The Hangwoman of 18th Century Ireland

Summary

Episode Summary: "The Hangwoman of 18th Century Ireland"

Podcast: Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Elizabeth Sugru (Cloda Finn)
Release Date: May 6, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

In this gripping episode of Betwixt The Sheets, host Kate Lister delves into the obscure yet fascinating history of one of Ireland's only known female executioners from the 18th century. Joined by the insightful journalist and writer Elizabeth Sugru, the episode uncovers the life and legacy of Lady Betty, an enigmatic figure whose story intertwines themes of power, gender roles, and societal norms.

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Historical Context

The episode is set against the backdrop of 18th-century Ireland, a period marked by political and economic turmoil under British rule. Irish tenant farmers were striving for better rights amidst stringent Catholic penal laws that restricted various freedoms, including women's rights to education and employment post-marriage.

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The Story of Lady Betty (Elizabeth Sugru)

Early Life and Migration Elizabeth Sugru, also known as Cloda Finn, introduces Lady Betty, born around 1750 in County Kerry. As the wife of a tenant farmer, Lady Betty's life took a tragic turn when she lost her husband. Driven by desperation, she embarked on a harrowing journey on foot from Kerry to Roscommon, spanning several hundred kilometers. This arduous trek resulted in the loss of several children to hunger and exposure, painting a poignant picture of her struggle for survival ([05:50]).

Murder of Her Son and Ascension as Executioner Upon her arrival in Roscommon, Lady Betty ran a boarding house and managed a livelihood amidst the challenging circumstances. However, tragedy struck again when her surviving son returned—either from the army in England or America—with money, seeking to ensure his mother's reformation. In a shocking twist, Lady Betty murdered him by stealing his purse and killing him during his stay at her boarding house ([09:22]).

Her desperate act led to her immediate arrest and sentencing to death by hanging for murdering her son. On the day of her execution, with no executioner present, Lady Betty boldly offered to perform the hanging herself if spared her life. Her plea, "spare me life, your honour, spare me life and I'll hang them all" ([10:08] MM:SS), led to her role as Roscommon's hangwoman, a position she held for many years thereafter.

Role and Activities as Hangwoman Lady Betty became notorious in Roscommon, functioning not just as an executioner but also presiding over public floggings and gibbeting individuals like Michael Walsh, a member of agrarian secret societies opposing landlords. Her efficiency and gruesome practices, such as drawing portraits of those she executed on the jail walls, solidified her fearsome reputation. Elizabeth describes her as "a person of violent temper" yet "possessed some education," highlighting the complexity of her character ([13:02]).

Social Perception and Legacy Lady Betty was both feared and respected in Roscommon. Her unique position as a female executioner in a predominantly male-dominated role made her a figure of fascination. In 1802, Lady Betty was pardoned for the murder of her son in recognition of her long service as an executioner, raising questions about societal views on her role and actions ([40:43]).

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Sources and Historical Accounts

Elizabeth cites two primary sources that shed light on Lady Betty's life:

1. William Wilde's Accounts: Oscar Wilde's father, William Wilde, a prominent eye surgeon and historian, documented Lady Betty in 1852, nearly five decades after her death. He described her as "middle-aged, stout made, dark eyed, swarthy complexioned" and noted her "violent temper" alongside her education ([13:02]).

2. Charlotte O'Connor Eccles' Writings: A 19th-century writer from Roscommon, Eccles provided vivid narratives, including Lady Betty's plea to spare her life. She portrayed Lady Betty as "crushed by bitter, hopeless poverty," suggesting that her harsh circumstances "chilled and froze the fount of kindness" inherent in women ([13:06]).

These sources highlight the blend of factual history and embellished folklore surrounding Lady Betty's legacy.

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Lady Arabella Denny: A Contrasting Figure

Drawing parallels, Elizabeth introduces Lady Arabella Denny, an aristocratic and philanthropic woman from County Kerry. Born in 1707, Lady Arabella was a widow who defied societal norms by refusing to remarry and instead focused on charitable works, including establishing the first Magdalene Asylum in Ireland in 1765. Unlike Lady Betty, who became infamous for her role in executions, Lady Arabella was revered for her contributions to society through education and philanthropy.

Complex Legacy:
While Lady Betty represented the darker aspects of female agency—meting out death and fear—Lady Arabella embodied the positive impact women could have in progressive roles. Yet, both women broke traditional stereotypes, highlighting the diverse paths of female empowerment in 18th-century Ireland ([27:34]).

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Executioners in Historical Context

The episode further explores the societal stigma attached to executioners. While later figures like Pierrepoint became more professionalized and somewhat public figures, Lady Betty's role was shrouded in fear and reviled sentiment. Her practice of drawing portraits of the executed suggests a morbid obsession or a method of coping with her gruesome duties, adding layers to her psychological profile ([38:27]).

Elizabeth also touches upon other historical female figures involved in extraordinary acts, such as Ruisha de Verdon, a 13th-century noblewoman who built a castle in County Louth and was notorious for her ruthless actions, further emphasizing the recurring theme of powerful yet controversial women in Irish history ([36:11]).

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Conclusion and Final Reflections

The episode concludes with reflections on the unique and solitary legacy of Lady Betty as the sole known female executioner in Ireland. Her story raises intriguing questions about gender roles, societal expectations, and the complexities of female agency in historical contexts. Elizabeth Sugru and Kate Lister ponder the personal and societal ramifications of Lady Betty's actions, leaving listeners with a nuanced understanding of this enigmatic figure.

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Notable Quotes with Attributions

• Kate Lister ([02:10]): "Until 2002, these same women couldn't buy a pint in a bar, but they could buy a brandy or half a pint so you could still get hammered."

• Kate Lister ([09:20]): "Her son did."

• Elizabeth Sugru ([09:29]): "Well, I suppose he had been away for a number of years, so maybe he looked a bit different."

• Elizabeth Sugru ([10:07]): "Now you have to ask, too, if it wasn't her son, what would she have done?"

• Kate Lister ([27:46]): "Damn it. Damn it."

• Elizabeth Sugru ([34:31]): "She's cast as this figure who has done something that is very unfeminine."

• Kate Lister ([41:32]): "Whenever you want to demonize a woman throughout history, it's very common to bring in this child killing trope."

• Elizabeth Sugru ([43:04]): "I want to know what happened. You. How did you end up here?"

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Further Exploration

For those intrigued by Lady Betty's story and Elizabeth Sugru's work, additional resources and writings can be found in:

• "Through Her Eyes": A history of Ireland told through the stories of 21 women, authored by Elizabeth Sugru.

• "The Irish in the Resistance": Co-authored by Elizabeth Sugru and John Morgan, detailing the contributions of Irish individuals in resisting Nazi forces across Europe.

Elizabeth Sugru also writes a column titled An Irish Woman's Diary in the Irish Examiner every Saturday, featuring untold stories of remarkable Irish women.

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Produced by: Sophie G.
Edited by: Tom Delaghi
Senior Producer: Charlotte Long
Music: Epidemic Sound Foreign

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If you found this summary insightful, consider subscribing to History Hit for more engaging historical narratives.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

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[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Cade Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheets. But before we can continue together, I know what's coming. You know what's coming. The lawyers know what's coming. It is the fair dues warning. And here it is. This is an adult pod spoken by adults, other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. I'm so glad we got that out of the way. I feel less triggered. Do you feel less triggered? Right, on with the show. Ross Common is busy today. Of course it is. It's execution day. A big day out for all the family. A crowd has gathered in front of the old jail in the main square of the town. Hawkers are selling their wares. Children are atop of their parents shoulders just struggling to get a glimpse of the third floor window outside of which a wooden gallows is built. This is a particularly long drop. But that is not the most unusual thing about this particular execution site. The crowd draws breath as the executioner appears unmasked, undisguised, and very much a woman. A woman known as Lady Betty.

[Cloda Finn]

What do you look for a man?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, money, of course.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing a button.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Goodness.

[Kate Lister]

What beautiful business.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie.

[Kate Lister]

Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. Until 1973, women in Ireland were no longer allowed to work a civil service job once they'd got married. Until 2002, these same women couldn't buy a pint in a bar, but they could buy a brandy or half a pint so you could still get hammered. The search for equality has been ongoing for many, many years. And as we look back through history, we can see the people who've always been there breaking those boundaries. In this episode we are meeting one of the more unusual. I don't know if we could go as far as to call her a feminist, but she's certainly a trailblazer. We are talking about one of the few female executioners in history. And I am joined by the fabulous journalist and writer Cloda Finn, who is going to introduce us to this rather incredible, not to mention terrifying woman. I am ready to do this if you are. Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's Odley. Clona Finn. How are you doing?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Good morning. It's great to talk to you this morning, Kate. Really looking forward to telling you some stories of rule breaking women.

[Kate Lister]

I had never ever heard of this person before. It's my favorite type of episode when I just look at it and I go, what on earth. A female executioner. I've never heard of that before. This is an amazing story and I'm so pleased that you're here to tell it to us. I'm not sure if I'm going to get her surname right, but this is Elizabeth, is it Sir Gru? Sir Gruff?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yes, it's Sugru or Shukrou. We say both here.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, fabulous. Can you tell me first, how did you even discover this person? Is she well known in Ireland?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

She's not very well known, but at the same time, it's such an unusual story, and she's such a one of a kind that her story has been used in theatre, where she was the executioner in Roscommon, which is kind of in the Midlands in Ireland. She would be very well known there. If you didn't do what you were told, Kate, they would say Lady Betty, as she became known, would come and get you, you know, so the story of her became very embroidered down through the decades. And in Roscommon, actually, they even had a Lady Betty week a couple of decades ago. But like so many stories, they need to be told and retold. And I suppose she came into my awareness last year. We have this wonderful resource in Ireland called the Dictionary of Irish Biography, and every so often they update the stories of Irish men and women going back millennia. I had a particular interest in her because I had heard of her and I knew that she was born somewhere where I'm from, which is in County Kerry. And she was born, we think, around 1750. And I was very interested in this woman who was born around 1750. She was the wife of a tenant farmer. And I suppose Ireland in the 18th century, at that time was a time of political and economic turmoil. It was still under British rule, and you had a lot of Irish tenant farmers who were agitating, you know, for better rights. And one of the stories goes that this woman lost her husband and she set out on foot with her children from Kerry to Roscommon. And just to give your listeners an idea, that's from the southwest of Ireland to kind of the middle of Ireland, and it's a journey of several hundred kilometers, and on the way, she apparently lost children to hunger and exposure and starvation. So you have this image of this woman setting out on foot for some reason to find a better life. So, you know, you just. I was very taken by that story. As with many of these stories, they've been so embellished over time, we don't know what's fact or what's fiction. Also, there are so many kind of lacunae and gaps in her story. But let's jump forward. She arrived in Roscommon, and apparently there are different accounts, but she ran a kind of a coach in there. So already she was a woman who was making the best of bad circumstances, you know, and if she did run a boarding house, and apparently she had one surviving son, and this is when it all goes terribly, badly wrong. According to some sources, that son went off to join the army, either in England, some say he went to America. He left around 1770. And here's the bit where Elizabeth Shukrou, as she was known, her real character is a nasty woman, is revealed. So the story goes. The nasty woman, yes, you know, dark character. And I'll read you out some of the descriptions of her later. But what happened and how she became the executioner was her son came back. And here's a very telling bit. He wanted to see if his mother had reformed her ways, so he checked into her boarding house incognito to check her out.

[Kate Lister]

Her son did.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

The son did, yeah. So doesn't that tell you lots?

[Kate Lister]

What? How could you check in incognito to your own mother's house?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Well, I suppose he had been away for a number of years, so maybe he looked a bit different. Yeah, There are lots of gaps in this story. And you'd go, well, how did this happen? Anyway, he checked in, she didn't realize who he was, but she did know that he had money. And in the night she stole his purse, Elizabeth. And murdered him.

[Kate Lister]

And murdered him.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Murdered him. And then she was rifling through his papers and realized that she had murdered her own son and ran out screaming into the streets of Roscommon and was immediately arrested.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, dear.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Now you have to ask, too, if it wasn't her son, what would she have done? But what is incontestable is that what happened next is true. So she was arrested and on the day. And she was arrested and she was sentenced to be hanged for the murder of her son. For the murder of her son. Anyway, this poor man is no longer with us. He has clearly found out to his cost that his mother has not reformed her ways. She's arrested, brought before the court and sentenced to death by hanging. And on the day she was to be executed in Roscommon jail, which is a very particular kind of jail because people were hanged from the third floor. So it was a long drop jail. The executioner wasn't there. And she said, in the words of somebody who wrote about her subsequently, she said, spare me life, your honour, spare me life and I'll hang them all. So in the absence of an executioner, she stood up and said, I'll do it if you spare my life. And whether that is true or not, who knows? But she certainly became the executioner, the hangwoman of Roscommon jail for many, many years.

[Kate Lister]

Wow.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

And she became known as Lady Betty. She was, because they said she was literate and she had some form of education. So you have stories of how she was A very efficient hangwoman. There's a very unsettling story of how she lived in the jail and that every night or however often the executions took place, she would draw with a stick and charcoal a portrait of the person she had executed on her wall. So, like this idea of, you know, notches on a belt, you know, so. And there's another. Some people say that she did public floggings as well. There is another story that she gibbeted a man, a man called, we do have his name, called Michael Walsh. Michael Walsh was a member of the secret societies which were very common at the time. They were agrarian societies and they were agitating against landlords and absentee landlords. And the story was that she helped gibbet him, which is to put him in a cage and put him on public display, you know, to show the others what happens if you rise up against the powers that be. And just to show you kind of the public appetite for seen as spectacle. Some 30,000 people came to see his body. And I mean, it's a. 30,000 people is a huge number in rural Ireland at the time. So it's a very, very dark story and how we know about it. So I'll tell you the two main sources.

[Kate Lister]

Yes, I was just gonna ask you, what are the sources for this?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

The sources are William Wilde, who's Oscar Wilde's father, and Oscar Wilde's father. Yeah, he was a prominent eye surgeon in Dublin, but he was also a historian and an antiquarian and he wrote lots of very interesting things. And his account is. He quotes people who. Who apparently knew her. So, you know, he was saying, I am going by the account of people who are aware of this woman. Mind you, he's writing in 1852, almost five decades after her death in 1807. But it's interesting because here's his account. He said that she officiated unmasked and undisguised as hangwoman for a great many years. And she was. He described her as middle aged, stout made, dark eyed, swarthy complexioned. But by no means was she a forbidding looking woman. She was a person of violent temper. Of course she was. Though in manners, he said she was rather above the common and possessed some education. So that's how she became known as Lady Betty, because she was this woman of learning in inverted commas, let us say. And then we have another little vignette into her life, or the circumstances under which this woman became the hangwoman, or the Queen of the Long drop was another name. She was known as in Roscommon. And it's Charlotte O'Connor Eccles, who's a very interesting woman. She's a 19th century writer and journalist who's from Roscommon and she's writing a little bit later than William Wilde. And she's the one that puts words in his mouth, in her out saying, your honor, I'll hang them all if you save me life. But what she says, she was very well known. This is O'Connor Echols was very well known as a social commentator. And I think it's very interesting what she says, what happened to Lady Betty. She says, and I quote, she was crushed by bitter, hopeless poverty, which seemed to act like frost on her soul, chilling and freezing the fount of kindness that springs in every woman heart. So she's kind of making the assumption that every woman is born with this feminine ideal of having a font of kindness. But this woman, this bad woman and this unfeminine individual was made so by the harsh circumstances of her life. And there's no doubt that she had harsher circumstances if the story of her setting out on foot from County Kerry to Roscommon and losing children on her way. But I saw, I suppose it's a fascinating story because here's this woman who spots an opportunity, albeit a really dark and forbidding opportunity, and she uses it to save her life, save her own skin, and then make a living for herself. It's an incredible story which has carried on down through the decades. You know, you see, in the 1930s we had a very interesting experiment, not really an experiment here in the 1930s, where they decided to do a schools survey and ask children in the schools all over Ireland to tell the stories of their district. So it's a fantastic source now, so you can go back and you can see what the folklore and the people of the district, who they were. And she looms large in the stories of Roscommon in 1937. You can get some of them online, Dukas, which is heritage, the Irish word for heritage. Dukas ie has all these stories online and you can read in the copy books the story of this, you know, formidable woman. And if you step out of line, she'll come and get you. We've loads of those stories about the evil woman who'll come and get you if you don't behave.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with CLODA after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

I've never heard of another female executioner. Is she unique? Have you found any others?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

I have not found any others. I've seen a reference to say that there could have been another one, but when I looked I did not find her. So she is unique as far as I know, certainly in an Irish context. I wonder if you go to France and the guillotine is being practiced, would we find one? There are somewhere else.

[Kate Lister]

There's the fabled Madame Guillotine. Isn't there yes, but I don't know if she's real, actually. I don't know if she's just a myth from the French Revolution, but I've never heard of another woman executioner. How big was Roscommon at this particular time? I'm just trying to get a sense of the community that she was living in.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah, Roscommon is quite a small town even now. You know, it's not like a city, it would be called a town. I'd have to look up the population. But, you know, you're talking thousands. You would be talking. I would say not more than a thousand at the time. It's not huge. And it was in really. It's really quite a rural area. So the idea that you have this woman. I suppose it wasn't unusual for women to be in business or to find ways of making a living, but I also find it interesting that she ran a boarding house. You know, there's a certain amount of agency and power there, and some accounts say she was a widow by the time she came to Roscommon. So what do you do, you know, in the late 18th century, to survive in rural Ireland, it would have been rural Ireland, so she was quite a character.

[Kate Lister]

So a small town, but it would have had a jail. Were people from the surrounding area brought to Roscommon jail?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

They clearly were. Yeah, they clearly were, because that was the central jail. It was a big jail. And a lot of the people, they would have been tried for crimes like theft and sheep stealing, and there would have been a huge element of political prisoners as well. As I say, you had the white boys and you had. That man I spoke to was a ribbon man. So they were involved in secret agrarian societies who were claiming rights or trying to find rights for tenant farmers. At the time, the Catholic penal laws were in force. So, for example, if you were a woman, you couldn't get Catholics, couldn't get education. At the other end of the country, we had a woman who is kind of revered now. Her name is Nano Nagle. But she, with great risk to herself, used her fortune to set up secret schools to educate girls in Cork City. And she went on to found the presentation order. And that's where I went to school, you know. So you had women like this working as well. I suppose what interests me is you look back and these feminine roles, Even in the 19th century, you had this journalist, you know, Charlotte O'Connor, Eccles, saying, the fount of kindness that springs in every woman's heart, that women were supposed to be particular things and work in particular areas, but when you scratch the surface, you found women doing all kinds of different things, you know, And I was going to tell you as well about. She's known as Lady Betty, and that was just a name given to her. But around the same time and also in the same place, from County Kerry, there's a real lady, Lady Arabella Denny, who interests me as well. I'm going to start with the end of her life, because as we're dealing, you know, with the rather gothic and gruesome stories of execution, there were many things about Lady Arabella Denny that grabbed my attention. But the first one was the manner of her death or the instructions she left for after her death. So I would say, if you have squeamish listeners to turn off now, you.

[Kate Lister]

Know, you have been warned.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

You have been warned. She had this terrible fear of being buried alive. And before she died, she said, and I'll read out what her desire was. I desire that I may be put in a leaden coffin and my jugular veins opened and then enclosed in an oak coffin and conveyed to the Church of Tralee on a hearse. But one morning, coach, I'm from Tralee, and I remember thinking, gosh, here's this woman who said, you know, make sure I'm bled to death and then put in this leaden coffin and buried deep. Which is kind of a contradiction because, you know, if you are afraid of being buried alive, you'd want a shallow grave. But she wanted to make sure she was absolutely dead before she was buried in this grave that I passed every day. And I had no idea of what she did. So she would be, in some ways, the very opposite of Lady Betty for many reasons, because she was probably one of the greatest philanthropists of the 18th century in Ireland. Having said that, she was also a rule breaker. So she was born to the Lord of Kerry, who became the Earl of Kerry. So she was an aristocratic woman who was a woman of means, and she was born in 1707. And then she married a man called Arthur Denny, who was an MP for County Kerry. And it kind of gets interesting when she's made a widow. So she's widowed at the age of 35. And unlike poor Lady Betty, who had to try to eke out a very gruesome living, Arabella Denny had some means. And she left for Dublin, and she started a life that really challenges so many stereotypes. The first thing I found interesting about her was she said she didn't want to marry again, quote, too much experience ever to Become a slave again, she said.

[Kate Lister]

Smart woman, smart woman, smart woman.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

And you know, there's another story that when she was married, apparently her brother in law used to bully her. So she took up shooting lessons and she made it known that she would practice her shooting if he didn't leave her alone. And guess what? He left her alone.

[Kate Lister]

I bet he did.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

He did. But when she came moved to Dublin, she came into her own. And she was a woman who was interested in the science and the arts and innovation. She was interested in. She had set up a nam's house for the poor in Tralee, where I'm from, 200 miles away in the capital city. She started to get involved in charity as well. Princess Dashkova, who's one of the lead figures of the Russian Enlightenment, used to visit Dublin. And she knew her, she knew Jonathan Swift, one of the great writers here. So she was a woman of influence and also she became a woman of means. Her uncle died and left her money, but she used it to improve the conditions in the Dublin Foundling Hospital. She went in herself and she rolled up her sleeves and she says, no, we have to have a system here.

[Kate Lister]

So she's a good egg. Egg.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

She's a good egg. But there's more. There's a little twist in the tail. She's a good egg.

[Kate Lister]

Twist away. Yes.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah, we love a twist. She is a good egg. She's an absolutely good egg. But she is also the woman who set up the very first Magdalene Asylum in Ireland. Shit.

[Kate Lister]

Damn it. Damn it.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah. Yes, you're aware of the Magdalene Laundries and these women who were incarcerated for falling and sinning. But when she set it up, she came to that through the Dublin Foundling Hospital. Because if you have foundlings, you have women who gave birth to them and where are they and what has happened them and why have they, you know, had to give up their children or whatever? So in 1765, she set up the first Magdalen Asylum in Ireland. And it was not, she said, according to the pamphlet, a place of punishment for the wicked, but rather one of assistance and reward for those who have ceased to do evil. There's still the idea of doing evil and are resolved to do well. But actually, an independent researcher, she's a great woman. Rosemary Water has looked at the entry books. Some of them survive for the Magdalene Laundries or the Magdalene Asylum, as it was. And they're fascinating because. Because some women are sex workers or prostitutes, and some women, they do say they have fallen. You know, there's this Idea of a woman who becomes pregnant has done some awful thing. But there's another woman. She suddenly found out that her husband was a bigamist, had been married before, and she'd know where to go. So she was taken into this place and given a trade. So they were taught weaving and sewing, and the idea was that they would stay there for two to five. So that idea of incarceration was already there. But that. The idea was that they would be functioning and independent and they would go back out into society. But Arabella was there herself. Like, she had the courage of her convictions, and she used to work there and work with these women. Mind you, there was a set of rules, very strict house rules, and if you were having your dinner, they put on an hourglass so you wouldn't spend more at the table than an hour. There's some very interesting stories. There was another woman, and if you disobeyed the rules, it didn't end too well for you. You know, you were cast out into Dublin city on your own. And I would love to have met a woman called Anne Lee. And she was told to leave because apparently she sat down and said, I seen a ghost. And she scared all the women in the asylum and she was put out. Yeah. But Lady Arabella was trying to do something different. And even at the time that was controversial, you know, she was very interested in investing her time and her money with the marginalized in society. She did something that fascinated me as well, is that she bred silkworms. She was apparently the first person in Ireland, man or woman, to bring silkworms to Dublin.

[Kate Lister]

Well, there's a hobby, isn't it?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

And she had them down the road from me in Dublin, because I now live in Dublin, and I'm just trying to picture, like, what it looked like, or did she have, you know, special room for her silkworms, but she used them to set up carpet weaving industry in Dublin. And she was so admired that she was made a patron of the Irish Silk Warehouse in Dublin. And you'll see little snippets in the papers from carpet weavers who thank her, you know, for being a patron, you know, so she was really kind of an industrious woman who was trying to improve the lot of people in Dublin, men and women.

[Kate Lister]

Was she a contemporary of Lady Betty, the executioner? Did they. Were they?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

She was indeed. They would have. Well, they crossed over. So Lady Betty was born in. In the 1750s. Lady Arabella was born in 1707. But at the time that Lady Betty was at work which is kind of the 1780s and 90s. Lady Arabella, well, she was coming to the end of her life. She died in 1792, but she had. All this was going on in Dublin. She was doing this at this time as well. So I just think how interesting that from Kerry, where I'm from and Tralee is also a small town. Even today there's about 20,000 people in it. You had these two women living lives which broke very different kinds of rules. Very different. But both of them challenged stereotypes in very many different ways.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Clothes Loader after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

How was Lady Arabella? She sounds like she. I mean, apart from establishing the Magdalene laundries. Whoops. But she sounds like she was quite well respected. Do you get a sense that Elizabeth was well respected or was she feared? Like what? Kind of like you said, two very different women inhabiting two very different roles. How has Elizabeth viewed being an executioner and a woman?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Well, we know of her through the accounts that were written later. And in those accounts, she was feared. But there's. I won't say revered. That is much too strong. But there's this fascination with her, you know, she is.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I bet.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah. A kind of a figure who has power. And there's this idea that she's cast a little bit as a monster who's done something with her femininity that is. It's so alien to a woman. So she's cast as this figure who has done something that is very unfeminine. And it reminds me actually just to jump a few centuries of another woman. She was a noble woman. She was a Norman noblewoman who inherited lands in County Louth in Ireland. And her name was Ruisha de Verdon. And she built a Castle in 13th century Ireland and was known as the only woman to build a castle in Ireland in that century. And at the time they said she did something that none of her ancestors could do. The local story is that she hired a stonemason and she hired a designer and they built this great big castle which is still there, Castle Roach, it's called. And when she was admiring the castle afterwards and the lands, she pushed the stonemason out of the window so that he wouldn't replicate the design.

[Kate Lister]

Well, that's not very nice.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah, but he wasn't going to replicate the design, was it? So she had this singular design, he wasn't. And that window is known as the Murder Hole still in County Lough. And the echo then of Lady Betty will come and get you in County Roscommon, the version of that in County Loudes. You better be careful or Rohita will come and get you. Isn't that interesting? But then when she lost her husband, she kept her maiden name. And when she lost her husband, she didn't get married either. And she paid quite a huge amount to Henry iii, which you had to at the time, so that she wouldn't have to get married. And she made sure this chatelaine, she was a no nonsense chatelaine, you know, that she was, you know, managing her own estates and she made sure that she kept the. For her old children. Before she died, she actually moved to England and joined a convent and she, I think it's called Grace Dieu in Belton. So if you look at her in Belton, she is seen as this pious person who went into the convent, you know, at the end of her days and atoned for her sins, you know, so that's jumping around a little bit, but I think it's a fascinating insight into how we tell the story of powerful women down through the ages, you know, so certainly in her time, even though there's very little evidence or testimony about it, I'm sure that the executioner of Roscommon jail was not a popular figure in particular, if she was conducted public flogging, you know, she would be absolutely reviled, Reviled rather than revered. And if that account of this poor man who was gibbeted, if she was responsible for that, he would have been seen as a kind of a, you know, a nationalist hero who was trying to improve the lot of local people. And here you have one of our own killing our own, you know, so it's a very interesting, thorny story with lots of different angles to it.

[Kate Lister]

Executioners, you don't really, really think about them. I know that there were some sort of more famous ones, like in the 20th century, in the 19th century, when it becomes quite like medicalized and professionalized, but you just don't think about it being a profession in, like, the much earlier periods. But it must have been. And they must have been very heavily stigmatized. You couldn't go down the pub and have a drink with your mates and just have a chat with the executioner, could you?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Can you imagine?

[Kate Lister]

I mean, maybe you did. I've no idea, but it must have been quite a stigmatized choice.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

That's a really interesting question. You know, I'm thinking of the executioners, as you say, in later years. You know, you have Pierrepoint, you're. Who's very well known.

[Kate Lister]

That's the one I was thinking of.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yes, yes, Pierrepoint is very well known. And then you have stories of who was it who introduced a particular mechanism that made hanging more humane. But then the other side of that is, I wonder, you know, maybe there was a pub or a tavern for jailers and soldiers, and maybe the executioner, you. It was just another job you did, you know, But Lady Betty. Yeah, I wonder. And you know, this story that she used to scratch out these portraits of the people she executed on her wall is very interesting as well. You know, she lived within the precinct of Roscommon jail, and it's really quite a big building that is still there on the market square in Roscommon. That suggests to me that she had some sort of a pride in her work. Or maybe she. She was just marking their passage. It's too strong a word to say she was honoring them. But it seems very gruesome and very grotesque at this remove. Having this woman echo down through the decades to us, it just makes us look at the whole thing. And I suppose now I'll have to say, well, she filled in for an executioner. And isn't it an interesting study? Like, what was the role of the executioner in the 18th century? In the 18th century and even in the centuries before it. You know, there is another study that we'll have to look at, Kate and maybe spread the net.

[Kate Lister]

What happened to her? Do we know what happened to her?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Yeah, well, we know that she died in 1807.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, she lasted a while then.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

She did. Yeah, she did. And she killed very many people. You know, she put lots of portraits on her wall. But what's interesting is in 1802, she was pardoned for murdering her Son. And it was in recognition of her service as an Executioner. So doesn't that give us a little insight into how the Executioner was seen? So, you know, the Executioner was seen as somebody who was carrying out the law, keeping public order, and she had served very many years as queen of the Long drive. And we will pardon you in 1802. So how interesting that was.

[Kate Lister]

I wasn't sure if the thing about the son was real, because whenever you want to demonize a woman throughout history, it's very common to bring in this child killing trope. Yes, that they murder babies usually, but they might. I thought maybe it was like an extension of that. But if she was pardoned for it, that sounds like that really did happen.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Then it does sound. Or she was guilty of some crime, at least.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Again, the story of her that. How did she end up being Executioner? In all the versions, it is that she was guilty of a crime. And the crime in all the versions is that she killed her son and that she spotted this gap and said that the Executioner hasn't come to work today. I'll fill in. I mean, even to think that, wow. But I suppose, you know, it just. It's very interesting when you read people on death row, you know what their last thoughts are, or, you know, if you're finally. If you're put in the spot and it's a life and death situation, what would you do? I can't ever imagine volunteering to kill somebody else. But that's what she did. And took to it with such relish and such efficiency. She was highly efficient, apparently. And that she stayed on in that rule for several days, decades, creating, you know, a myth.

[Kate Lister]

So as a final question, then, if I could give you a time machine and you can go back and you can take Elizabeth Lady Betty out for a drink, what questions do you want to ask her?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Oh, that's so interesting. I would have lots of questions. I want to know what happened. You. How did you end up here? Tell me about your life in caring. This long, barefoot walk. I imagine the barefoot. You know, what happened and what was it like to be a female executioner, you know, in 18th century Ireland? What would you ask her, Kate?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, God, I think I would want to sit down and just like the stories that circulated, like, was the thing about the sun true? Was that true? Okay, I want to know, like, the logistics of it. Did she get a house? How did people view her at the time? Was she like a social pariah or was there a sort of a kudos to it? How on earth was there any training to be given for this? Or was it just, just horrendous trial and error?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

I think there was. You pulled a drop. You know, there was a, it was a mechanical thing because that's noted that she did it with high efficiency. So she was good at it.

[Kate Lister]

I guess that's what you want, isn't it?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

It is what you want. And it was a particularly long drop. The other thing that she did get quarters. So she got her board. She lived in the jail. She had quarters in the jail. So I could see how that would be attractive. So I'd like to ask her, too, about these portraits that she allegedly did. And did she have any relationship, you know, with the people she executed beforehand? You know, did they have a hood?

[Kate Lister]

Claudia, you have been absolutely fascinating and I'm going to be mulling over this one for a while now. What was it like to be a female executioner? If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[Elizabeth Sugru]

Well, I write a column called An Irish Woman's Diary in the Irish examiner every Saturday, and that features stories of women from history that you might not expect. I'm also a writer and I have written a number of books about women in history. Through Her Eyes is a history of Ireland told through the stories of 21 women starting in the Stone Age, going right up to the digital present. And more recently, I've written the Irish in the Resistance with John Morgan. And it's the story, sort of the unexpected story of so many Irish, Irish men and very many women who resisted Hitler all over Europe.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you so much for dropping by to talk to us. Thank you.

[Elizabeth Sugru]

It was an absolute pleasure.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Clauda for joining us. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along whatever it is that you get. Your podcasts this month we're diving into what it means to be beautiful and ugly in the past and you wouldn't want to miss that. But if you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer is Charlotte Long. Join me again. Betwixt the sheets, the history of Sex Scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound Foreign.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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