There was always bad blood between hillside farmer Timothy Power and his son Patrick, 21. There were quarrels, arguments, threats and sometimes even blows.
The feud of the Powers came to a dramatic end one night in October 1861, when Patrick woke his mother to tell her that his father still hadnt returned from a business trip. Mother and son went looking, and an hour later they found Timothy Powers body in a country lane near his farm at Cromogue, County Wexford. He had been stabbed 15 times with a pitchfork.
Next day the murder weapon was found with its prongs bent and covered in blood. It belonged to Patrick Power.
He was convicted at the county assizes in March 1866 and executed on Wednesday, April 4th, 1866, outside Wexford Prison before a crowd of 150 people. He made a full confession in the death cell and asked for forgiveness on the gallows.