Wrongful Mám Trasna Murder Execution Marked with Anniversary Screening on TG4

The anniversary of the wrongful execution of Myles Joyce, posthumously pardoned by President Michael D. Higgins earlier this year, is to be marked by a special screening on TG4 this week of the film that  helped inspire the President’s historic decision, ‘Murdair Mhám Trasna’.

President Michael D. Higgins exercised his constitutional right on April 4th this year, to grant a pardon to Myles Joyce, who was wrongfully convicted and hanged in relation to the infamous Mám Trasna Murders. Myles Joyce was hanged on the 15th December, 1882.

This injustice has been highlighted in a TG4 film, Murdair Mhám Trasna (The Mam Trasna Murders), which is to be rebroadcast next Saturday, 15th December at 9.20pm, in which President Higgins supports the case for a pardon being granted. The case is seen by experts as one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in British & Irish legal history.

President Higgins states in the film, “Everything that happened at the level of the State was horrendous. There was bribery involved. The accused didn’t get a proper chance to defend themselves. There wasn’t an atmosphere of equality and there was no equality as regards legal processes at that time.”

Murdair Mhám Trasna is based on the book ‘Éagóir’, written by former Language Commissioner, Seán Ó Cuirreáin who led the campaign to have Maolra Seoighe and the innocent men convicted of the historic murders pardoned.

Murdair Mhám Trasna, won the premier award in the history category at the Celtic Media Festival, and was produced by Galway based production company ROSG for TG4, with support from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

You can see the full account of the events that unfolded, when Murdair Mhám Trasna is broadcast, again on December 15th, at 9.20pm on TG4 and worldwide on the TG4 player.