Jemmy O’Brien: Informer to Gothic Monster

Abstract

On 2 August 1800 William Godwin wrote to his business partner in London, James Marshall, from Dublin. Godwin had set off for Dublin early in July at the invitation of the celebrated barrister John Philpot Curran who put him up during his visit. While he was away from London, Godwin’s business and financial affairs were looked after by Marshall, who also acted as surrogate father to his stepdaughter Fanny Imlay and his daughter Mary. Godwin may have felt slightly guilty about the terms of this absence; eventually, he tried to compensate a little by sending Marshall long, chatty letters, at least parts of which were to be read or glossed to the children. One of these letters reports on encounters with Henry Grattan and Lady Mountcashel, who carried unmistakeable traces of Mary Wollstonecraft’s tutorial influence, and whose surprising and unconventional appearance is unsparingly captured. The letter then moves into a darker mode, hardly suitable for childish ears:

Monday, July 14, was rendered memorable here by the execution of Jemmy O’Brien, a notorious informer, for murder. He had been accustomed, I am told, to sell warrants of imprisonment on suspicion of treasonable practices for two & sixpence apiece. Persons came out of the country thirty & forty miles barefoot to enjoy the spectacle of his exit. One explained, he was the death of my husband, & another, my two brothers were brought to the gallows by his instrumentality. An individual stationed himself on the highest pinnacle of the neighbourhood, that he might give a signal six streets round, that the whole populace, however remote, might join in one shout of deafening & unbounded rapture, the moment the scaffold sunk from under him. For the rapture however you will observe they were partly indebted to the apprehension which they retained to the last moment, that the government would interfere with a pardon in behalf of their tool. When the execution was completed, his body was for a few minutes in the hands of the populace, & they tore away fingers & toes with the utmost greediness, to preserve as precious relics of their antipathy & revenge.¹