated."

For nearly ten years Darlington, and much of south Durham, had been gripped by a bloody feud between Irish labourers which had involved brutal beatings, shootings, a couple of attempted murders and an Irishman allegedly beaten to death in Northgate police station.

The Easter troubles of 1875, which culminated in the murder of Kilcran, began with the beating of Henry Stephens in Parkgate.

The Echo reports the initial assault which culminated in murder a day later"The following night, " continued the Echo, "Kilcran, who is the local secretary of the Hibernian Society, was attacked by a party of men, known to be Fenians, in the same street."

In those days all Ireland was under British control. In the 1850s, hardline Nationalists – and so, by extension, Roman Catholics – who wanted to form an independent Irish state had started calling themselves Fenians after a mythical band of Celtic warriors who had protected the island.

The Fenians were a small, secretive band committed to using force to establish their objectives. They grew into the Irish Republican Brotherhood and, after organising the 1916 Easter Rising, became part of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The Hibernian Society was also a Catholic organisation, but it concentrated on the social aspects of a community assailed by poverty. In a town like Darlington, it would have helped Irish immigrants to find homes and jobs as they set up a new life in a new country.

But locally, there seems to have been a fall-out between the Fenians and the Hibernians, which led to the fatal tit-for-tat.

Stone bridge, Darlington in 1960: the gang of seven came across the bridge in 1875 and began searching for their man in the pubs that surrounded it on the east sideThe night after Henry Stephens was badly beaten, a seven-strong gang came marching over the Stone Bridge, clearly looking for someone.

First, one of their number called at the Malt Shovel Inn (now the Cricketers). No joy.

Then, the same man called at the Lord Nelson Inn (cleared in the early 1960s to let the inner ring road run). "He's not there," he was heard to say as he rejoined the group.

Kilcran had, in fact, just left the pub. Indeed, one of the gang spotted him crossing Parkgate towards the Greyhound Inn, and called his name.

Parkgate in 1903 when the River Skerne was in flood with the original Greyhound pub in the distance and St Hilda's Church on the extreme left, before the street was reshaped with the building of the Hippodrome. John Kilcran was murdered somewhere hereKilcran, a 42-year-old bricklayer’s labourer, stopped in the middle of the road and turned round.

Perhaps he knew what was coming. "It is a rather singular circumstance that this unfortunate man was attacked under somewhat similar circumstances two years ago," said the Echo. "Among his other frightful injuries he had one of his hips broken, and he then recovered, much to the astonishment of his medical attendant."

A 1920 postcard looking down Parkgate towards Darlington town centre. The murder in 1875 happened in the middle of the streetAt 9.50pm on Easter Sunday in the middle of Parkgate, he was struck several times in the face. He put his hands up to defend himself, whereupon a second assailant drew an object from his right trouser pocket and struck him a blow so hard that it made a noise like a pistol firing (it was his skull fracturing, a surgeon later told the court).

Kilcran fell to the ground. As he went down, he said: "Oh, I'm done."

A couple more gang members then kicked him before the general hullabaloo and cries of "murder, murder" caused them to flee.

From The Northern EchoBleeding profusely, Kilcran was carried homewards. In Park Street he was met by his wife, hurrying out to discover what the fuss was about. As he was taken into their home in Church Street (opposite St Cuthbert’s Church, now beneath the inner ring-road) where they lived in a single room with their four small children, he gave the names of his attackers: James Durkin, James Flynn and Michael Gilligan.

Said the Echo: "Since stating who were his assailants, Kilcran has never spoken; his head is fractured in a frightful manner and he lies at home in Church Street."

Kilcran's injuries were indeed frightful: his brain was pierced by the unknown weapon to the depth of an inch, and he died soon afterwards.

From The Northern EchoJames Durkin, 33, and James Flynn, 21, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting murder. Durkin was said to be the out-rider who called in the pubs, searching, and he had stood over the victim, kicking.

Then PC Ianson arrested Michael Gilligan, 22, and accused him of striking the pistol-like blow. Gilligan told him: "I never saw Kilcran that night. I never touched him. I'd been helping a man named Charles Geldart to do his cousin Mick's horses."

From The Northern EchoSergeant John Bowman charged Gilligan with murder. "He replied: 'I never did it. I was distributing cards for a concert in the Livingstone Hall (which used to be in High Northgate on the corner with Westbrook Villas), and after that I was with a man named John King collecting money to build a tower for the chapel, and never was in their (the gang's) company that night'."

It may seem a perfect alibi to say that you were not at the scene of a murder because you were collecting money for the local church and the prosecution at Durham Assizes on July 14, 1875, didn't bother examining it.

Four witnesses, though, saw Gilligan strike the fatal blow. "Gilligan, as soon as the noise went, whirled his hand round as though wrapping something round his hand and put it in his trouser pocket at the right hand," John Rickaby, a butcher's assistant, told the court.

It was a hell of a blow – a surgeon in the witness box produced a portion of Kilcran's skull to show how it had been staved in by "a blow of great violence".The newly built Darlington Hippodrome in Parkgate in 1907: John Kilcran was murdered somewhere near here

Yet the prosecution case had many flaws. It didn’t provide a motive for the attack; it didn’t test either of Gilligan’s dubious alibis; it couldn’t prove that Gilligan – a quiet fellow – knew Kilcran; it hadn’t found any weapon, and the police had failed to trace the other gang members, including a shadowy figure called “Black Doolan”.

Defending, Mr Blackwell said "he had never heard a case where evidence was so slight as that against the man Gilligan".

He said: "Because a man belongs to the sister country of dear old Ireland, was he to be a murderer?''

In the eyes of the jury, the answer was yes. After just 15 minutes deliberation, they found him guilty.

“May the cries of my wife and two children be upon the jury," Gilligan shouted at them. "I swear that I am innocent of the charge against me."

The trial at Durham Assizes on July 14, 1875"Prisoner's voice here faltered," continued The Northern Echo, "and he ceased speaking.

"His lordship then assumed the black cap and, in passing sentence, seemed to labour under great emotion. After a pause, amidst breathless silence, he said: 'I am satisfied from the evidence that the jury has arrived at a proper and just verdict.

'''You committed a fellow man into the other world without the least chance of preparation; but more consideration will be offered to you than you gave him to prepare.

"'You will have the advantage in the prison of spiritual advice, and I implore you to throw aside any hope that mercy will be extended to you, and to prepare for the expiation of your crime by your death on the scaffold'.''

Then the judge sentenced Flynn and Durkin to 15 years penal servitude for aiding and abetting the murder. As he did so, Durkin said: "I had no ill feeling against John Kilcran. I know that he had been transported for both rape and robbery, which he got at York.

"I swear to God that Gilligan was not the man who struck him. One of the witnesses said that the man who struck him had light trousers with black spots, and I swear he was the man who did it."

Gilligan was led away.

But the Irish community in Darlington were convinced of his innocence. Father Turnerelli, a Catholic priest, chaired a meeting of Irish Catholics in St William's church hall, in Albert Hill, which was the heart of the Irish community. A few Irishmen had reached the district before the great potato famine of the late 1840s, and they worked on the land. Then young Irish women found employment in Darlington's textile mills. But it was not until 1854, when ironworks were founded on Albert Hill, that the unskilled Irishmen came flooding over.

By 1875 the Hill's four ironworks employed 3,500 men and boys out of a male population in the town of 15,300. A significant proportion of those 3,500 were Irish.

Fr Turnerelli’s meeting passed a resolution deploring the violence within the community, reminding the people of Darlington that the perpetrators were a minority, and urging Irishmen to stay out of the pubs.

Fr Turnerelli's resolution finished: "Every effort should be used in order to save the life of the convict Gilligan, inasmuch as it was the firm conviction of his fellow countrymen in Darlington that he was not the man who murdered Kilcran."

In those last days, Gilligan denied he was part of the gang which had attached Kilcran and said he was only in the area because he was returning home having distributed leaflets promoting a concert in Northgate to raise money for the chapel tower.

The Darlington and Stockton Times went further. One of its columnists wrote: "I hear that a petition has been signed at one of the Darlington Roman Catholic chapels in favour of Gilligan. I am told that some of the witnesses who appeared against him are not the most creditable characters, and that those who know anything of them would hesitate in hanging a cat on their evidence."

The Home Secretary rejected the petition and the pleas.

Parkgate, Darlington, where John Kilcran was murdered in 1875From his jail cell, Gilligan wrote a painful last letter to his brother, Martin, in Darlington.

"I should like you to come and pournance the last words of ferewell with me at Durham, as that fatal hour is drawing nie whitch is to take my Innasend life away, dear brother. I am not relaying upon a reaprive, " he wrote.

"I would rather die than bare the name of a murderer, for my god still stands by me, and will cheere up my wounded heart, and give me curage for to die.

"My dear brother, I hope you will looke with kindness towards my poor mother whitch I leave broken hearted behind me as I cannot expect you to do anything for my poore wife and children, I hope here friends will receive here still with Kindness as this fond heart that now lies in chains can never more return to assist here."

He was 22. He had sailed to Liverpool when he was 16 with his young wife so heavily pregnant that she gave birth to their son, Michael, on the boat. They had a second son, Stephen, in Darlington.

As the fatal hour approached, Gilligan understandably became frantic. He admitted being part of the seven-man gang, but said it had been one of his co-accused who had struck the fatal blow. Then he claimed the killer had fled to the US. But it was too late…

READ MORE: THE HANGMAN GETS TO WORK ON THE SOUTH DURHAM TRIO