Manchester Courier & Lancashire General Advertiser 8 Nov 1845
Presence of Mind and Detection of Murderers
In the cemetery adjoining the ruined church of St. Declan at Ardmore,
Ireland are two remarkably long graves close together, not far from the entrance
to St Declan’s tomb. There lie two
brothers, once exceedingly tall, fine young men – but they were murderers,
convicted and executed, though the headstone merely tells us that John and
James Fuge departed this life April 15, 1805, aged 25 and 27 years.
Their victim had offended them by taking ground from which some of their
family had been ejected for non-payment of rent. His self-constituted judges and executioners
went to his house, armed, and with their faces blackened, at an hour where they
expected to find him alone, and murdering him in cold blood, then retired in
full confidence of impunity; they were apparently unseen by all, save the
Almighty. They had forgotten Him, but he
had prepared a witness against them. A
little girl, who had seen their approach through a window, and was alarmed at
their blackened faces, had just time to spring into a large chest and pull down
the lid before they entered. The chest
was not shut closed, and she was enabled undiscovered to see the deed of blood,
to observe the remarkable stature of the perpetrators, and to note in
particular that one of them had lost a front tooth. Her subsequent evidence occasioned their
apprehension and conviction.