Archeologists make chilling discovery during search at Mountjoy Prison
Archaeologists have discovered the bodies of 17 prisoners during a search at Mountjoy Prison
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Archaeologists have discovered the bodies of 17 prisoners, including a wrongly hanged inmate, during a search at Ireland's Mountjoy Prison.
Harry Gleeson, 38, was sentenced to death in the 1940s for the murder of a mother-of-seven in County Tipperary. He protested his innocence but was sent to the gallows in 1941.
The farm worker was given a posthumous pardon in 2015, after the trial and evidence was reviewed and he was declared innocent. Now, eighty-three years after he was wrongly convicted, his body has finally been returned home.
The six-month search, organised by the Department of Justice, recovered his remains alongside 16 others during a probe at the prison.
Archaeologists have discovered the bodies of 17 prisoners during a search at Mountjoy PrisonPAGleeson’s remains have been given to his family and he is due to be buried at Holycross Abbey in Tipperary on Sunday afternoon.
The farmer was one of many killed at Mountjoy for various crimes committed between 1923 and 1954.
It is believed that 29 executed prisoners were buried in the jail, with 12 more still to be located. The inmates were known to be buried in the grounds but their exact location was not known.
The remaining bodies will be interred in a Dublin cemetery.
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Eighty-three years after he was wrongly convicted, his body has finally been returned home to County Tipperary
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The Department of Justice said it encourages those who believe they have relatives buried in the prison to contact them and they will try to identify those individuals where possible.
Gleeson discovered the body of Moll McCarthy, the single mother, with two gunshot wounds to the head in November 1940.
Police claimed that Gleeson killed McCarthy to silence her, alleging that he was one of her former lovers who had fathered one of her children.
Gleeson denied these claims but was sentenced to hang five months after discovering the body.
It is believed that 29 executed prisoners were buried in the jail, with 12 more still to be discovered
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His family has always maintained his innocence, and almost a decade ago, he became the first man to be posthumously pardoned by Ireland.
Ahead of his reinterment, the Gleeson family said: “Having languished in an unmarked grave in Mountjoy Prison for 83 years wrongly convicted and hanged for a murder in which he had neither hand, act or part, Harry’s remains can finally rest in peace having been declared an entirely innocent man.”
His nephew, Tom Gleeson, picked up the remains along with his son Keven yesterday. There will be a private wake in Galbertstown where he grew up.
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