“I’ve done a job on her – she’s as dead as a stone,” announced Henry Carty to the first policeman he saw after he had killed his employer.

Carty had borne a grudge against Elizabeth Reck and her brother Francis Reck, farmers of Crory, County Wexford, who wouldn’t give him a promised raise on his salary – then 10 shillings a week plus board.

On Friday, JULY 10th, 1931, his patience snapped. He beat Elizabeth, 65, to death, and then went for her brother, who managed to escape.

When Carty, 58, gave himself up he was said by the police to be covered in blood: “his face, his hands, his clothes and boots.”

At Dublin’s Central Criminal Court he was found unfit to plead and ordered to be detained.