After 83 years of a wrongful conviction for the homicide of a mother with seven children, Harry Gleeson is set to be reburied in his home town, Tipperary. Gleeson discovered the lifeless body of Mary “Moll” McCarthy in a pasture on his uncle’s land in New Inn, Co Tipperary back in 1940, and was subsequently put on trial and found guilty in the ensuing year. Despite his continual declarations of innocence, he was not absolved by the State until 2015, in a reversal of judgement made after his death.
In the previous week, the Department of Justice confirmed the identification of Gleeson’s remains within a burial site inside Mountjoy Prison. His nephew, Tom Gleeson, along with Tom’s son Kevin, the nearest living relatives of the unjustly convicted man, plan to journey to Mountjoy this coming Friday. Their intention is to repatriate his remains for a private viewing in Galbertstown, the region where he was raised, with his funeral mass scheduled for Sunday at Holycross Abbey.
Gleeson, at the age of 38, was a beloved figure both in the sport of hurling and as a fiddle player. Sentenced to death in Mountjoy in April 1941 for the killing of McCarthy, his incorrect conviction and McCarthy’s tragic death became the subject of several books and a documentary.
Prior to his reburial, his relatives stated, “After spending 83 years in an unnamed grave within Mountjoy Prison for a crime he took no part in and was wrongly condemned and executed for, Harry’s remains can at last find peace, now that he has been officially declared completely innocent.”
An American forensic pathologist played a key role in verifying that the timing of McCarthy’s death was concurrent with a period for which Gleeson had an alibi. Subsequent to the reappraisal of considerable evidence related to his case, his posthumous exoneration was granted.