Recent columns about James “Skin the Goat” Fitzharris, cabdriver at the Phoenix Park murders of 1882, brought a letter from Jim Sutton of the New Ross Historical Society.
He was recalling a story told by Andy Minihan, chairman of the local district council, who had global fame thrust upon him when hosting John F Kennedy’s visit to New Ross in June 1963.
Five months later, Minihan had the sad task of attending Kennedy’s funeral, which involved first flying to New York. In a taxi from the airport there, he got chatting to the driver, a man with Wexford roots, and asked his name.
“Jim Fitzharris,” said the driver. “Christ!” exclaimed Minihan, a student of history; “Skin the Goat!” To which the driver replied: “He was my great granduncle.”
Minihan was fascinated to discover that this Fitzharris, of three generations’ descent, was also a cabdriver. He must also have been struck by the fact that it was another political assassination that brought them together.
In any case, the story has since sent me down an archival rabbit hole wherein I learned that the original Skin-the-Goat made it to the Big Apple too once, briefly.
That was in June 1900, not long after he had completed a 16-year jail sentence for his part in the 1882 conspiracy. Although in his late 60s by then, he was back in the job market.
But whether he might have reinvented himself as a New York cabbie, we’ll never know, because from the moment he landed on American soil, he was followed by the 1900 version of Donald Trump’s ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents, who ensured the visit would be a short one.
Fitzharris’s arrival at Queenstown (now Cobh) for the outbound trip, accompanied by another veteran of the Phoenix Park conspiracy, Joe Mullet, had caused consternation among their fellow passengers.
“Both arrived at Queenstown from Dublin last night by the midnight train,” reported the Kerry Sentinel of 26th May 1900; “and they were scarcely out of the train when a number of persons formed groups and stared at the ex-prisoners in rather an unbecoming way.”
The pair were undaunted by the attention. When one of the starers remarked that prison didn’t seem to have taken much out of him, Fitzharris agreed. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t a chicken they had when they had me.”
As for Mullet, according to the Sentinel, he “sang ‘God Save Ireland’ rather demonstratively” on his way to board the RMS Lucania.
The cheerfulness did not survive New York, however. The two men spent the month of June there under house arrest. And despite political lobbying by Irish nationalist groups, both were then deported back to Queenstown.
They were also charged for the privilege. By his own later account, Fitzharris faced a return to prison in Ireland if he didn’t pay the fare for his deportation, which was raised by supporters in Dublin.
Four years later, in another June, Skin-the-Goat makes an appearance in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Or does he?
We don’t quite know because it happens in the Eumaeus episode, which is written in a clichéd, circumlocutory, adverb-infested style (as if Leopold Bloom or someone else of limited writing skill had taken over the narrative), wherein nothing is clear.
Here’s the relevant passage: Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely, if ever, been before; the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it, said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, Fitzharris, the invincible, though he wouldn’t vouch for the actual facts, which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in.
But a few months after this return from New York, Fitzharris had given an interview with the Evening Herald newspaper, lamenting the lengths to which Dublin Castle was going to prevent him gaining employment.
Back in Dublin in the summer of 1900, he had been offered a job by a “car owner”, dependent on renewal of his driving licence. With this aim, he secured a “memorial influentially signed”. But the licence application was refused.
After that, Fitzharris visited a brother in Widnes, reporting his arrival there to the police as he was required to do. While he was in England, a career in showbusiness briefly opened to him, as a guest in a Liverpool variety theatre.
But his debut was ruined when a question arose as to whether he had reported himself to Liverpool police. This was another Dublin Castle “dodge”, he claimed, sufficient to sink his opening night. As for further appearances, the theatre was warned that those might have long-term implications for its licence.
Giving up on England, Fitzharris then returned to Dublin and tried for a job with the corporation, only to be told there were no vacancies.
Hence the occasion of his Evening Herald interview in December 1900, which was headlined: “A Sad Story. ‘Skin-the-Goat’ in the South Dublin Union.” He had surrendered himself to the workhouse, where he would die 10 years later.
