Eighty-three years after he was wrongfully executed for murder, the remains of Harry Gleeson were laid to rest in his native village on Sunday, to the accompaniment of music from his own fiddle. He was granted a posthumous pardon by the State in 2015. He had always protested his innocence.
As the coffin was taken from Holycross Abbey on Sunday, Anthony Condron – an in-law of the deceased – played Danny Boy on the German-made violin Gleeson had owned in the years before he was hanged at Mountjoy Prison in April 1941. In the nearby St Michael and St Mary’s Cemetery, where the coffin was lowered to applause, accompanying airs included The Coolin, Carolan’s The South Wind, and Slievenamon. READ MORE France election: Left alliance makes surprise gains to relegate Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to third My then spouse, the person I considered to be my husband, came out as a trans woman during lockdown Cork erupt into the big time to shatter Limerick dreams of five-in-a-row The Irish Camino? St Declan’s Way takes in Ireland at a slower pace Finally, after the grave was covered, Condron played two upbeat hornpipes, Boys of Blue and Harvest Home, to which mourners clapped along.
Earlier, in the church, Ann Gleeson recalled the final letter her granduncle wrote to his defence counsel Seán MacBride on the night before the execution. Tom Gleeson (with the blue tie), during the funeral of his uncle Harry Gleeson at Holycross Abbey, Co Tipperary. Photograph: Alan Betson “Th.
