On Saturday, the 23rd of March, 1916, an Irish Traveller woman named Barbara Berry was fatally stabbed in the heart on Wexford’s Main Street. Berry, who was the mother of six children, passed away the following Monday due to shock and haemorrhaging.
Those who witnessed the incident said that Berry, who was from Stonebridge Lane, had gotten into an altercation with Anastatia Whitmore, a widow from Barrack Street. The argument had started on Bride Street, before spilling out onto the main street.
Wexford’s South Main Street in 2014.
At some point during the argument, things turned violent, with one onlooker stating that she saw Whitmore smashing a mug over Berry’s head. Another witness told the inquest at Wexford Workhouse that Whitmore ran into a butcher’s shop and snatched a knife from one of the counters.
When Whitmore emerged from the butcher’s shop holding a knife, a woman named Margaret Connors attempted to warn Berry by shouting, “Mind the knife!” However, before anyone could intervene, Whitmore had caught up with Berry and stabbed her twice in the left breast.
Following the attack, Berry fell to the ground, while Whitmore dropped the knife and fled from the scene. Later, she was arrested on the outskirts of a crowd by a policeman named Sergeant Collopy.
Dr. O’ Connor placed Berry in his motor car and rushed her to the workhouse infirmary, where she succumbed to her wounds two days later.
While in custody, Whitmore admitted that an argument had broken out over meat and that she had stabbed Berry with a knife. Whitmore alleged that Berry had “tormented her” and that she did not know what had happened. She also claimed that she believed she was fighting in World War One: “I thought I was among the soldiers, and that all the Germans were down on me.”
Although Whitmore was originally charged with murder, a guilty plea to manslaughter was later accepted. For her crime, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
