|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Irish-Fenian Connection, The
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Irish-Fenian Connection, The
Author: A. Dylan Gable
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:28 pm |        | I did some research today on the JTR-Irish connection (initially just some Mary Kelly-related genealogy) and turned up some VERY interesting things. First off, ALL victim names occur in Ireland, though often in different forms.
NICHOLLS
Prevalent in County Tyrone (North Ireland). Derived from the old name Mac Nicholl. If I had to guess, I would say that Polly Nicholls' family were recent Irish immigrants, probably immigrating in the seventeenth century or later.
CHAPMAN
Although ostensibly an English last name, it is also present in central Ireland, particularly Counties Roscommon, Westmeath, Wexford, Clare, and Dublin.
STRIDE
If memory serves me correctly, Elizabeth Stride's last name in Sweden was Gustafsson (??). The name Stride, however, is derived from the Old English word STREIT (street), and appears in Irish as Stritch--thus the Irish Stritches are relatives of the Strides. The name is prevalent in County Limerick.
EDDOWES
Last names of derivation similar to Eddowes include Ediss, Edhouse, and Eddis--two other names, Edwards and Ely, are related in derivation but not by blood to Eddowes. Both names appear in County Kilkenny.
KELLY
Derived from either Mac Kelly or O'Kelly. If Mac Kelly, the name is prevalent in eastern Connacht. If O'Kelly, prevalent in Counties Derry, Galway, Meath (coincidently referred to as the "Heart Province") and Wicklow. Both the Mac Kellys and O'Kellys have dropped the prefixes, thus both are now Kelly. Kelly is the second most common name in Ireland.
Another interesting breakthrough concerns the man named Lusk and the letter connected with him. In that letter he is called "Mishter Lushk"--which is not really a misspelling. Lusk is a common name in the area of Belfast. "Lushk" is how an Irishman pronounces the name.
Plus, the Hell Fire Club of which I spoke first came to power in Ireland. D'Onston did NOT come from a Hell Fire club per se; most were broken up in the early 1800s. However, he was associated with certain groups that certainly owe a debt to them. |
Author: A. Dylan Gable
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:29 pm | | Checked some more stuff today on the JTR-Irish connections, and here's what I found out.
- A man by the name of O'Kelly was arrested in July of 1888 for inciting a riot.
- There were two Kellys prominent in Victorian Ireland--Mary E. Kelly, a poet, who lived from 1826-1910 and Colonel T.J. Kelly, a prominent Fenian involved in the "Manchester Martyr" affair of the 1860s and who lived from 1833-1908.
- The Invincibles, a secret socity of anti-British extremists, were prevalent in Victorian Ireland. The Invincibles, part of the notorious "Phoenix Club", stalked by night, terrorizing British landlords and officials. Their methods, which were "usually disgusting", consisted mainly of maiming.
- Most eerie of all, two British government officials, Lord Frederick Cavendish and T.H. Burke, were slashed to death with surgical knives in Phoenix Park, Dublin on the night of May 6, 1882 by the Invincibles. |
Author: A. Dylan Gable
Saturday, 14 November 1998 - 02:29 pm | | Just found out something potentially VERY vital to the JTR-Fenian connection in F.S.L. Lyons' "Charles Stewart Parnell." On page 408, in a discussion of the second and most inflammatory of the London Times articles, they mention the author of the article: a certain "R.A. Anderson, who, since 1867, had been adviser to the Home Office in matters relating to political crime and who in 1888 was promoted to headf of the Criminal Investigation Department."
Looks like we could definitely have a motive here.
And looking at pictures of Parnell, he DOES look like certain descriptions of JTR... |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Thursday, 30 March 2000 - 06:04 am | | This board has been dead for some time, and probably deservedly so. But didn't I read (in an old copy of The Ripperologist?) that the Ripper knife that Donald Rumbelow had was allegedly used in the Phoenix Park murders? And somewhere else that Tumblety (a Fenian sympathizer) was implicated as being the unnamed American Doctor that financed the Phoenix park killings? (Boy, this guy got around!). This last bit sounds highly unlikely to me, especially considering that John Littlechild worked on the Phoenix Park case, and if Tumblety had been even slightly implicated, he probably would have mentioned this in his letter to G.R.Sims.
Oh well.
Cheers. |
Author: Christopher T. George
Friday, 31 March 2000 - 02:52 am | | Hello, R.J.:
I am glad that you have started this board back up again. Although there is no proven connection between the Whitechapel murders and the Fenians there are some intriguing indications that Tumblety or some other Irish sympathizers might have connections to the case. For example, did Littlechild know about Tumblety because he was a suspect in the Whitechapel murders solely, or did he know about him because he had been monitoring his movements because he was a Special Branch officer engaged in investigating the Fenians?
This is something that I asked Stewart about in the interview I did with him for Ripper Notes, Volume 1, No. 3, November 1999:
CG: Littlechild may have known Tumblety through his investigation of the doctor's Fenian or Irish nationalist activities. We know a file on Tumblety existed at Scotland Yard which has since disappeared. Isn't it possible the file mainly focused on Tumblety as a Fenian rather than as a suspect in the murders?
SE: Yes, Chief Inspector Littlechild probably did know of Tumblety because of his Irish connections, after all this was Littlechild's special area of concern. But that still does not alter that fact that we know that Littlechild also considered him a "very likely" suspect for the Whitechapel murders. Don't forget Douglas Browne consulted the Yard files in the mid 1950's, when a lot was still there that is now missing, and said that Macnaghten actually identified the Ripper "with the leader of a plot to assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office." We have no idea what he saw which made him say this. The file, or dossier, probably did contain more on Tumblety as a Fenian rather than as a suspect in the Whitechapel murders, we have never suggested otherwise. But a mention from the official files of why he was suspected in regard to the murders would be very nice to find. It must be remembered that, whatever the police suspicions were against any suspect, they had no hard evidence of guilt.
*******************************
Now as for the Rumbelow knife, I believe the only connection that his knife has with either the Ripper killings or the Phoenix Park murders is that it was made by the same manufacturer, John Weiss, who is believed to have made the knives used in the Phoenix Park murders of May 6, 1882. In Nick Warren's rather rambling essay on the Irish connections and the possibility of an Irish Catholic conspiracy, "The Great Conspiracy," in Jakubowski and Braun's "Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper," pp. 364-84, there is some discussion of these knives on pp. 381-4.
The scenario that Warren paints in the concluding words to this article are probably as far-fetched as the cover-up Stephen Knight and Melvyn Fairclough envision for their Royal conspiracy theory. As in the Royal nonsense, Warren's plot makes as free use of hypothesis and conjecture and the thought that a government can be brought down so easily that officials are busily running round trying to shore it up:
"The Ripper knives firmly connected the Irish Nationalist cause with a series of murders which would not just have brought down their own political aims, but also the entire Liberal opposition. Therefore the Conservative government of the day negotiated the following settlement. Details of the murder investigation would be suppressed in return for calling off the dynamite attacks on London and the attempts on the lives of Balfout and Queen Victoria. And so the murders of five London prostitutes would be subsumed to the interests of the political status quo. Police enquiries (in a half-hearted way) persisted into 1889, just to make sure that the uneasy truce was being maintained. No wonder James Monro referred to the entire affair as a 'political hot potato.'"
Is Warren onto something here? Without the missing file on Tumblety and any other Special Branch file that might have information on a connection between the Fenians and the Ripper murders, we don't know. Stewart has told me that such Special Branch files will not be released. Because of the ongoing troubles in Ireland, no such files are released by the British government because even old files may reveal names connected with descendents who may today be acting as informants on the IRA. So in that sense, there is even today a political reason to suppress information, even old material, but is what is not being released anything that might indicate that the Irish were behind the Ripper killings? In truth, it is hard to see how these murders, which were, after all, seemingly sexual serial killings, could be linked to politics. In "buying into" Warren's theory one has to, as with the best of Knight or Fairclough, seemingly suspend one's disbelief at the door and wish to enjoy a rollicking good conspiracy.
Chris George |
Author: Neil K. MacMillan
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 02:41 pm | | | A question here. Obviously as a new comer to ripperology, you gents have more savvy in this area but how would killing Whitechapel protitutes advance the Fenian/Irish Republican Brotherhood cause? Initially, the killings were ignored and recieved little press coverage. Even in those days, the Irish Nationalists (For lack of a better term and trying to avoid repitition) were going as much for press coverage as specifically murdering people. WOuld they not have targeted the upper class and the military? Kindest reguards, Neil |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 03:25 pm | | Hi, Neil:
I entirely agree with you. How would the killing of prostitutes, in what seemingly were sexual serial killings advance the cause of Irish nationalism? I don't see it except for the fact that it did absorb a lot of manpower and distract police attention from other areas of London where the Fenians might operate. Even that reason seems weak.
You might be interested to know that Casebook Productions will hold our first discussion for a while on "Jack the Ripper: An Irish Connection?" at 7:00 p.m. on St. Patrick's Day, Saturday, March 17, 2001 at http://www.casebook-productions.org/main.htm We will be holding chats on a monthly or two-monthly basis thereafter. We invite you to join us.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Jade Bakys
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 06:01 pm | | Hi Neil
you might already be aware of this but the well known Phoenix Park Murders in 1882 were carried out by a splinter group of the Feniens. They murdered Lord Frederick Cavendish, and a senior Irish civil servant, speculation by Nick Warren on the modus operandi, and the weapons used have some link with the murder of the whitechapel prostitutes and one of the knives used in the assassination is supposed to have been presented to Don Rumbelow, by Dorothy Stroud and is said to have been one of two found in Mary Kelly's room. Then again I remain open minded, and is it again another yarn allowing the theory to fit some rather dubious facts. Kelly's death has more sinister implications than being the viction of a serial sex fiend, she is supposed to have some dubious Irish connections, as Warren say's in his essay: 'Certainly Kelly told Barnett that she feared for her own saftey, apparently believing that she knew who jack the Ripper was'. Nick Warren, 'The Great Conspiracy' Mammoth Book of Jack blah, blah, page380. I think the last part of the above statement negates the entire theory.
Hi Chris
I hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you think the killer had a sexual motivation? this is something that puzzles me, and I read some other posting re this elsewhere on the site but didn't glean any satisfactory conclusions. IMHO I think the murders were more ritualistic than sexual, although ritual killings do often have sexual undertones if it had fitted the ritual/sexual modus operandi the killer is likely to have ejaculated on the victims, or inside the hole cut in the abdomens. I don't want to go into this in much detail, because it's not a subject that is pleasant to discuss, but did he ever leave a calling card of this nature? |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 06:07 pm | | Dear Neill,
Its meself. You could try my tight-lipped & deaf grandfather, Littlechild. A wonderful example of the Millenarians Inc. And keeping one's mouth shut
Love,
(Loosey lips)
Rosemary |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 23 February 2001 - 11:12 pm | | Hi Jade:
I think it is clear that the murderer was a sexual serial killer. He did not have to have an orgasm at the scene of the crime, particularly if he was taking "trophies" away with him to enjoy and live the crime over again later as he handled them. He targeted women, stabbed them in the lower abdomen, took away the uterus, which is a sexual organ, removed Kelly's breasts, and so on. I think all the indications are that he was a lust murderer, killing for sexual gratification.
All the best
Chris George |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 06:20 am | | Dear Chris,
Never in the history of theft, has there be such an instance of such a singular theft. Jack was certainly a pioneer...in more ways than One. So,
whaddya do with a uterus, Chris? :-)
Love,
Rosemary |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 06:47 am | | | I have a vague recollection from a TV prog some months ago that Tumblety collected Uterus, what is the plural Uteri? It must have been a bit of a fad in the 1880's. Also I read of another murder that of Hannah Brown in 1836, and she didn't have a uterus at all when her torso was found, it hadn't been removed, she apparently didn't have one. |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 07:18 am | | | Another piece of useless information the Fenien Michael Barrett was the last man to be hanged (1868) in public for his part in the Fenien Plot to free two prisoners. |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 07:50 am | | Jade - In re the seminal 'calling card', Dr Frederick Gordon Brown's report on Katherine Eddowes' body as it was found in the square includes the words, 'no... secretion of any kind on the thighs'. His full post mortem report on the body in the mortuary adds 'no indications of connexion'.
What I find most interesting about these observations is the fact that Brown went looking for deposits. I was fascinated to see the probability that even the prudery of the late Victorian era didn't prevent a doctor from anticipating signs of premature ejaculation or masturbation over the victim in a violent assault on th genital region. Also, if the search for evidence of sexual activity was a standard part of such post mortems, the absence of any comment in Dr Bond's report put paid to Donston Stephenson's repulsive tale of evidence that the Ripper sodomized his victims.
Martin F |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 08:28 am | | | From what I understand of psychiatry re the modus operandi of sexual serial killers it is the ultimate, or culminating act to ejaculate over the victim, or in a wound, or hole cut in the victim that is why I find it difficult to accept that Jack was a sexual serial killer, was there any such indications or connexion observed at Mary Kelly's post mortem, he had plenty of time to enjoy both violence and satisfy his warped libido. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 09:19 am | | What if Jack were physically totally impotent? I guess the urge might still be there. If the spirit was willing but the flesh weak, no matter what Jack tried next, maybe even Mary Kelly didn't prove his ultimate companion after all, hence the extent of her destruction reflecting his total frustration, not his total fulfilment. Perhaps we should look at the suicides again...
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 09:28 am | | Jade
You are not alone in questioning that SSK label given to Jack.
I have made similar observations, and so have a couple of other posters.
The label SSK is too broad and I have maintained that you can only know, for sure, what his motive was once the killer was caught, and as he never was, then we can only speculate.
The fact that he attacked women who were vulnerable, out late & drunk only suggests he was the domineering type, singling out the weaker candidates. This does not 'by-defacto' mean sex was the motive.
Jack targetted the organs (Chapman & Eddowes) and he displayed 'some' anatomical knowledge. The typical 'man-in-the-street' identifies certain body organs as of sexual desire, usually the breasts & vagina. Jack made no attempt to carve out or stab at their breasts or vagina.
When he stabbed the knife into the 'lower abdomen' and ripped upwards to the breastbone, he was opening the abdomen to get at the organs, not attacking the vagina.
Even with the case of Mary Kelly some will argue "he removed the breast & vagina", sure he did, he removed almost everything else too, so you cannot single out that as 'evidence of sexual motivation', the very act of stripping flesh from the body of your victim is similar to removing her facial features (dehumanizing), only extended seven-fold across her body.
What Jack did to his victim after she was dead is NOT motive, whatever motivated him to kill her has now passed, when carving her up, the killer is in euphoria, on a high, and dare I say 'having fun'?.
The ordinary layperson does not know how to find a kidney or uterus, let alone how to remove them. There is no question that certain details in these crimes have sexual connotations, much the same as a midnight burgler might ransack a house for jewels and cash, but because he raped the women he found there living alone, does not make the burglery a sex crime.
In modern psychological terms Jack was a SSK, but until we know his motive, this label is only speculation.
Everytime I get involved in this topic is sets loose the hounds of hell :-)
There are some very strong opinions about this SSK label, but the subject is far from open-and-shut.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 09:51 am | | | Hmm but a murderer who kills and then commits suicide is often the mass murderer type. I am generalising here, so please ripperologists don't give me an endless list of psychotic/sexual serial killers who have committed suicideJ |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 11:21 am | | Dear All,
I suggest that the subject of the "Uterus" be moved to a more appropriate department, Forensic?
Tris, my new assistant, is even now dusting down the old set of odd volumes, and hanging my new chintz curtains.Dinner at 6. Informal dress.
RSVP
Rosemary. |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 11:41 am | | | Is it fried uterus by an chance? J |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 12:32 pm | | Hope not. I'm sure Rosemary doesn't want to make her new-found forens sic.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 03:11 pm | | | I wonder if Rosemary has a suitable place in mind for her casual chit-chat. |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 03:22 pm | | | LOL J wonderful word salad! |
Author: Jack D. Killian
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 03:45 pm | | I am with you Jon.
If we could somehow discover his motive, that could bring us closer to his identification.
Why did he do the things he did? Did he envy? Could he not interact with whole, live women? Did he covet? Did he want to get inside? Did he want to become?
If there was something noticably unusal which we could determine about him, which sets him apart from others and drove him to do his unusal acts, then there could be a chance to find some records which could link his identity.
JD |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Saturday, 24 February 2001 - 06:24 pm | | Dear Jack,
I second that Jack! :-)
Love,
Rosemary |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 25 February 2001 - 06:03 pm | | Might as well get some of the political criminal
history straighter than it is here:
In 1868, Michael Barratt was arrested with several
others, and tried for what is called the "Clerkenwell Outrage". This was an attempt in
December 1867, to explode a large amount of
gunpowder against the wall of Clerkenwell Prison
in London, to rescue to Fenian leaders, Burke
and Casey. Many in the area were killed in
the explosion, but the two Fenians were not able
to escape. Barratt was found guilty of murder
in April 1868, and executed in the last public
execution. But in recent reexaminations of the
evidence, Barratt's identification as the man
who set off the barrel is highly questionable.
See THE FENIANS IN ENGLAND: 1865 - 1872 by Patrick Quinlivan & Paul Rose (London: John Calder, 1982)
The Phoenix Park Assassinations were planned for
May 2, 1882, in the park of that name outside of
the government buildings in Dublin. That day
Lord Frederick Cavendish, the brother of the
Duke of Devonshire (a leading Whig, and member of
Gladstone's government)arrived in Dublin to take
up his duties as Chief Secretary for the Viceroy
in Dublin. There had been a ceremony, and Cavendish was taking a walk with his chief assistant, Mr. Thomas Burke, a native Irishman.
It was Burke who was targeted for the assassination by the Fenian group called the
"Invincibles". The finger man for the assassins
was a leading merchant and Dublin councilor named
James Carey. He was in the park waiting near
a lane that Burke took his walk at. When Burke
and Cavendish showed up, Carey pointed at Burke.
The "Invincibles" jumped out of a waiting cart
and attacked BURKE, slashing him to death. Actually that was all they planned to do, but
Lord Frederick tried to stop them, so they attacked him too. It was the only major political assassination to hit the English Isles
in the Victorian era (although, the Viceroy of
India, the Earl of Mayo, was murdered on a visit
to a prison in the Andaman Islands in 1872).
As the victims were so important, this became the
police hunt of the year. It was aided when someone pointed out Carey as the man who gave the
signal. Carey, facing execution, turned in the
Invicibles, all of whom were executed by the end of the year. Unfortunately, that did not end this particular incident.
The authorities had to get rid of James Carey, now widely considered a blood-stained monster by
both pro-Irish and pro-English forces. He was
shipped by boat to South Africa, but "by sheer
chance" (?) a Fenian named Patrick O'Donnell was on the same boat, and shot Carey to death off the
coast of Durban. Now O'Donnell was brought back
to London to stand trial for murder, and (although defended by the great Charles Russell*)
he was found guilty and hanged in December 1883.
[*Later Lord Chief Justice. He defended Charles
Steward Parnell during the Times Inquiries before
Parliament in 1887 - 1889, and (in 1889) tried to
win acquittal of Florence Maybrick!]
There was a lot of suggestions that American Irish Fenians were behind the Phoenix Park Assassinations. In the 1880s, most of the active
Irish terrorism was from American sources, where
the Irish immigrants made a powerful voting block, and had money. Among other things, they
financed John P. Holland's early attempts to build a submarine (to sink the British fleet, of
course). The American Fenians would be responsible for the bombings in London in the
1880s, which would end by bringing Sir Robert
Anderson to London.
Jeff Bloomfield |
Author: Jade Bakys
Sunday, 25 February 2001 - 06:33 pm | | It was tongue in cheek Jeff, I only mentioned it because of our own Mike Barret, I was going to put a little quip at the end that I hope our Mike protesting his innocence doesn't end up the same way. I didn't think the snippet of useless information needed elaboration; although I have more than enough knowledge of the history concerning both Michael Barret (1868) and the 'Phoenix Park Murders I didn't think it was relevant to give the history in my posts. I was giving Neil a very generalised overview of a conspiracy theory by Nick Warren, not giving a history lecture on the 'Phoenix Park Murders' and its Fenien background.
Sorry if I appear put out, but you could have put it better than 'Put some of the political criminal history straighter than it is here'. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 26 February 2001 - 08:22 pm | | I stand honestly rebuked, and I apologize to
Jade and the others for that rather stiff, and
pompous line, about putting some of the political
criminal history straighter. I will really try
not to let it happen again.
Jeff |
Author: Jade Bakys
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 09:20 am | | Thankyou Jeff
You are indeed a gentleman, sorry for being so defensive in tone of my previous posting. I have emailed you.
Best regrads
Jade |
Author: Billy Markland
Monday, 25 November 2002 - 10:12 am | | Jade & Jeff, my thanks for your explanations. Your background helped put into perspective some of the issues I have been reading about within the U.S. State Department papers from London, particularly the Sackville case (he seems to have been "set-up" by Irish living in America from scanning the documents filmed). This also provides some background to the dynamite case which I have recently been reading about. An American named Noll was convicted with two brothers in one such plot and there are quite a few letters in 1891-1892 attempting to have him released. Robert Todd Lincoln, U.S. Consul to Great Britain, working in the background, had formulated a strategy of waiting till the principal participants were released, which was predicted to occur soon (one had saved a guard from drowning and his brother? had also been a model prisoner). However, the strategy was negated by Noll's family circumventing the State Department and basically getting Sir Henry Matthews' dander up.
Thanks,
Billy |
|
|
|
|
