HC Deb 04 July 1882 vol 271 c1390
MR. TOTTENHAM

I wish to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a Question of which I have given him private Notice. Has the right hon. Gentleman received any information respecting a murder reported to have been committed in Dublin; whether any arrests have been made in consequence of it; and whether he has any reasons to suppose that it is the action of secret societies?

MR. TREVELYAN

I am sorry to say that a murder of a most shocking, and, I may add, ominous and significant, description has taken place in Dublin. The telegram we have says— At 20 minutes to 1 last night two men reported that they heard four shots fired in the direction of Sackville Place, (which is somewhere at the back of the Custom House Docks). They went and found a man on his hands and knees on the footway, apparently dead. He was taken to the hospital, and the doctor pronounced him dead. They found two gun-shot wounds in his head, two gun-shot wounds in his body, and seven stabs over the heart. The shots must have been fired close to the body, as the coat was singed in three places. A person, who was living in the street, said he heard a row taking place; he came out of his door, and heard a stick used heavily on some person, who cried, 'Oh, don't!' and, after a few seconds, he heard four shots. Two respectably-dressed men then rushed past him. Another witness said he saw three or five men run away. The body was identified as that of a man named John Kenny. Constables were sent out in all directions, but nobody has been arrested. On the deceased was a belt, with a buckle made of brass, bearing the words, 'God save Ireland,' and the device of a sun bursting through the clouds, and the letters 'A., L., and O'B.,' which are said to mean Allen, Larking, and O'Brien, the persons who were executed at Manchester.