From the Porcupine, 18 April 1801, a harrowing story of abuse bordering on homicide by Mary Doyle, a fiend in human form whose treatment of infants procured by her from the Foundling Hospital, Dublin for money-making purposes was dreadful enough to appall even the hardened Lord Norbury:

“At the Assizes in Carlow, on the 4^th instant, a case singularly interesting was tried before Lord Norbury, which excited sensations of horror and disgust in every person who was present.

Mr Barrington, leading Counsel for the prosecution, stated, that Mary Doyle stood indicted for an offence of the most barbarous description, that of procuring infant children from the Foundling Hospital, under false pretences, as a nurse; robbing them of the covering which they received from the bounty of the institution, then starving the unfortunate infant, to render its miserable appearance an object to excite compassion; then when famine and nakedness had reduced it to the last extremity, selling it to some person who would carry it to town… and leaving it afterwards to perish.  Mary Doyle had practiced that traffic that disgraced the very name of the human species. The most ferocious of the brute creation protected their young; but Mary Doyle, though in a human form, destroyed the innocent infants, which she was bound by humanity, duty and trust, to protect and nourish.

The prosecution had been carried on by the directions of those aimable and distinguished persons, whose benevolence and charity had induced them to superintend the arrangement of the Foundling Hospital institution, and to whose sedulous attentions and benevolent exertions the country is indebted for the preservation of thousands of those unfortunate infants, who, deserted by their unnatural parents, become the children of the public, and are entitled to the humanity which their helpless and innocent situations command from every heart which retains one principle of human feeling.

Mr Barrington stated fully the evidence for the prosecution, and the absolute necessity of exemplary punishment on the prisoner; and much regretted that the circumstances o the case did not legally warrant an indictment for murder, to which the offence virtually amounted.

Mr William Lindsay, resident Apothecary to the Hospital, proved that the prisoner, under the assumed name of Margaret Collins, had, under a recommendation from the Rev. Mr. McNeil, procured, as a nurse, from the Foundling hospital in November, 1799, a male infant of the name of Michael Slain; and in December following another child, of the name of John Ball, about three months old; that she got clothes with each of them, and five shillings travelling expenses.

The Rev. Mr McNeil proved, that she procured the recommendation by false pretences, and that her real name was Mary Doyle; that, discovering the deception, he had her apprehended, upon which she acknowledged the fact of her selling John Ball, one of the children, for 3s 91/2 d.

Anne Vignes proved, that in December 1799, the prisoner came to her house with a child, which she said was her own; that she staid a few days and went away; that she returned again in about a month with another child, which she said was a Parisheen that she had got at the Foundling Hospital, and was called John Ball, about four months old.  When witness saw the child, it was naked, and nothing but skin and bone, being nearly dead with famine and cold, that prisoner told her she had got two suits of clothes and a yard of diaper from the Hospital with it, and a crown for travelling expenses; and that she had sold the clothes, and begged about with the child, nearly naked.  It appeared almost dead with hunger, and used to cry all night for want of food.  Witness used to give it some food she had for her own child, to preserve its life.  Witness frequently desired the prisoner not to take the infant out in the cold, or it would certainly die; to which the prisoner replied ‘The devil’s cure to it!’  In a few days prisoner said she would sell it, and try to get another form the hospital, and offered the child for a crown, which nobody would give –

At length witness, thinking the infant would die with hunger and cold, if the prisoner took it away, gave her 3s 91/2 d for the child; and on Mr McNeil’s coming home, acquainted him with the transaction, who procured it clothes.  The prisoner informed witness, that she had got another child before, but that she had no milk for that child and her own, and that they both died for want.  The prisoner told witness that she had also procured another infant from the Foundling Hospital, of the name of Michael Slain; that her sister went to Dublin with her to help her to carry it; that she and her sister quarrelled on the road, and laid the infant down in the snow; that it died with cold, and that they buried it in a church-yard, and the prisoner sold its clothes.  Witness then produced a badge which prisoner had left behind her in witness’s house, which appeared to be the hospital badge of the child Michael Slain, which had so died on the road through cold.  Witness said the prisoner was a woman of infamous character and had no fixed place of abode.  Witness took John Ball, to prevent his dying with famine, and weaned her own child, to enable her to nurse it.  The infant John Ball died also.  Witness stated the blue marks and numbers impressed on the child’s arm at the hospital.

Mr Lindsay, who was again called, identified these marks, which were entered in a book kept in the hospital for that purpose, and which exactly corresponded with the badge which was produced.

The prisoner evinced the most hardened and impudent demeanor during her trial, but did not call any witness.

Lord Norbury much lamented that the circumstances stated could not fully support an indictment for murder against a wretch who was clearly guilty of the most barbarous and inhuman conduct he had ever heard of.  The offence he was sorry could only be laid as a misdemeanor. – The Jury instantly found her guilty; and Lord Norbury sentenced her to stand three times in the pillory, and to be imprisoned one year, and directed that she should be presented by the Grand Jury as a vagabond, so as to have her transported for life.”

There is an intriguing coda to this story.

Some years later, in 1816, an inquiry was held into allegations of infanticide alleged to have occurred within the precincts of the Foundling Hospital itself.

We know from the report of the inquiry that the Head Nurse of the Hospital at the time of these allegations was a Mary Doyle.

Doyle gave evidence at the inquiry that she had been employed as Head Nurse at the Hospital for six years, which would put the start of her employment in 1810, a decade or so after this case.

Not the same Mary Doyle, surely?

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