THE KERRY TRAGEDY RECALLED

New Zealand Tablet, 24 August 1911, Page 1651

THE KERRY TRAGEDY RECALLED

Under the above heading the Irish Independent of a recent date has the following ■ * The death of Mrs. Mary Poff (nee Barrett), which has occurred at her residence, Castleisland, at the age of 98 years, recalls the tragedy enacted in Tralee Gaol on January 23, 1883 twenty-eight years —when her son, Sylvester Poff, and her nephew, James Barrett, were hanged for the murder of Thomas Browne, of Dromultin, a crime in which, to use their own dying

protestation on the scaffold, they ‘ had neither hand, act, or part/ Their innocence has since been placed beyond doubt. The martyr mother, who had to face the awful ordeal of having her son, then the father of a young and helpless family, and her nephew, hanged for a murder they knew nothing of, was a fine type of the respectable farmer’s wife.’ We may add that the deceased lady had many friends and acquaintances in various parts of the Dominion. The photograph which we reproduce is supplied to us by her son. ■