At 8 o'clock on the morning of the 18th December 1883, Joseph Poole, a Dublin tailor, was executed in a yard in Richmond Bridewell on the South Circular Road. The son of Fred and Sophia Poole, Joe was was born in the summer of 1855. In 1873 at the age of eighteen he was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood and before the end of the decade the police had become aware of his Fenian activities. By July 1882 he had become an officer in the IRB and was Centre of a Circle that met on the North Lotts, east of the Customs House.

 On the night of the 3rd July he attended a Fenian raffle in the Widow Moran's public house on Cork Hill. At the end of the night he accompanied John Kenny, another Fenian, to Kenny's home near Seville Place. Poole produced a bottle of whiskey and shared it with Kenny, his wife and his neighbours in the small tenement. Around 11.30pm Joe rose to leave. Kenny offered to see him to the end of the lane and out of the maze of small side streets in that area. Shortly after mid-night Kenny was shot and stabbed under the railway arch on Seville Place. A number of men were seen running away.

 Although it was never openly admitted by the authorities, Kenny had been giving information to John Mallon-superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police's (DMP) G division-since 1880 and his life had been threatened on a number of occasions. He was Mallon's prime informer providing information on the lower ranks of the Fenian movement and the pair kept regular appointments. In fact it was Kenny that Mallon was to meet on the evening of 6th May in the Phoenix Park. As Mallon entered the Park that evening one of his detectives warned him about a number of other, known Fenians hanging about. Fearing a threat on his own life Mallon went home without meeting his informer. A short time later the Invincibles 'made history'.

            Joe Poole was arrested the day after the Kenny murder and during the next few days Mallon used the same murder to arrest some of those he suspected of being involved in the assassination of the secretaries in the Park. Ten suspects in all were imprisoned and held indefinitely under the Coercion Act. At the expiration of the act that September, they were released, but Mallon had created a force of plain clothes constables who watched every move made by anyone suspected of suspicious activities. This policy of 'dogging' ex-suspects continued over the next few months and on the night of Saturday 25th November the police re-acted when they observed one of a number of Fenians on Abbey Street, carrying a revolver. A scuffle broke out and shots were fired. A constable was shot dead and one of the Fenians, Christopher Dowling, was injured. A second Fenian, Tom Devine, was arrested. The police had been watching Poole at the time and after a three day search through the city, he too was picked up.

            In February 1883 Dowling was tried for the murder of the constable, found guilty and sentenced to penal servitude for life. By this time the Castle had moved against the Invincibles and had arrested huge numbers of men in Dublin. The best weapon in the authorities' arsenal was the informer and of these there were many. Poole and Devine were held as accessories to the constable's murder but their trials were postponed and eventually Devine began to give information to the authorities. Joe's brother-in-law, William Lamie, a Fenian who had followed Joe from one Circle to another, was also giving information and seems to have been meeting Mallon since late 1882. As the Castle crushed the Invincible conspiracy, he appeared at many of the trials.

            By early summer the authorities realised there was no case against Poole in connection with the Abbey Street affair and in Green Street courthouse the case against him was dropped. However on the steps of the courthouse he was re-arrested, charged with the Kenny murder and placed in the cells of the police station across the street. 

            As the summer continued, he was brought weekly from Kilmainham gaol to Green St. Courthouse, his case was remanded and he was once again returned to prison. Meanwhile Dublin Castle arranged to bring Kenny's wife back from Canada. The star witness for the Crown however was Joe's brother-in-law, Lamie. The trial eventually went ahead on the 12th November and lasted two days. Money was collected in America, Britain and Ireland for the Poole defence fund and with a feeble case the trial ended with a jury who could not agree a verdict. The Castle wasted no time and a second trial date was set one week later. An extraordinary number of jurors were asked to standby ensuring a jury more favourable to the Crown. No new evidence was presented, yet this time Poole was found guilty. 

            Before sentencing he stood in the dock and made a highly eloquent speech in which he declared his innocence and said, “I believe it is on account of being an enemy, humble as I am, of the Government under which I have the misfortune to live, that I have been persecuted in the manner I have been. Still I am not afraid to die, or ashamed of what has brought me to the scaffold, it is not for murder, it is for being a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood that has brought me to the scaffold, and I am prepared to die for it.” 

            His family and friends sought a review of his case and a Memorial went about the city. With nearly three hundred signatures-many of them prominent people, including many of the actual jury-the final say was given to the lord lieutenant, Earl Spencer. He took advise from Superintendent Mallon and Murphy the judge from the trial and decided 'the law must take its course.'            

            The Crown's use of Lamie continued and on the 19th December, the very day after Poole's execution, Lamie, stood in the dock at the trial of the Glasgow dynamitards. Soon after, like all the other 'witnesses' used by Dublin Castle that year, he was spirited away.

            Poole's innocence was at once spoken of and the Irish party brought it up in the House of Commons, but it was only when Frank Grundy was released from prison that the case gained the prominence it deserved. Grundy was a Fenian and a friend of Poole. On completion of a two year prison sentence in August 1884 he made a deposition claiming he had been twice approached by the authorities whilst incarcerated, and offered freedom, if he swore falsely against Poole. Bravely he refused. It was already known how low Dublin Castle were prepared to go to get the result in the case against Poole. In his speech from the dock, Joe mentioned Lizzy Kearns, Grundy's sweetheart. She too had been approached by Mallon and offered her beau's freedom if she swore falsely, but courageously she too had refused.

            Irish members took the case to parliament once again and it was compared to that of Myles Joyce from the Maamtrasna trial. There was general agreement that Joe was innocent of the murder of Kenny and was another victim of Dublin Castle's dreadful system of jury packing. The Castle's use of informers to obtain a verdict was another despicable procedure and Joe's refusal to give information even when many around him had secured their freedom by doing so, brought praise from Parnell when he said, 'No higher heroism had ever been shown, either in the history of Ireland or in the history of any other country, than had been exhibited by Poole.'

            The records show Mallon later admitted that the police sought Poole's execution, not because they thought he murdered Kenny but because they thought he was in command of the group that killed the constable on Abbey Street. With a lack of evidence to prove either case the authorities packed a jury, used at least two dubious witnesses and asked others to commit perjury.

            Joseph Poole was buried on the prison grounds in an unmarked grave.

By Rob Delaney