Michelle McGoff-McCann’s book explores the world of the Irish coroner through the lens of the life of William Charles Waddell, the county coroner for Monaghan for over thirty years. The study was made possible by the discovery, at different times and in reverse order, of Waddell’s casebooks. They are the records of his work, the evidence of every case over which he presided as coroner. The discovery of such sources is often a once-in-a-lifetime moment for the researcher, if even that. The successful capture and retrieval of this material is a tribute to the author’s tenacity.
The book has a coherent and sensible structure, with the core built across three sections, each comprising two chapters. The concluding chapter is followed by two fascinating appendices listing the coroners of Ireland, as well as the title or outline details of all the cases overseen by Waddell.
The first section outlines the role of the coroner in Ireland, offering a helpful yet predictable account of their typical responsibilities. Religious identity was everything in 1800s Ireland, and unsurprisingly, evidence provided by a radical MP in June 1823 revealed that just twenty-nine of the 108 county coroners in Ireland were Catholic. While some did have a legal or medical education, many did not. At any one time, these positions were filled by civil servants, merchants, gentleman farmers, land agents or justices of the peace. The author cites public contemporary accounts that revealed that coroners were often temporarily imprisoned for being drunk and disorderly. Not all were the pillars of society that one would expect in what should have been one of the more sombre roles at the intersection of criminal justice and local government.
The incidental or accidental knowledge we derive from an account such as this is often as fascinating as the central theme of the book itself. For example, according to one visitor, life in early-nineteenth-century Monaghan town was akin to waking up in Edinburgh, such was the strength of Scottish-like sensibilities and accents. Scottish Presbyterianism was firmly rooted in the town when future county coroner William Charles Waddell was born in the same year as the ill-fated United Irishmen Rebellion.
Waddell is profiled in this book as firm of mind and strong in body. His ambitions took him from being a merchant’s son to working as a merchant himself, and he added the role of land agent to his expanding curriculum vitae. As a land agent, not the most popular functionary during this century, he gained vast experience across all aspects of that job. Subsequently elected as a poor law guardian, Waddell also served as a trial juror. In 1846, he was appointed to the role that would define his life and career. At a devastating moment in Irish society, he was elected unopposed as county coroner for Monaghan.
The mid-section of the book sees Waddell experience something of a baptism of fire, as his work as coroner begins in the second year of the Great Famine. The author explains that the broad scope of a coroner’s work included cases of accidental death, sudden death, chronic disease and illness, infant death (including child murder), murder and suicide. Several subcategories accompanied each of these categories, and mortality was accelerated by the socio-economic climate, although not to the extent one might have expected, because not all Famine deaths were reported to the coroner. Monaghan serves as a useful microcosm of the broader national Famine experience and the impacts of different government policies and programmes.
Something that crime and punishment researchers have long known is that inquests provided a rare opportunity for so-called ordinary people to have their voices heard in public. The book demonstrates this process in action but also highlights the pitfalls of over-reliance on contemporary newspaper reporting from an inquest, as helpful as it may be, as a sole source of evidence in researching unusual or criminal historical deaths. The rediscovered casebooks, therefore, assume enormous significance because they provide an official underpinning to existing publicly available reports.
The chapters covering the Famine are replete with analysis of themes such as poverty, violence and imprisonment. McGoff-McCann continues to exploit the rich source material to cover Waddell’s post-Famine career, which was no longer marked by the dire humanitarian conditions of his early years in the role. Waddell’s casebooks reveal the truth that many unexplained deaths were not the result of criminality, and this occupied much of the coroner’s time. His work often created a tension between himself and the very same local government of which he was a part. Chairing an inquest inside a prison or workhouse offered a rare window into an often-corrupt world of institutional officialdom. As Waddell’s career came to an end, the criteria for serving as a coroner were evolving from the old, elite, paternalistic route to one whereby, by 1881, that individual was required to be either a qualified barrister, solicitor, doctor or justice of the peace. It was part of a move toward modernisation across many professions.
This meticulously crafted book is strongly recommended for historians exploring themes related to criminal justice in nineteenth-century Ireland. Beyond this, it also enhances our understanding of local government administration, class, landlordism, pathways to power and influence, and, not least, aspects of the Great Famine. Readers should not be deterred by the fact that this is a single-county study. This is not a local history, but rather a fascinating case study that helps fill many gaps in our understanding of the national situation.
