Maurice Whelan

BORN in a Dublin cellar in 1776, Francis Higgins would swindle his way from lowly messenger boy all the way up to the top echelons of Dublin society, eventually becoming owner of the newspaper the Freemans Journal.

LONG before the fictional exploits of Dumas’ Three Musketeers, the fishing village of Rush, County Dublin, produced its own trio of real life adventurers whose story rivals any Hollywood epic. At the centre of it stood Luke Ryan, an Irish privateer and smuggler whose audacious career during the American War of Independence made him one of the most notorious raiders ever to prowl British waters.

IN THE spring of 1766, Dublin found itself captivated by one of the most sensational criminal cases of the 18th century. Four sailors, Peter McKinley, an Irish boatswain; George Gidley, a Yorkshire-born cook; Richard St Quentin, an Englishman; and Andreas Zekerman, a Dutch seaman, stood accused of murder and mutiny on the high seas, crimes that struck at the heart of maritime law. Their trial and execution would echo through Irish folklore, but the events that placed them there were all too real