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Belfast Executions hand. The gun had been concealed in a hedge in the laneway where the murder took place. They therefore had the motive for the crime - robbery. They had the method used - the use of poteen as a bait and the callous use of a shotgun to shoot the victim at close range. They had also narrowed down the suspects to someone who was living A. B. Babington K.C., submitted that in the locality. the murder was done by a local, who obviously had prior knowledge of Many people seemed to have heard both the locality and of McCann’s the shot that morning but thought it movements and also knowledge of was someone scaring crows. Referthe fact that McCann would be ring to Cushnan’s possession of a carrying the money on that particu- gun, the judge thought it strange to lar morning. He finished his address have a certificate when his family’s by stating, the prisoner at the bar position did not really warrant the answered the description suggested need for one. When police went to inquire about this gun only the butt by these facts. could be found. Cushnan, when McCann had been shot through the asked what happened to the barrel, neck with a shotgun. Alcohol was claimed that it had been left in an later found to be in the victim's outhouse when he was ‘flitting’ from stomach when the post mortem one house to another and someone examination was carried out. The must have lifted it. Witnesses were police also found a porter bottle of produced however who testified poteen close to where the body was having seen him with the gun after found. These facts seemed very he had moved house. Cushnan also strange to the detectives who claimed to have been working in a wondered why he would have been certain field from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on the morning of the murder but drinking at such an early hour. The Crown suggested that McCann other witnesses were produced by the had been lured down the lane by prosecution who gave evidence to Cushnan by the offer of a quick drink the contrary. They claimed that they of poteen. (McCann would not have had been working in adjoining fields perceived that such a move would and on that particular morning he have proved fatal as he knew didn’t come into the field until well Cushnan). It was this bait which after 10 o’clock. Witnesses also told ultimately led to McCann's death of seeing Cushnan’s bicycle in the and the stealing of the £60 from his laneway before the murder and it was still there at 6 or 7 that same evening. delivery bag. The murder had obviously been The greatest evidence according to meticulously planned out before- the prosecution was a piece of cloth
EXECUTION OF Samuel Cushnan 8th April 1930 ames McCann was a rural postman who carried the mail from Toomebridge post office to Crosskeys. He had to make a delivery of letters to people upon the way, and having done so, he went on to Crosskeys Post Office where he left the remainder of his delivery. On the days when the old age pension was paid out he also collected it at Toomebridge and brought it to Crosskeys with the rest of his delivery. Toomebridge to Crosskeys is a distance of about four and a half miles and on the morning of his murder, Thursday May 16th 1929, he had the money in a sealed bag which had been sent down from head office in Belfast. On May 29th police arrested James Cushnan and charged him with murdering James McCann.
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James McCann set off from Toomebridge on his bicycle at 8.20 a.m. and should have reached Crosskeys around 9.30 a.m. The fact that he carried the old age pension money every Thursday was common knowledge around that area, a fact that the prosecution impressed upon the jury. His body was found later that morning. He had apparently been robbed and shot dead. The Attorney General, Right Honourable