Finding Mary

The untold story of an Inishowen murder, 1844

Angela Byrne

During a robbery on 10 March 1844, 14-year-old servant Mary Doherty was murdered in a farmhouse near Culdaff, Co. Donegal. There was no doubt locally about the perpetrator’s identity, but there was insufficient evidence against Daniel McKeeny, and he was eventually transported for a separate offence of sheep-stealing. Based on original research, this book reconstructs the world of a north Donegal village on the eve of the Great Famine to explore the approaches to justice taken by the local community and agents of the state, and examines the survival of the murder in local folklore to reflect on memory, remembrance and whose stories get to be told.

Angela Byrne is from Co. Donegal. She works at the Dictionary of Irish Biography and has published widely on women's history, the Irish diaspora and Donegal local history.