School: Fortview, Clones (roll number 15300)

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1. Local Happenings (continued)

   

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   In December 1903, Clones was a town of great publicity with the discovery of one of the greatest murders of the time. A labourer named Patrick Farmer was drawing manure from the rear of the premises in Fermanagh Street. He stuck the grape in a boot, then took it up to examine it as it was a good one. To his horror he discovered there was a foot in it, and owing to decay it came away with the grape at the socket of the ankle. He immediately informed the police of his find. They put a guard to watch over it. Then they arrested a man named Joseph Fee, who was a butcher, residing in Fermanagh Street, and charged him with the murder of some person. But I may state that there was suspicion centered on Fee from the previous April, as there was an egg merchant called John Flanagan who disappeared rather suddenly on a market day, and the last person he was seen with alive was Joseph Fee. Flanigan went to the Ulster Bank and got out a sum of money from the bank manager named Oram, for it was Thursday, the market day, in Clones. Fee saw him drawing out the money and waited for him outside. Fee owed Flanigan some money for a cow he had bought from him some weeks previously. It is presumed that he got Flanagan to accompany him to the house under pretence of wanting to pay him. When Fee was counting out the money he dropped a pound note, and Flanagan stooped to lift it. While he was in this position, Fee hit him on the head with a mallet, and then cut his throat, and as butchers have a peculiar way of

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   Topics

   1. events
      1. hardship (~1,565)

   Language

   English