Dublin Folktales Read Free Page A

The Sack-’em-Ups were dressed thus when they entered the burial grounds in search of new cadavers; their very appearance creating fear in any beholders foolish enough to be out in the darkness of a graveyard when body-snatchers were on the move.
    Mostly they worked on information supplied by informants; but if the thieves failed to find a suitable body they could take away teeth from the dead, as an alternative reward for effort. A set of good teeth could command a pound at a time when there were four farthings to a penny and 240 pennies to a pound. Many items that the poor purchased were priced at a farthing, so a set of teeth could be a valuable item, whatever about their new owner being aware of their provenance.
    To retrieve entire bodies, the Sack-’em-Ups dug at the head of a fresh grave to get at the new body. They quietened their handiwork by using a wooden spade that made less noise than its metal equivalent if any loose stones were struck. The removed soil was stacked on body-size sacks laid out on the ground in as neat a manner as darkness and weather conditions allowed.
    When they reached the coffin, the thieves broke open part of the casket to expose the upper body and head of the dead person. A small person slithered down to put a rope or hook around the neck of the corpse and it was unceremoniously dragged out into the world once more. Once the body was secured above ground, the soil was tipped back into the excavation. The site was made to look as undisturbed as was possible so that the theft might not be discovered for as long as possible.
    However, public and private resentment came to a head when the body of boxer Dan Donnelly was stolen from Bully’s Acre. Crowds took to the streets in anger when the news spread. Donnelly was a native of Townsend Street in the docks area of Dublin. Born in 1788, he was the ninth child of seventeen, in a time when families were large and times were hard. Dan worked as a wandering carpenter early in his adult life. But it was as a bare-knuckle boxer that he achieved fame and a degree of fortune before his death at the age of thirty-two years, in February 1820.
    Boxing bouts had no time limits at the time, so that two men fought to exhaustion or victory before cheering onlookers. Donnelly’s most famous victory was against George Cooper, the heavy-weight champion of Britain, whom he beat on the Curragh of Kildare. But fame is fleeting. It is said that drinking copious amounts of cold water after a later fight killed Donnelly in the end. By then, he had failed as a pub owner several times and was broke once more.
    Thousands of people turned out for his funeral and internment at Bully’s Acre. The cemetery was claimed, rightly or wrongly, to contain the grave of Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland. Donnelly was no sooner buried than his body was stolen by the Sack-’em-Ups and sold to a Dublin surgeon named Hall. But Hall was not to be in possession of the body of the people’s champion for long.
    It was soon established which surgeon had paid cash on delivery for the body of Dan Donnelly, the people’s champion. Tense discussions took place between Donnelly’s followers and Hall over the body. Accepting that the remains must be returned, Hall negotiated the removal of the right arm from the body and the attached shoulder blade in order to study the muscle structure. When this was agreed, the body was re-buried in the Kilmainham graveyard with due reverence, where it lay undisturbed from then on.
    Donnelly’s right arm was to do more travelling than the rest of his body ever did. It was displayed in a pub for many years in the town of Kilcullen, County Kildare, not far from the scene of its most famous fight. After that, it travelled the world to appear in various exhibitions of Irish interest.
    The cemetery, where its companion arm and the rest of Donnelly’s body fell into decay is no longer in use and there are no