Eugene Macarthy – First indictment for bigamy July 1862

The Cork Examiner, 17 July 1862

LONDON POLICE—WESTMINSTER, TUESDAY.

CHARGE OF BIGAMY—A MAN WITH THREE WIVES.—Eugene P. M’Carthy, a solicitor and public notary in Ireland, described as having no fixed residence, was charged with intermarrying with Catherine Craigh, otherwise Cree, his former wife, Mary Jane O’Brien, being still alive.

Mr. Stephen O’Brien, brother of the second wife, residing at Queenstown, produced papers proving the second marriage in July, 1854, at Dublin, and he further stated that the prisoner subsequently married Mary Ann Bunning, at St. James’s Church, Islington. The first marriage took place on the 29th of January, 1839.

Dr. James O’Brien, brother of the prosecutor, corroborated the evidence.

The prisoner was remanded for the attendance of the witnesses to attest the respective marriages.

As ever, the Cork Examiner is enthusiastic, but fairly sloppy in its reporting, just like it was in Pauline Roche’s case four years earlier. It manages to get the third wife’s name wrong,  [they call her Mary Ann Bunning, she is in fact Emily Verling].  They also say the second marriage took place in Dublin, in 1854, when it actually took place in St Peter’s church in Cork in 1844. Finally they turn great great grandpa into James rather than John .

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