On April 20, 1954, Michael Manning, a 25-year-old man from Limerick, became the 29th and last person to be legally executed in Ireland.

Manning, a 25-year-old carter from Johnsgate in Limerick, County Limerick, was found guilty of the rape and murder of Catherine Cooper, a 65-year-old nurse who was working at Barrington’s Hospital in the city, in February 1954. Nurse Cooper’s body was discovered on November 18, 1953, in the quarry under the New Castle, Dublin Road, Castletroy. She was found to have choked on grass stuffed into her mouth to keep her from screaming during the committal of the crime.

Limerick City in the 50’s

Barrington’s Hospital today.

Manning expressed remorse at the crime which he did not deny. By his own account, he was making his way home on foot after a day’s drinking in The Black Swan, Annacotty when he seen a woman he did not recognise walking alone. “I suddenly lost my head and jumped on the woman and remember no more until the lights of a car shone on me.” He fled at this point but was arrested within hours, after his distinctive hat is found at the scene of the crime.

Although Manning made an impassioned plea for clemency in a letter to Minister for Justice Gerald Boland, his request was denied despite it also being supported by Nurse Cooper’s family. The execution by hanging was duly carried out on April 20, 1954, in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin by Albert Pierrepoint, who travelled from Britain where he was one of three Senior Executioners.

The Black Swan

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