The Courthouse and Gaol Bridge: The Maamtrasna Murders

This bridge once bore the name Gaol Bridge because it linked judgement to punishment. From the courthouse across the river, prisoners were marched in chains to Galway Gaol, the prison site now buried beneath today’s Cathedral. In 1882 three men from Maamtrasna in Connemara, Myles Joyce, Pat Joyce, and Pat Tully, were convicted of a bloody massacre, the murder of an entire family of five. The ensuing court trial was conducted entirely in English, although none of the accused spoke it. They were found guilty within hours. The only words Myles Joyce spoke during the trial were ‘Cén lá a crocfidh me?’ (What day will they hang me?) At dawn on the day of their execution, they were led across this bridge to the gallows room above the prison’s main door. Before the trapdoor fell, Myles Joyce cried out in Irish, ‘Tá mé neamhchiontach’, ‘I am innocent’. He died still protesting. More than a century later the Irish State granted him a posthumous pardon. Residents of Woodquay, across the river from the Cathedral, say that on fog-heavy nights three faint shapes cross the bridge from the courthouse steps toward the Cathedral. The sound of Irish words drifts over the water, a prayer or a protest that never ends.