Clodagh Finn: It’s important to recall Ireland’s female executioner

Lady Betty is portrayed by Sally Dexter in Declan Donnellan’s 1989 play. Picture: courtesy of Cheek by Jowl and Simon Annan

It might not be the job description you’d like to see recorded for posterity, but Kerry-born Elizabeth Sugrue will always be known as Ireland’s female ‘hangwoman’, or Lady Betty for short.

The so-called “queen of the long drop in Roscommon Gaol” is back in the news again as her life, sketchy and morbid though the details are, is among the 39 new entries recently added to the Dictionary of Irish Biography.