When the Hangman Came to Galway

As the train rattled westward on the outskirts of Dublin, James Berry didn’t stand out amongst his fellow passengers, but they couldn’t see the long, Italian silk rope coiled in the black leather bag by his side, nor the white cap and pinion straps, nor the revolver in his coat pocket. Galway, the winter of 1885. The violent murders of John Moylan, killed on a dark country lane, and Alice Burns, shot dead in the dining room of the Royal Hotel, have shaken the county. Now, following painstaking investigations and charged courtroom drama, justice beckons for the guilty parties. James Berry, the notorious executioner who ended the lives of over one hundred criminals in Victorian Britain and Ireland, has come to town. The paths of a secret paramour, a jilted lover and a reluctant hangman are about to cross. When the Hangman Came to Galway is a chilling true story that delivers a meticulously researched portrait of Victorian Ireland and a spine-tingling tale of love, revenge, murder and retribution.

Dean Ruxton unravels the complex mind of the notorious hangman James Berry as he sets out to bring to a conclusion the case of two notorious murders in Galway in 1885. The paths of a secret paramour, a jilted lover and a reluctant hangman cross in one fateful winter week in Galway, 1885 James Berry was the notorious hangman who ended the lives of over 100 criminals in Victorian Britain and Ireland. Tortured by nightmares as he tried to come to terms with the toll his gruesome work took on him, he played a central role in some of the crimes of the century, including the hanging of William Bury, the man suspected of being Jack the Ripper. The Hangman Who Came to Galway focuses on a winter week in Irish history where Berry was tasked with bringing to a conclusion the case of two notorious murders in Galway, keeping readers transfixed as they journey with this fascinating character through nineteenth-century Ireland in all its gruesome glory.