The last exe**cution by han**ging in Ireland

The last execution by hanging in Ireland took place 67 years ago today, on 20 April 1954 when 25 year old Michael Manning was executed.

67 years ago today, on April 20, 1954, a chapter in Irish legal history closed when Michael Manning, a 25-year-old carter from Limerick, became the 29th and last person to be legally executed in Ireland. 

He had raped and murdered Catherine Cooper (65) who worked at Barrington’s Hospital, in Limerick, in February 1953. 

He was found by the Gardai (police) because he had left a distinctive hat at the scene of the crime and was found with the yellow beret his victim had been wearing. 

Manning’s headpiece was, as Dermot Walsh described in his book on the case, Beneath Cannock’s Clock, a “Mountie hat”. 

It had a high conical shape, pinched into panes at the tip, and was otherwise known as a Baden Powell hat after the founder of the scouting movement.

Manning was sentenced to death despite the fact that the victim’s family had petitioned to court to show him mercy. 

The execution was carried out by Albert Pierrepoint, who had traveled from Britain where he was one of three Senior Executioners.

Pierrepoint executed at least 400 people in his career as a hangman – 13 of those in Mountjoy. 

Pierrepoint told of himself: that he had hanged a man “in less time than it took the ash to fall off a cigar I had left half-smoked in my room at Pentonville [prison]”. 

The ropes used are still in Mounjoy's museum as is "the hanging dummy" which was used to test the scaffold by filling a dummy with sand to equal the weight of the condemned man before the actual execution.

The dummy, and later the condemned person would be dropped through the trapdoor when the executioner would release the lever.

45 men and one woman were hanged in Mountjoy between 1901 and 1954. 

They included the young Kevin Barry and nine other volunteers executed during the War of Independence and buried on the prison grounds until their remains were disinterred in 2001. 

The first man hanged in Mountjoy was John Tooole who was executed on 7 March 1901 for the murder of Lizzie Brennan on Charlemont Street in Dublin. 

Annie Walsh was the only woman hanged there when she was executed on 5 August1925 for the murder of her husband Ned. 

The last execution was that of Michael Manning, 67 years ago today on 20 April 1954. Manning left a wife who was pregnant at the time of the murder. 

His body was buried in an unmarked grave in a yard at Mountjoy Prison.

In 1964 the Criminal Justice Act abolished the death sentence apart from the murder of police, diplomats, and prison officers.

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