An Rabach Cummeengeera

Fifty-year-old Cornelius Sullivan Reagh of Cummeengeera, Co Kerry was hanged outside the new courthouse in Tralee in March 1831 for the murder of his aunt some 17 years earlier. His remains were conveyed to the county hospital for dissection and tradition has it his elderly father journeyed to Tralee on horseback to bring home his son’s clothes. Almost two hundred years on, the event remains part of the local folk tradition. This account of the case surveys the records available, and reproduces the accounts of historian James Anthony Froude and folklorist Seán Ó Súilleabháin (with illustrations and biographical notices of each). It also contains a transcription of the trial of Michael Sullivan Rabuck and Denis Sullivan Rabuck in 1839 for the murder of John Sullivan in 1825. The case calls into question the trial of the Rábach in 1831, and the verdict.