Miller's Court after Kelly...........

[Sam Flynn]

Yes but there again I believe the Welsh language came far nearer extinction earlier than was the case with the Irish tongue

I don't think that was the case, Dave. Welsh was regularly spoken by over half the population in some parts of South Wales, and by well over 80% of the people in large parts of the North until the turn of the 19th/20th centuries (that's still largely true of North Wales today). Of course, there were - and are - more anglicised areas like Pembrokeshire, Merthyr and Monmouthshire, but even these weren't entirely devoid of Welsh speakers during the Victorian era.

That said, I guess the proof of the pudding is in the records. I don't have access to them, but it would be interesting to know the proportion of Máires to Marys that actually appear in Irish censuses.

PS: In some of those snippets, Máire sounded rather more like "Moira" than "murder", to my ears at least. As "Moira" can be an anglicisation of the Gaelic form of "Mary", I wouldn't be surprised.

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Gareth

To my ears it sounded like three murders and one Moira...which surely must be a reflection on the particular area of Ireland the speaker came from.

Back in the seventies I used to drink with a couple of Kerry boys, (and their sister), and out of courtesy to me they generally spoke English...but even then I'd often be picking up only one or two words out of five, and sometimes not that...fortunately the sister was more comprehensible...I say fortunately because she was the one I fancied! Happy days...

Cheers

Dave

[APerno]

Does someone being attacked actually yell murder? Wouldn't a yell of "help" been more helpful (and likely), or maybe a primordial scream?

Who in a moment of fatal desperation thinks to define the occurring act? It sounds too cognitive; yelling 'murder' sounds more like a Victorian complaint than last desperate words.

Can't help but think if any last word was to be exclaimed it would be "No!"

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
As Prater described at the inquest ..Like awakening from a nightmare,
Could it have been just that, ?
Regards Richard.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Gareth

To my ears it sounded like three murders and one Moira...which surely must be a reflection on the particular area of Ireland the speaker came from.

I think it's more likely a reflection of how clearly they speak or, possibly, how au fait they are with the Irish language. Wacky though Irish spelling can be, I honestly don't think that most Irish speakers would pronounce Máire as if it had a "d" in it.

[Joshua Rogan]

Perhaps Marie Jeanette really was Kelly's true name, and her last cry was "Merde!"

[GUT]

There are reports that such shouts were common.

[Joshua Rogan]

Does someone being attacked actually yell murder? Wouldn't a yell of "help" been more helpful (and likely), or maybe a primordial scream?

Who in a moment of fatal desperation thinks to define the occurring act? It sounds too cognitive; yelling 'murder' sounds more like a Victorian complaint than last desperate words.

Can't help but think if any last word was to be exclaimed it would be "No!"

It does seem odd (especially when written down) but I don't see it as that much different to yelling "Fire!" or "Thief!" or "Rape!".
That said, almost everyone who heard such a cry said it was so common that they didn't take any notice....On reflection, perhaps "Jack the Ripper!" would have had better results.

[Michael W Richards]

There are reports that such shouts were common.

Bingo. This was far more likely to be a benign exclamation rather than a call for help. Inside the house Ms Prater listened for further sounds...she didn't hear any. Nor did Sarah Lewis. Prater stated that she could hear when Mary moved about in that room, if she was being attacked on her bed, as the evidence suggests, then noise would occur. It didn't.

The combined witness reports suggest that at around 3:45 a cry was heard that Sarah felt was from just outside her door, and that Elizabeth believed originated "as if from the court". The axis point for that sound would have been in that courtyard. No-one claimed that cry out.

Diddles seems to have stirred and woken Elizabeth, perhaps a soft knock on a courtyard window or door might have been the cause. The evidence in this case strongly suggests the killer was in that room with permission..there is no forced entry evidence, ….the venue suggests intimacy, and at almost 4am that would seriously limit the amount of possible entrants. It is therefore quite plausible that the killer was let into the room by Mary, which would neatly explain the location of the cry out, the time the killer arrived, and reveal a possible relationship with the deceased. The violent slashes to the face seem to me to be made by anger, the cutting of flesh from bone more curiosity. But the removal of the heart, when compared with uteri and kidneys, seems personal to me as well.

There has been no success tracing this woman by her known backstory, and its not hard to imagine that her corpse would be hard to definitively identify, even a live in lover only recognized 2 features, one of which are obscured by flaps of skin in the room images. Proving that there is a great deal more we don't know about her or this case than we do know.

[Cogidubnus]

Alternatively Mary's (or Máire's) caller was an Irish acquaintance who couldn't awake her for some reason...

https://forvo.com/word/m%C3%A1ire/

PS apologies for repeating myself by the way...

[Sam Flynn]

Alternatively Mary's (or Máire's) caller was an Irish acquaintance who couldn't awake her for some reason...

If she was trying to wake Kelly up by screaming, why stop after one or two? Why didn't she bang the door rather than scream, come to think of it? Given that it was a female voice that cried out, why would a woman have dropped by to raise Kelly just before 4 in the morning?

[Cogidubnus]

Why do any people do loud things just before four in the morning? Usually because they're drunk, and if left alone will often simply go off either home or to carry out their next drunken deed...

[Busy Beaver]

Bingo. This was far more likely to be a benign exclamation rather than a call for help. Inside the house Ms Prater listened for further sounds...she didn't hear any. Nor did Sarah Lewis. Prater stated that she could hear when Mary moved about in that room, if she was being attacked on her bed, as the evidence suggests, then noise would occur. It didn't.

The combined witness reports suggest that at around 3:45 a cry was heard that Sarah felt was from just outside her door, and that Elizabeth believed originated "as if from the court". The axis point for that sound would have been in that courtyard. No-one claimed that cry out.

Diddles seems to have stirred and woken Elizabeth, perhaps a soft knock on a courtyard window or door might have been the cause. The evidence in this case strongly suggests the killer was in that room with permission..there is no forced entry evidence, ….the venue suggests intimacy, and at almost 4am that would seriously limit the amount of possible entrants. It is therefore quite plausible that the killer was let into the room by Mary, which would neatly explain the location of the cry out, the time the killer arrived, and reveal a possible relationship with the deceased. The violent slashes to the face seem to me to be made by anger, the cutting of flesh from bone more curiosity. But the removal of the heart, when compared with uteri and kidneys, seems personal to me as well.

There has been no success tracing this woman by her known backstory, and its not hard to imagine that her corpse would be hard to definitively identify, even a live in lover only recognized 2 features, one of which are obscured by flaps of skin in the room images. Proving that there is a great deal more we don't know about her or this case than we do know.

I agree with you Michael that I think the killer was invited in by Mary. If anyone did decide to force their way in at anytime from Blotchy to 4.00am, then I am sure Mary would have shouted at the top of her lungs and the whole court would have come running. I doubt anyone who knew her, even Barnett, would have just barged their way in, as she would not have appreciated being woken at some godly hour and again some words would have been exchanged and the visitor pushed out the door. I will still stand my ground and say the Ripper was an opportunist and did not go knocking on doors to seek victims. The victim would more than likely have approached the Ripper to avoid screams and arguments of him approaching the ladies and frightening them, or them becoming suspicious. So what we are left with is Blotchy being the Ripper, or Mary going out after Blotchy had left and picking someone off the street, who was the Ripper. And then there is Hutch....

[Wickerman]

Does someone being attacked actually yell murder? Wouldn't a yell of "help" been more helpful (and likely), or maybe a primordial scream?

Who in a moment of fatal desperation thinks to define the occurring act? It sounds too cognitive; yelling 'murder' sounds more like a Victorian complaint than last desperate words.

Can't help but think if any last word was to be exclaimed it would be "No!"

That has always been a popular critique of this story, it sounds more like a music hall script. Yet, there are several accounts in the press of people actually shouting "murder" when they are alarmed, whether a murder was taking place or not.
So, it's possible this is just another aspect of the 19th century that we find hard to understand.

[Wickerman]

The combined witness reports suggest that at around 3:45 a cry was heard that Sarah felt was from just outside her door, and that Elizabeth believed originated "as if from the court". The axis point for that sound would have been in that courtyard. No-one claimed that cry out.

Diddles seems to have stirred and woken Elizabeth, perhaps a soft knock on a courtyard window or door might have been the cause........

I know I've been woken up by a loud noise sometimes, but it is difficult to imagine where the noise really came from.
Often you judge the origin by the type of sound you heard. Like, a dull thud must come from somewhere in the house, but a louder higher pitched noise from outside, something like that.
This is what I think Prater was saying, as the noise was somewhat muffled it had to come from behind the house, as opposed to Dorset street right outside her window, it would have been louder. And, as shouts more often came from outside rather than inside, she assigned the origin from the court at the back.
I think Prater was just guessing by a process of elimination.