Robert Andrew McGladdery, the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland, is born on October 18, 1935, in the working class Damolly area of Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.
McGladdery is raised by his mother, Cissie McGladdery, a respectable woman who works at the local Damolly Mill to support the family. His father dies prior to this period, leaving Cissie to raise four children alone in modest circumstances. Information on his father remains scarce, and while details about his siblings are limited, he has at least one older brother named Sam.
During his teenage years in the Newry area, McGladdery exhibits patterns of truancy and engages in minor troubles that lead to multiple placements in reform school. Locally in Newry, he earns a reputation as a “well-known bad lad,” particularly noted for predatorial behavior toward women. This perception persists into his early adulthood, marking him as a loner with a violently self-willed disposition, as recalled by his mother. He works sporadically as an agricultural laborer in the Newry region, a common occupation for young men in the area during the late 1950s. By age 25 in 1961, however, he is unemployed and continues to reside with his mother in Damolly.
McGladdery is convicted of the murder of Pearl Gamble, aged 19, whom he had battered, strangled and stabbed to death on January 28, 1961, and whose body is discovered at Upper Damolly, near Newry. It transpires that the murderer and victim are distant cousins. Gamble had gone to a dance at the Henry Thomson Memorial Orange Hall in Newry with three girlfriends. She had been seen dancing with her boyfriend and McGladdery.
The murder investigations lead to McGladdery. When interviewed, he states to have worn a dark blue suit but other people at the dance say he wore a light-coloured one. He is put under surveillance and is discreetly seen going to some undergrowth on February 10, 1961. The following day, the police discover, inside a pillow case in a septic tank, an overcoat, a waistcoat and a handkerchief, all of which are heavily bloodstained. McGladdery is arrested on the same day.
At his trial in Downpatrick, McGladdery pleads his innocence but is found guilty and sentenced to death on October 16, 1961. The evening before his execution he allegedly makes a full confession to the murder. He is hanged, aged 26, at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast on December 20, 1961, by executioner Harry Allen.
A BBC Northern Ireland dramatisation of the case, Last Man Hanging, is broadcast on September 8, 2008. McGladdery is portrayed by Michael Condron.
The murder and subsequent execution is the theme of Eoin McNamee‘s 2010 novel, Orchid Blue.
