The subject of our story was neither the first nor the last woman to die with her throat cut. She was Dublin prostitute Mary Powell, and her fate was sealed when she had a row with one of her long-standing clients, Thomas Coleman.

Dublin’s infamous red light district at the beginning of the 20th century was centred on Mabbot Street. When Coleman, 31, a jobless drifter, turned up at Mary’s home in The Cottages, at the rear of No. 27 Mabbot Street, on MARCH 10th, 1910, he was still nursing his grievance against her.

She was with another client, Henry Garland, who was a friend of Coleman’s. Garland agreed to leave, and as soon as he had gone Mabbot Street was ringing with Mary’s distressed cry: “Thomas Coleman is after cutting my throat with a razor!”

Someone called an ambulance, but it was too late. Mary died within minutes of being admitted to Jervis Street Hospital. Coleman was sentenced to hang, but at the last moment he was reprieved and sent to penal servitude for life.