
The Maamtrasna murders are a haunting example of linguistic inequality and the weaponisation of language as a tool of cultural dominance. In Dúiche Sheoighe, on the border between County Mayo and County Galway, five members of the Seoighe family were murdered in their home on the night of August 17, 1882. Three men who claimed to be eyewitnesses to the crime made statements to the authorities who then used this information as basis for arresting and charging ten men. Of these ten men only two could speak any English: Dúiche Sheoighe being populated primarily by Irish speakers.

The two men who could speak English – Anton Philbin and Thomas Casey- were induced to turned states witness and subsequently had the charges against them dropped. They testified-in English- that they supported the eyewitness accounts of the murders. The eight men who spoke no English were charged, tried, and convicted- with five of them spending 20 years in prison and three being executed. Their language skills-in a system that was structurally prejudiced against non-English speakers- effectively ensured the outcome.

The trial was conducted entirely in English, with no provisions made for the Irish-speaking defendants. The only attempt to facilitate communication was made by a constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary who was present to translate statements from Irish into English for the officers of the court. He did not translate from English into Irish, meaning that the defendants could not understand what was being said about them, nor could they communicate to the court or respond to the charges against them. The accused’s solicitor also did not speak Irish, and court records indicate he made no effort to protest against the language barrier of his clients. The eight defendants were isolated and vulnerable at the sharp end of an unfamiliar and incomprehensible legal system.
However, the structural linguicism of the trials was not limited to language skills: it also concerned perceptions of language use. The jury that convicted the 8 men was comprised entirely of affluent people from Dublin, who were culturally and linguistically different from the defendants. None of them spoke Irish and it is likely that many of them viewed the inability to speak English as a sign of barbarism, in line with contemporary views. They handed down the verdicts in rapid time, with the first deliberations taking only 8 minutes. While the jurors probably thought they were fulfilling their duties, as the evidence presented to them had been overwhelming, the trials were nevertheless a powerful example of how perceptions of language skills can be manipulated to perpetuate injustice.

Two of the men sentenced to penal servitude died in prison, while three survived and were released at the end of their sentence. They protected their innocence the entire time, but it wasn’t until 2018 that they were posthumously pardoned. Irish President Michael D. Higgins noted that “the case was unsafe according to the standards of the time.” This is the only pardon issued by the Irish State for an act that happened prior to its foundation, a testament to the severity of the injustice and the significance of the systemic linguicism against the Irish language.

While it is tempting to think of this horrendous miscarriage of justice as a scion of the past- an event that is very “of its time”-that is a dangerous oversimplification. At the time of the trial there were significant protests against the injustice, particularly concerning the suppression of key testimony and other more likely suspects. MP Timothy Harrington, who had encountered some of the convicted men while himself in prison for protesting evictions, published a pamphlet dismantling the trial. He also raised the case in the House of Commons where it was furiously debated for six days.


The Maamtrasna trials underscore the crucial importance of language rights in ensuring fair and just outcomes in legal proceedings, even though the murders took place 146 years ago. The great grand-children of the defendants are still alive today, as is the grandson of Martin Joyce, the older son of the murdered family who survived by being away from home the night of the murders. The injustices carried out by a deeply prejudiced system are felt by people today. And though progress has been made in broadening language rights, there remains much work to be done. It is still the case, across the Anglosphere, that some speakers are protected by their language skills within legal systems and others are endangered by them. Language justice seeks to protect the rights of all individuals by ensuring they can access systems in their own languages.
Links:
Posthumous pardon of Maolra Seoighe:
The Maamtrasna massacre: impeachment of the trials:
https://archive.org/details/maamtrasnamassac00harr/page/30/mode/2up
Review of Margaret Kelleher’s book The Maamtrasna Murders:
House of Commons debate on the Maamtrasna trials: