>From The Cork Examiner, 15 October 1861 - SUSPECTED MURDER IN BUTTEVANT. ------------ (FROM OUR REPORTER.) A GREAT deal of interest and excitement has for the past few days existed in the town of Buttevant and its neighbourhood, in consequence of the mysterious and sudden disappearance of Mr. Cornelius Coghlan, a farmer of comfortable circumstances residing in the neighbourhood of the town. It appeared that on Saturday Mr. Coghlan was at the pig market in Buttevant, where he sold a lot of pigs to a dealer from Waterford, named Slattery, for which he received a sum of £25. Some time after seven the same evening he was seen going from the town towards the Military Barracks on his way home, and since then he has not been heard of, nor has any trace of him been discovered, and this sudden disappearance, with the fact that he was known to have a large sum of money about him, has led to a very strong suspicion that he has been the victim of foul play. Two soldiers of the 87th regiment, named John Mulcahy and Michael Boylan--the former a native of the County Tipperary and the latter of the County of Dublin--and three women of ill-fame named Ellen Hallinan, Mary Anne O'Sullivan, and Nanno Mulchinoch, are in custody on suspicion of having been in some way connected to his disappearance. It appeared that about seven or eight o'clock on Saturday evening the five prisoners left Buttevant in company, and Head-Constable Kenny of that town, on making enquiries, found that they had gone to Doneraile, where they had been drinking in a public house. On leaving, one of the soldiers handed a £5 note in payment, and received the change. About twelve o'clock they returned to Buttevant, but the soldiers did not go into barracks that night, and on Sunday morning Head-Constable Kenny called the attention of the military authorities to their absence. Both the men were subsequently taken into custody, and on the person of Mulcahy was found another £5 note, of the possession of which he could give no satisfactory account, neither could any of the party account for the possession of the £5 note which they had changed in Doneraile. Both soldiers are still in custody in the barracks. The three girls were also arrested, and are still in custody, but neither [sic] of them could give any account of the money which they had been spending. One of them it appeared had deposited a £3 note with the wife of a publican in Buttevant named Linehan. Mrs. Linehan when questioned at first denied receiving it, but subsequently she gave it up to the Acting-constable. When Head-constable Kenny saw the soldiers on Sunday morning, they and the three girls were in Linehan's public house, and one of the girls was in bed there. Mr. Coghlan is about sixty years of age, and was known to be of very temperate habits, never, it is said, exceeding two pints of porter in the day for the last twenty years. He is a man of large family. The police, ever since his disappearance, have been active in their endeavours to discover some trace of him, but the river in the neighbourhood of the town and the low lying lands on each side having been flooded by the late heavy rains, a complete search there has up to the present been found impracticable. Slattery, the dealer, from whom he received the £25, has been written to, to know if he could tell the numbers of or otherwise identify any of the notes. If he should, and that those found in the possession of the prisoner should turn out to be some of them, a very good clue will be found to the unravelling of the mystery. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dennis Ahern | Ireland Newspaper Abstracts Acton, Massachusetts | http://www.IrelandOldNews.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -