Top 10 Most Gruesome Acts in Dublin’s Dark History

Dublin’s elegant squares, busy shopping streets and familiar landmarks conceal a history of public executions, political assassinations, torture, body snatching and murder. In some places, thousands of people pass the scene every day without realising what happened beneath their feet.

For a night-time journey into this shadowy past, DoDublin’s Ghostbus Tour is Dublin’s No.1 exploration of the city’s dark history. The original Ghostbus combines professional actors, haunted locations, sinister storytelling, gruesome history and dark comedy aboard its specially designed Victorian-style theatre.

The ten episodes below extend beyond the Ghostbus itinerary, travelling across Dublin to uncover precisely located events from more than four centuries of the city’s history.

1. Robert Emmet Was Hanged and Beheaded on Thomas Street

St Catherine’s Church, Thomas Street — 20 September 1803

Exact location: The gallows stood at St Catherine’s Church on Thomas Street, Dublin 8.

Robert Emmet’s rebellion of 1803 collapsed almost as soon as it began. After several weeks in hiding, the 25-year-old revolutionary was captured at Harold’s Cross and tried for high treason at Green Street Courthouse on 19 September.

The following afternoon, Emmet was brought from Kilmainham Gaol to Thomas Street. A gallows had been erected beside St Catherine’s Church, close to the area in which his failed rising had begun.

Emmet was prevented from addressing the crowd from the scaffold. After shaking hands with his guards, he helped the executioner place the noose around his neck. His body remained hanging for approximately 30 minutes before it was taken down and beheaded by the executioner. His severed head was then held before the crowd and declared to be “the head of a traitor”.

His body was returned to Kilmainham Gaol and briefly buried at Bully’s Acre. Its final resting place has never been conclusively established.

2. Darkey Kelly Was Partially Hanged and Burned

Gallows Road, now Lower Baggot Street — 7 January 1761

Exact location: Gallows Road, the route now occupied by Lower Baggot Street. Kelly’s brothel had stood in Copper Alley, off Fishamble Street.

Dorcas “Darkey” Kelly operated the Maiden Tower brothel in one of the most notorious districts of Georgian Dublin. In 1760, she was convicted of murdering shoemaker John Dowling on St Patrick’s Day.

Kelly was taken to Gallows Road on 7 January 1761. The punishment imposed on women convicted of serious crimes could be especially brutal: she was partially hanged or strangled before being burned.

Over time, the facts became tangled with legend. Later storytellers claimed Kelly was a witch, that she had been framed after becoming pregnant by aristocrat Simon Luttrell, or that five bodies had been discovered beneath her brothel. The story about the bodies did not appear until 1788, almost three decades after her death, and no such discovery was mentioned in contemporary reports of her trial or execution.

Darkey Kelly remains one of the notorious figures from Dublin’s past featured on the Ghostbus Tour.

3. James Connolly Was Executed While Tied to a Chair

Stonebreakers’ Yard, Kilmainham Gaol — 12 May 1916

Exact location: The Stonebreakers’ Yard at Kilmainham Gaol, Inchicore Road, Dublin 8. Connolly’s position is marked by a separate cross near the entrance to the yard.

Fourteen leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were executed by firing squad inside Kilmainham Gaol between 3 and 12 May. One of the most disturbing executions was that of James Connolly, commander of the Irish Citizen Army and one of the seven signatories of the Proclamation.

Connolly had been badly wounded during the fighting. His ankle had been shattered, infection had set in and he was unable to stand unaided. Shortly before dawn on 12 May, he was brought into the yard and secured to a chair before facing the firing squad.

Connolly and Seán Mac Diarmada were the final two Rising leaders executed at Kilmainham. The bodies of the executed men were taken to Arbour Hill and placed in a mass grave without public funerals.

4. The Phoenix Park Murders

Beside the Main Road in Phoenix Park — 6 May 1882

Exact location: The scene is marked by a small cross beside the Main Road in Phoenix Park at 53.357370, -6.319411.

Shortly after 5.30pm on 6 May 1882, senior civil servant Thomas Henry Burke and the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, were walking through Phoenix Park towards the Viceregal Lodge.

They were approached by members of the Irish National Invincibles. Burke was the intended target; Cavendish appears to have been killed because he happened to be walking beside him. Both men were repeatedly stabbed using long surgical knives.

The murders caused outrage across Ireland and Britain. Five men convicted of involvement in the attack were subsequently hanged at Kilmainham Gaol during May and June 1883.

The memorial at the scene is surprisingly easy to miss: a simple cross cut into the grass, marking the place where the two bodies were found.

5. Archbishop Dermot O’Hurley Was Tortured with Boiling Oil

Dublin Castle and Hoggins Green — 1584

Exact locations: O’Hurley was imprisoned and tortured inside Dublin Castle. He was later executed at Hoggins or Hoggen Green, the old open ground in the vicinity of modern College Green.

Dermot O’Hurley, the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, was arrested after secretly returning to Ireland in 1583. He was taken in chains to Dublin Castle and interrogated about his continental contacts and suspected links to rebels.

When he refused to provide the information demanded, his captors received permission to use torture. Around the beginning of March 1584, O’Hurley’s feet were placed inside metal boots containing boiling oil and tallow. The boots were then held over a fire, inflicting catastrophic burns that nearly killed him.

O’Hurley still refused to incriminate others or renounce his faith. Rather than risk an acquittal in a civilian court, the authorities sentenced him to death under martial law.

He was taken to Hoggins Green during the early hours of 20 June 1584 and hanged. Dublin citizens recovered his body and buried it at St Kevin’s Church, where his grave became a place of pilgrimage.

6. The Sheares Brothers Were Hanged, Drawn and Quartered

Outside Newgate Prison, Green Street — 14 July 1798

Exact location: Outside Newgate Prison on Green Street, beside the present Green Street Courthouse complex.

Brothers Henry and John Sheares were barristers and leading members of the Society of United Irishmen. In May 1798, John befriended Captain Warnesford Armstrong, believing him to be sympathetic to the revolutionary movement. Armstrong was, in fact, reporting their conversations to the authorities.

The brothers were arrested shortly before the planned rebellion. They were tried for treason on 12 July and sentenced to one of the most severe punishments available under the law: hanging, drawing and quartering.

A temporary delay was sought in the hope that Henry might provide information, but it arrived too late. Both brothers were executed outside Newgate Prison on 14 July 1798. Their remains were later buried in the vaults of nearby St Michan’s Church.

7. A Crowd Fought Over Patrick Dougherty’s Corpse

St Stephen’s Green — 21 December 1782

Exact location: The public gallows at St Stephen’s Green. Surviving accounts do not identify a corresponding modern corner of the park.

Wine porter Patrick Dougherty was convicted of robbing Thomas Moran of possessions valued at approximately £15. On 21 December 1782, he was taken to the gallows at St Stephen’s Green for what became the last recorded hanging held there.

According to an account cited by historian Brian Henry, the Dublin Volunteers were deployed to control the crowd. Once the execution had ended, Dougherty’s family and friends broke through their lines, seized his body and carried it towards the home of the man he had robbed.

The Volunteers pursued them to Lower Ormond Quay, reclaimed the corpse and carried it to Trinity College, intending to hand it over for anatomical dissection. The college porters reportedly slammed the gates in their faces. Dougherty’s family eventually recovered his body and took it away for burial.

Following his execution, Dublin’s public gallows were moved from St Stephen’s Green to the front of Newgate Prison.

8. Dan Donnelly’s Body Was Stolen for Dissection

Bully’s Acre, Kilmainham — February 1820

Exact location: Bully’s Acre burial ground beside the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin 8.

Bare-knuckle boxer Dan Donnelly was one of Ireland’s earliest sporting heroes. When he died on 18 February 1820, aged just 31, he was buried in an unmarked grave at Bully’s Acre.

Within days, grave robbers dug up Donnelly’s body, placed it in a sack and sold it to a Dublin surgeon for anatomical study. Donnelly’s friends traced the corpse and threatened the surgeon until he agreed to return it.

There was one condition: the surgeon would keep Donnelly’s famously powerful right arm. The rest of the body was reburied, while the preserved arm passed through medical schools, travelling exhibitions and pubs for generations.

Bully’s Acre was a frequent target for “resurrection men” because many people buried there could not afford guards, iron cages or heavy stone slabs to protect their graves.

9. The Disputed “Murder on Ireland’s Eye”

The Long Hole, Ireland’s Eye — 6 September 1852

Exact location: The Long Hole, a rocky cove on the eastern side of Ireland’s Eye, just off the coast of Howth.

On 6 September 1852, artist William Burke Kirwan travelled to Ireland’s Eye with his wife, Sarah Maria Louisa Kirwan. He claimed that Sarah went swimming while he sketched elsewhere on the island. When their boat returned to collect them, she could not be found.

Sarah’s body was discovered on rocks at the Long Hole. Her death was initially treated as an accidental drowning, but suspicions grew after witnesses questioned Kirwan’s account. Her body was exhumed, and a subsequent examination identified injuries interpreted as evidence of manual asphyxiation and violence.

Kirwan was tried at Green Street Courthouse in December 1852. His long-standing relationship with another woman, with whom he had eight children, was presented as a possible motive. He was convicted and sentenced to death, although the sentence was commuted to transportation for life.

The case remains controversial. Several doctors argued that Sarah’s death could still have been consistent with drowning, and later writers have questioned whether the evidence justified Kirwan’s conviction.

10. The Bloody Sunday Shootings at Croke Park

The Royal Canal End of Croke Park — 21 November 1920

Exact location: Croke Park, particularly the Royal Canal end near the old southwest entrance from Jones’s Road, where the firing began.

On the afternoon of 21 November 1920, Dublin and Tipperary were playing a Gaelic football match at Croke Park. Earlier that morning, IRA units had attacked suspected members of British intelligence at addresses across Dublin.

At approximately 3.25pm, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, including Black and Tans and Auxiliaries, arrived to surround and search the ground. Shooting began near the Royal Canal entrance. Police then fired towards spectators and players as the crowd desperately attempted to escape.

The firing lasted for approximately 90 seconds. By the time it was over, 14 civilians had been killed or fatally injured and dozens more were wounded. The dead included Tipperary footballer Michael Hogan and three children: Jerome O’Leary, William Robinson and John William Scott.

The Hogan Stand was later named in memory of Michael Hogan. Today’s modern stadium looks entirely different, but Croke Park remains one of the most important sites associated with Ireland’s War of Independence.

Discover Dublin’s Darker Side on the Ghostbus

Executions outside churches, grave robbers stalking burial grounds and notorious characters whose stories grew darker with every retelling are only part of Dublin’s macabre history.

Step aboard the original Dublin Ghostbus for a two-hour journey through haunted locations, gruesome history and some of the city’s most sinister stories, all brought to life by professional actors with scares, theatrical storytelling and plenty of dark comedy.

Book your Dublin Ghostbus Tour tickets and experience the darker side of the city after nightfall.

Historical Sources and Further Reading

• Dictionary of Irish Biography: Robert Emmet
• All Things Georgian: Darkey Kelly
• Kilmainham Gaol Museum
• Phoenix Park Murders: overview and references
• Dictionary of Irish Biography: Dermot O’Hurley
• The Sheares Brothers: overview and references
• Patrick Dougherty and the St Stephen’s Green gallows
• History Ireland: Dan Donnelly
• William Burke Kirwan and the Ireland’s Eye case
• History Ireland: Bloody Sunday 1920