An Irishman's Diary

A SOMEWHAT grisly anniversary falls due in Derry this coming December, when it will be exactly 250 years since the departure from this world of a man called John “Half-hanged” MacNaghten.

The manner of his departure is hinted at in the name. But half-hanging was, of necessity, only the penultimate drama of his life, and there had been many other dramas before it. In fact, the story of MacNaghten and the woman he died for could be seen as a warped Irish version of Romeo and Juliet; if only you can ignore the wide age gap between the lovers and the possibility that, in this case, Romeo may also have been after Juliet's money.

Born in 1722, MacNaghten had started life the son of a wealthy merchant. Thus, when he graduated from Trinity College Dublin, he had no need to pursue a profession. Instead, as one account put it, he embarked on “a career of dissipation, then too common in Ireland”. His first marriage was doomed by a gambling addiction that eventually led to his arrest, in the family parlour: an event that sent his pregnant wife into a premature labour, fatal to mother and child alike.

MacNaghten himself recovered, however, and his weakness for betting did not prevent him landing a government job in, of all departments, revenue. By then, he needed the money at least as much as the exchequer did. So having squandered the family estate at cards, he also embezzled £800 while collector of taxes in Coleraine.

But by all accounts, his personality, if not his card game, was a winning one. And in what would be a fateful moment for all concerned, a man named Andrew Knox – the owner of a large estate at Prehen, near Derry city – took pity on him. He gave MacNaghten the hospitality of his home and family. And yes, reader, those alarm bells you hear ringing are from the direction of Knox’s 15-year-old daughter, Mary Anne.

Mary Anne was lovely, everyone agreed. She was also wealthy, and liable to become even more so in time. Whichever was the greater attraction, MacNaghten – then in his late 30s – wooed her, with some success. For although she was too young to marry, he secured first-option on her hand, to be realised two years hence.

That was before Andrew Knox found out and strenuously objected. In the face of which, MacNaghten decided to present a fait accompli. He married Mary Anne in a secret ceremony of dubious legitimacy; presented her as his wife to friends; and – after Knox banned him from the house – took out newspaper ads to inform the world of the couple’s alleged status.

When the father had the marriage declared void, MacNaghten was temporarily forced to retreat to England. But he soon came back, by which time Knox had himself decided to bring his daughter overseas, to forget the affair. So now MacNaghten opted for the alternative plan – drastic but not unusual in the 18th century – of kidnapping his bride.

In November 1761, armed and with accomplices, he took up position in the woods at Prehen, awaiting the carriage that would take Mary Anne into exile. The group first fired on a blacksmith who was riding shotgun with the Knoxes, disabling him. Then MacNaghten rode up to the carriage and – by accident or recklessness – fired his blunderbuss through its drawn blinds.

The pellets would have hit old man Knox, except that his daughter had thrown her arms around him in the panic. So she was the one hit. Her father in turn fired at MacNaghten, wounding him and forcing the gang to flee. But poor Mary Anne was dead.

Her lover and killer soon found himself in Lifford jail, from where he was brought to court in December, unable to stand and wrapped in a blanket. In obvious pain, he nonetheless defended himself with a skill and energy that impressed witnesses. He was tried along with his chief accomplice, a man named Dunlap. And anxious to save the latter, MacNaghten – who in all his misadventures, was noted for fierce loyalty – pretended they were strangers. To which Dunlap, who was either stupid or determined to hang (in both the modern and ancient meaning of the verb) with his friend, responded by called him “master dear” and protesting emotionally against MacNaghten’s attempts to disown him.

The whole sad story will be retold in a new play, The Wood of the Crows by Stan McGowan, which opens in Derry on November 15th, well in time for the anniversary of the denouement. And in the interests of preserving some of the suspense, anyone intending to see the play should perhaps look away now.

For those of you still with us, meanwhile, MacNaghten’s end came on December 15th, 1761: when it might well have been said that nothing in life became him like the manner of his leaving. He went to the gallows dressed in mourning for the girl he claimed to love. And having had to be carried up the ladder, he is said to have thrown himself to his death with a force that caused the rope to snap.

He might have escaped then. Indeed he was encouraged to so by the crowd, who had adopted him as a Christy Mahon-type hero. Instead, he voluntarily remounted the ladder and borrowed another noose – the one around Dunlap’s neck – declaring his determination not to live and be called “the half-hanged man”. So he didn’t live. And they called him that anyway.