44 A BALLYSHANNON EMIGRANT'S LETTER AND LIFFORD JAIL General Prisons (Ireland) Act of 1877. prison her sentence was commuted to transportation for life. It is stated, we The prison, which is no longer have no documentary record before necessary, was constructed 195 years us, that the man who was hanged ago. The criminal cells opened into merely prepared the heavy log and the corridor which led straight from strong chain with which the body was the front door to the yard. It was in to be kept at the bottom of the river two of these the brothers Magennis and that he turned his back while his from somewhere in Innishowen were two brothers-in-law slew his father in confined previous to their execution bed. The two got away and were never for the murder of a Mr. Butler of afterwards heard of in the country. In Grouse Hall. In the days when 1827 or 1828 three brothers named executions took place in public the Stewart were executed for the murder scaffold was erected over the main of an old man called Lytle and his wife halldoor in front of a room known as near Donegal. Here again the motive the execution room. The entrance way was greed. Lytle and his wife were to the platform is now filled up but a killed with a hatchet while lying in small window takes its place but the their beds. The house was then set on line of the former opening is still fire and a servant boy and girl left for visible. There is now in the record dead inside the building. The girl was room of the prison a model of a rescued from the burning building scaffold which a hangman named through a hole in the wall. The boy Murphy sent over from Glasgow to also escaped and both recovered to guide the Lifford carpenters in their give evidence on which the three fitting up of one of the terrible engines brothers were convicted. At the of death. The model is an extremely execution of one of these brothers the neat one, the delicate iron lever which rope broke twice. The hangman, draws the bolt and causes the trap to however, persevered and the third open works perfectly. The last drop was more successful. An execution in Lifford Square was we aggravating feature of the case was the consider that of a man called Cromer circumstance that the father of the in 1847 for the murder of his father three men was also placed on trial for near Ardara. The motive for the the murder but was acquitted of the murder was, it seems, the old man's murder by the Jury. The hatchet with land. He was twice married and the which the fatal wounds were inflicted murderer was a son by the second lay until a few years ago in the wife. He and his mother, as the story execution room of the prison. It was goes in Lifford, feeling that the old then thrown into the river. The church man was about to leave his property in the prison was used by all to the first wife's children planned the denominations including the Roman murder. The murdered man's wife Catholics who had a portable altar. was also condemned to death in connection with the tragedy but on the As a final postscript to the appeal of one of the clergymen of the Ballyshannon Herald article an