The ''Mary Russell'' was a trading boat that set sail from the harbour of

Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. With a population of around 13,000 inhabitants, Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and home to Ireland's ...

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, on 8 February 1828, carrying a cargo of mules bound for

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

. When it returned to Cobh on 25 June 1828, the ship's captain had brutally murdered seven of his crewmen. The story was largely forgotten until 2010, when ''The Ship of Seven Murders,'' a book which detailed the case, was published. Built in 1817, the ''Mary Russell'' was a small wooden brig of 132 tonnes, drawing 13 feet under load, single-decked with beams. That

tonnage Tonnage is a measure of the cargo-carrying capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on ''tuns'' or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically ref ...

would make it about 80 feet in length. The ship was built entirely of wood, with wooden masts and rope

rigging Rigging comprises the system of ropes, cables and chains, which support a sailing ship or sail boat's masts—''standing rigging'', including shrouds and stays—and which adjust the position of the vessel's sails and spars to which they are ...

. The bottom was sheathed in copper to protect the vessel from

shipworm The shipworms are marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae: a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commonly eventually destroying) wood that is immersed in sea water, including ...

Crew

The

ship's captain A sea captain, ship's captain, captain, master, or shipmaster, is a high-grade licensed mariner who holds ultimate command and responsibility of a merchant vessel.Aragon and Messner, 2001, p.3. The captain is responsible for the safe and efficie ...

was William Stewart, a Protestant man born in Cobh in 1775. His

chief mate A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the shi ...

was a Scotsman named William Smith, and his second mate was a Swede named William Swanson. Also on board were John Cramer, the ship's carpenter; seamen John Howes, Francis Sullivan and John Keating; and three apprentices – John Deaves (aged 15), Daniel Scully (13), and Henry Rickards (12). There were also two stablemen on board to look after the mules: Timothy Connell and James Morley. In addition to the crew, there was one passenger on board: an eleven-year-old boy named Thomas Hammond. Captain James Gould Raynes, a Cork man, who had sailed to Barbados on board Hibernia, was relieved of his command for drunkenness. After much persuasion, he was granted passage back to Cork by Captain Stewart on board the Mary Russell.

Murders

Following a dream, Captain Stewart grew suspicious of the crew and feared a mutiny led by Captain Raynes. That Raynes would speak in Irish to the crew added to Stewart's paranoia. Captain Stewart first bound the seven men by hand and foot, pinioning them to the floor of the ship's main saloon. He then systematically killed them all, attacking them first with a crowbar, and then with an axe.

Trial

On Sunday, 11 August 1828, Captain Stewart was tried for murder of Captain James Gould Raynes at Cork

Assizes The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...

. Unusually, both prosecution and defence were seeking the same verdict: not guilty by reason of insanity.

Daniel O’Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

was engaged to appear for the prosecution at Stewart’s trial, but was unable to attend as he was fighting the pivotal

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

in County Clare that first elected him to the House of Commons.

References

* Souvenir of the Mary Russell Tragedy, ''Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society'', 1905 * ‘The Terrible Story of the “Mary Russell”’, ''Fifty Strangest Stories Ever Told'', Odham’s Press Ltd, London c. 1930 * ''The Ship of Seven Murders'', Alannah Hopkin with Kathy Bunney, The Collins Press, 2010 {{1828 shipwrecks Murder in Ireland Axe murder Maritime incidents in 1828 1828 in Ireland Massacres in Ireland Mass murder in Ireland 1828 murders in Europe 1828 crimes in Ireland 1820s murders in Ireland