Loughshinny Murder 1741

Site of Rev. Anthony Tanners House

For many years a large stone house stood across this entrance to the farmyard. This building was demolished in the early 1940's to make way for the present day farmhouse but many of the outbuildings, including the remains of an old pigeon house, date from earlier centuries.

Rev. Anthony Tanner who was Minister of Holmpatrick and Vicar of Balscadden owned most of the land around Loughshinny at the beginning of the 18th century. He married Alice Cannon from the nearby townland of Popeshall in 1740.

On the 3rd May 1741 Rev Anthony Tanner was returning home to his house in Lougshinny having dined with his friend Sir Robert Echlin of Kenure House when he was attacked while crossing a stile.  William Tanner a younger brother of Anthony's was accused of having employed a poor fisherman, James Cappoque, to perform the deed. William had hoped to inherit the lands at Loughshinny after his brother's death but unknown to him Anthony's wife, Alice, was already pregnant and her daughter, Margaret, was born in October 1741. Both William Tanner and James Cappogue were committed to prison after the murder. At their trials later James Cappogue was sentenced to be hanged drawn and quartered. The execution was carried out at St Stephens Green, Dublin on the 4th November 1741.  In the case of William Tanner, however, he managed to draw out the proceedings and went to court no less than ten times until he was eventually discharged and set free.

Margaret Tanner inherited the lands afterwards. She married John Dempsey, an Attorney, in 1762 and it was the Dempsey family who were proprietors of Loughshinny at the time the copper mines were developed. They also made the early attempts to provide a pier at Loughshinny.

This Farmyard is Private Property and entry is prohibited.