The Cormack brothers from Loughmore, William and Daniel, were hanged outside Nenagh Gaol on this day in 1858 for the murder of land agent John Ellis. Their well-known story and controversial execution continues to hold much intrigue throughout Tipperary.
John Ellis, from Forfar in Scotland, had been land agent and farm manager for John Trant of Dovea for over 25 years. Shortly before midnight on 22 October 1857, as he was being driven home from Templemore Railway station by his servant Thomas Burke, he was shot and killed at Killahara.
Arrests followed swiftly and a number of people, including William and Daniel, were detained. The brothers maintained that they had played no part in the crime. Being a land agent, Ellis had as many enemies as he had Irish tenants. The commonly held view at the time was that a local landlord had shot Ellis in a crime of passion involving Ellis’s sister, and that the Cormacks had been framed for murder.
Nevertheless, justice was swift and blind – oblivious, in fact, to overt perjury inside the court and palpable outrage outside. The brothers were found guilty at a joint trial and as Judge Keogh pronounced the death sentence, Daniel Cormack uttered the words, “my Lord, we are as innocent as the child born last night”. Thomas Burke, Ellis’s driver on the night he had been shot, allegedly later admitted the evidence he had given was not true. The authorities took no action for perjury.
The execution took place on 11 May 1858 outside Nenagh Gaol. The brothers were buried near where they fell. Incidentally, theirs was to be the last execution in Nenagh. There were continued efforts over the following months to reopen the case, with questions asked in parliament, but to no avail.
Fifty years later, a local committee in Loughmore succeeded in bringing their bodies home. On 11 May 1910, the funeral procession from Nenagh to Loughmore was reported as being in the tens of thousands. It was a massive show of defiance of British rule and served as a powerful propaganda boost for the Nationalist movement. One of the speakers in the village was John Dillon MP.
The brothers were buried in a large mausoleum in the churchyard in Loughmore. On the wall is an inscription claiming the brothers’ innocence.
Sources:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/the-village-that-came-together-to-make-a-film-about-injustice-1.2121827
The Nenagh Guardian, 10/05/2008, p6.
The Nenagh Guardian, 27/12/1997, p7.
