Poff and Barrett, and the ‘Gallows Government’ of Lord Spencer
Shortly before the December 1882 trials of Sylvester Poff and James Barrett, Earl Spencer, the newly appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, acquired another ‘title’ – The Gallows Earl. It seems to have been ‘created’ soon after his official entry into Dublin on 6 May 1882 – evidently in the wake of the hanging, in September […]
Poff and Barrett: Location of their Remains
On the foundation of the Irish Free State, in a letter home to Ireland from the United States, Rev George Marshall, formerly of Mountnicholas, suggested that the relatives of Poff and Barrett should seek to have the remains of ‘those two victims of Irish landlordism and British hate’ disinterred from the old jail burial ground […]
