The Crosshill railway murder of 1840

Dennis Doolan, of King’s County, and Patrick Redding, from Tipperary, were hung at the scene of their alleged crime before the largest mass of spectators ever gathered together in the West of Scotland. The people present were only part of the mass who lined the road from Glasgow Cross to the place of execution. The procession from Jail Square to the scaffold may have been witnessed by around 120,000 persons. These numbers had turned out for the first public hanging in Glasgow carried out ‘beyond the common place of execution’ since 1769. In the case of Doolan and Redding, the decision to carry out the sentence publicly provoked a lively controversy in the Scottish press. It was a major issue in terms of public order, with rumours abroad of 10,000 Irish labourers ready to intervene on behalf of their countrymen