Civilian John Hallissey

Civilian John Hallissey (aged 32 or 33) of 27 South Main Street, Cork city (River Lee, Cork city)

Date of incident: 23 Dec. 1922

Sources: Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 5, Union of Cork), [for] 23 Dec. 1922 (registered 27 Jan. 1923); FJ, 22 Jan. 1923; CE, 22, 26 Jan. 1923, 21 Jan. 1924. 

Note: According to his death certificate for 23 December 1922, John Hallissey was found drowned in the River Lee off the South Customs House Quay in Cork city. His occupations were given as those of potato merchant and insurance agent. An inquest was held by the Borough Coroner of Cork, William Murphy, on 20 and 25 January 1923. Hallissey was said to have been a bachelor and about 33 years old at the time of his death by drowning. To judge from the memorial notice inserted by his relatives in the Cork Examiner of 21 January 1924, some people considered his death to have been the result of foul play. See Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 5, Union of Cork), 23 Dec. 1922 (registered 27 Jan. 1923). The in memoriam notice marking the first anniversary of his death and appearing in the Cork Examiner of 21 January 1924 called for prayers for John Hallissey, 'who was done to death' about three weeks before 13 January 1923 (the date when his drowned body was found). See CE, 21 Jan. 1924.

On 20 January 1923, Cork Borough Coroner William Murphy held an inquest at the Cork and Bandon railway terminus in Cork city ‘into the circumstances of the death of John Hallissey, aged about 32, and [with an] address [at] 27 South Main Street, whose dead body was found in the river near the Custom House Quay [in Cork] on Saturday morning last [13 January 1923]’. His sister Hannah Collins testified that her deceased brother had lived with her at her house (27 South Main Street). ‘He was an insurance agent and potato factor. She last saw him alive on Saturday morning, December 23rd, 1922, when he left her house. He used occasionally only come home to his meals. His business took him to Passage and Cobh and such places.’ She stated in reply to IRP Inspector Cronin that ‘as a rule he [John Hallissey] carried money, sometimes £40 or £50, and up to £150. For the twelve years he lived in her house he was never ill.’ The medical doctor A. J. Fennell of 16 Kyrl’s Quay testified that he had conducted an examination of the body, ‘which was that of a well developed man of middle age. It had all the appearance of a man who met his death by drowning, and the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. There were no marks of violence on the body—bullet marks or other marks.’ The inquest was adjourned until Thursday, 25 January 1923, to allow the authorities to pursue further inquiries. See CE, 22 Jan. 1923.

At the adjourned inquest on 25 January 1923 ‘the coroner said that in the absence of any further evidence they [i.e., the members of the jury] would have to consider the case as it stood. They knew [the] deceased was in the habit of carrying about considerable sums of money in connection with his business. They heard the evidence of his having been in possession of a large sum at the time of his disappearance. The police were unable to trace his movements after the 23rd December [1922]. There was nothing to show how the man had got into the river or nothing in the medical evidence to suggest violence or foul play. He might have spent the money before his death, and the fact that some change and a watch and chain were found on the body seemed to disprove any theory of there having been a robbery. . . .’ The solicitor acting for the next-of-kin nevertheless told the jury: ‘The theory that the man had been robbed still held good. He had a large sum of money on him on December 23rd, and when his body was found four weeks later, the £60 [seen earlier in his wallet] was missing. He suggested an open verdict of “Found drowned.”’ The jury determined that ‘the deceased was found drowned in the River Lee on the 20th January [1923], having been missing since December 23rd [1922], and that they had no evidence to show how the deceased came to be in the river’. See CE, 26 Jan. 1923.

In 1911 John Hallissey (then aged 22) appears to have been living in a large boarding house for dock labourers at No. 36 along St Patrick’s Quay in Cork city. The boarding house was managed (and perhaps owned) by the widower Daniel Desmond and his adult sons Patrick and Vincent Desmond. Daniel Desmond told the census-taker that he was the head stevedore in a Cork city shipping company, while his older son Patrick was a clerk in this shipping firm and his younger son Michael worked as a marine engineer, presumably for the same company. There were at least twenty other unmarried dock labourers besides John Hallissey living as boarders in this same dwelling on St Patrick’s Quay. Subsequently, Hallissey moved in with his older sister Hannah (Hallissey) Collins (aged 26), who by 1911 was married to the harness maker Patrick Collins (aged 50) and resided on South Main Street in Cork.