Lessons and Carols

Seven days later, ‘The Belfast Newsletter’ of 22 December 1761 carried this account of the execution of John McNaghten.

“Strabane 15 December...This day, agreeable to his sentence, John McNaghten Esq, for the murder of Miss Knox, and Thomas Dunlop, his unfortunate accomplice, were executed in the middle of the road leading from hence to Lifford.

“Mr McNaghten behaved with surprising resolution and courage at his place of execution, and forgave and begged forgiveness for his prosecutors. Dunlop scarcely said anything. Mr McNaghten made so violent a jump from the ladder that he broke his rope and fell to the ground.

“He was then raised and seated on a cart, till another rope was brought, during which time (for he did not appear to be much hurt by the fall) he redoubled his devotion.

“The rope being again fixed, he mounted the ladder again and the same intrepedity as before, having fastened the end of his rope above, threw himself off, and expired immediately.

“They were then both beheaded and their bodies were delivered to their friends who buried them behind the church at Strabane.”

Until the early years of the last century, a memorial notice was inserted on the 15th December in some provincial newspapers recording regret for the passing of Mr McNaghten. Poor Miss Knox, the obvious victim in this messy business, does not claim much of a mention and has been doomed to play a secondary role - as in her short life - to the mighty McNaghten.

Stan McGarvan’s ‘Wood of the Crows’, premiered in the Playhouse a few weeks ago, attempts to redress this centuries old imbalance, and has definitely renewed interest in what could be regarded as a truly disjointed Ulster version of the good old ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story.

The fact that the helpless 15-year-old Mary Ann Knox of Prehen was probably targeted by the much older McNaghten, an incurable gambler, for her considerable legacy and that she was tricked into a sham marriage, has all but vanished from our recollections of the story and has been superceded by an eternally romantic notion of love denied and a tragic, misunderstood hero who suffered death rather than be referred to as ‘Half Hanged’...Beware what you wish for!

McNaghten’s popularity remains constant because he falls so readily into the convenient characterisation of the likeable rogue of noble birth, the rebel with a cause that is beloved by generations upon generations of the Irish - of all creeds, shapes and sizes.

The immediate aftermath, therefore, of John’s death was to turn him into the folk hero that we cherish and so it seems it will remain.

It is certain that nothing that happened in McNaghten’s 39 eventful years could overshadow the manner of his departure, and with the true quirkiness for which our local humour is renowned, he will always be our very own ‘Half Hanged’.

A test of his abiding popularity possibly surfaced soon after his unorthodox passing. An old wives’ tale would have us believe that gentrified young friends of the hapless Miss Knox concocted an effigy of McNaghten (neck suitably askew) and carried it through the streets of Londonderry with the avowed intention of burning it at the Town Hall in the Diamond.

The ordinary townsfolk intervened, rescued the offensive effigy and dismissed the young bloods and thus saved McNaghten from the same fate as one Robert Lundy - another character of local note.

Lundy burning did not claim popularity until the end of the 18th century and could have been upstaged by the McNaghten burning. Disapproval with Lundy, however, remains as permanent as McNaghten’s popularity but their association with local life centuries ago ensures that they will not be forgotten too easily.