“The Framing of Harry Gleeson” – Author Kieran Fagan

Pardoned – Mr Harry Gleeson

The recently pardoned Mr Harry Gleeson, latter wrongfully executed in Mountjoy Jail, Dublin in April 1941 for the murder of unmarried mother, Miss Mary (Foxy Moll) McCarthy, latter found shot dead in New Inn, Tipperary on November 21st 1940, now raises further controversy with the publication of a new book entitled “The Framing Of Harry Gleeson”.

The new publication, by author Kieran Fagan, has caused some disquiet here in Co. Tipperary, as its contents suggest possible names for the fathers of Miss McCarthy illegitimate children.

Unmarried mother Miss McCarthy had six children in total, all born to possibly five different married men and it is the naming of these possible fathers, all now long deceased, that appears to have re-opened old wounds in the village of New Inn, which heretofore believed time had erased its guilty secret.

Children born from these same men’s marriages are understood to be furious over new revelations that their fathers possibly had other children outside of marriage. This in turn has led to some demands to view this publication prior to its recent release on the grounds that it contains names of men, one of whom author Kieran Fagan believes was possibly responsible for Miss McCarthy murder.

The real culprits appear to be local ex-IRA men and this serious travesty of justice appears to have suited the local parish priest, Gardaí and indeed other apparently respectable family members whose sons, brothers and husbands may have fathered Moll’s seven children, one of whom was still in her womb at the time of her death.

Did Mary McCarthy’s daughter Mary, approaching her own death some fifty years later in a Dublin hospital, inform a nurse stating “I saw my own mother shot on the kitchen floor and an innocent man died ?”  This publication will attempt to answer such questions, while also naming some of those involved in Harry Gleeson’s framing and details of the possible cover-up of the truth.

Harry Gleeson, who is to be awarded the first posthumous pardon in the history of the Irish State, was acknowledged as being innocent by the Irish Government just last month, following a full review of the case history.