From the Penny Despatch and Irish Weekly Newspaper, 24 April 1867, this account of the tragic death of a couple as worthy of remembrance for the story of their love and end as any lawyer who ever walked the halls of the nearby Four Courts:
“A most determined act of double suicide took place on Saturday night, which can hardly be paralleled in the annals of crime in this country, although such occurrences are frequent in France. The unfortunate perpetrators of the miserable deed were Private Henry Hartshorn, 69th Regiment, aged 26 years, and Amelia Oldham, wife of Sergeant Oldham, of the same corps, aged twenty years. It would appear that about half-past ten o’clock on Saturday night Mr. Daly, 28 Castle-street, and Mr. Joice, 9 Nicholas-street, were passing along Bachelor’s Walk, when they heard a splash in the water of the Liffey near the Metal Bridge, and on going towards the point whence the noise proceeded they observed two figures in the river, one of which appeared to be a soldier. They both were struggling, and almost immediately disappeared under the stream.
Mr. Daly and Mr. Joice ran quickly to Carlisle Bridge and informed a boatman named Michael Balffe, who, with the assistance of John Taylor, of White’s Lane, at once put off in his boat and rowed in the direction pointed out to him as that in which the people were seen. In a very few moments the boat came up to where the soldier and a woman were floating on the water, and on endeavouring to raise them into the boat it was discovered that they were tied together by the neck by means of a piece of an old black silk scarf. Balffe quickly cut the scarf with his knife, and both bodies having been placed in the boat it was rowed to the steps at Carlisle-bridge, where cars were procured by Police-constables 159 and 69C, upon which the bodies were placed and conveyed to Jervis-street Hospital, after being for about ten minutes in the water. The resident surgeon used all the known means of resuscitation from drowning, but it soon became too evident that the fearful act of the two unfortunates had been carried to a fatal termination, and that they were dead. The bodies were then conveyed to Bass-place, Livery Stables.
The bodies were both recognized by sergeants of the 19th on Monday, and the statements made by them threw a light on the cause of the fearful deed. The woman, who was possessed of considerable beauty, had been separated from her husband for some time in consequence of irregularities in her conduct, and it is alleged that a criminal intimacy existed between her and Hartshorn, who was a very fine-looking young man. He had been absent for the previous four days from his quarters in the Linenhall barracks and was to have embarked with his regiment immediately for Canada. The prospect of a separation between the pair, and the poverty to which the woman was reduced, as was evident from her wretched attire, would appear to have so preyed upon them as to induce them to make the desperate resolve which they carried out so effectually. Both were natives of England.”
Share this:
