Major Sir Lancelot Ernest Curran (8 March 1899 – 20 October 1984, leighrayment.com; accessed 26 September 2017.) was a

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

High Court

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

and parliamentarian. He was elected as

Ulster Unionist The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist oppositi ...

Member of Parliament for Carrick in the Stormont Parliament serving from 1945 to 1949,Mystery coverup (part 2)
BelfastTelegraph.co.uk; accessed 26 September 2017. and was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (

Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom I ...

) (17 July 1945 – 12 June 1947). Curran was Attorney General for Northern Ireland (6 June 1947 – 4 November 1949), the youngest in the history of that parliament. He was a member of the

Orange Order The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants. It also has lodges in England, Grand Orange Lodge of ...

and became a member of the

Privy Council of Northern Ireland The Privy Council of Northern Ireland is a dormant privy council formerly advising the Governor of Northern Ireland in his role as viceroy of the British Crown, in particular in the exercise of the monarch's prerogative powers. The council wa ...

.Denied justice by a form of words
independent.co.uk; accessed 26 September 2017.

Murder of Patricia Curran

Lancelot and Doris Curran had three children: Michael, Patricia and Desmond. Desmond became a barrister and latterly a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

convert and

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. On 12 November 1952 Patricia, aged 19, and a student at

Queen's University, Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

, was murdered. Her body was found in the driveway of the Curran home, Glen House,

Whiteabbey Whiteabbey () is a townland (of 406 acres) in Newtownabbey, north of Belfast in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The original village of Whiteabbey stood at the foot of the Three Mile Water, on the shore of Belfast Lough. In 1958, it and six othe ...

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, County Antrim, Antrim, ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the c ...

. She had been stabbed thirty-seven times. A 20 year old RAF technician, Iain Hay Gordon, who had met Patricia at the Presbyterian church they both attended, was convicted of her murder. His sentence was overturned in 2000 after the Northern Ireland

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

found it to be unsafe. ''Scapegoat'', a

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. BBC Northern Ireland is one of the four BB ...

drama about the conviction of Hay Gordon, was broadcast in 2009.Scapegoat found for high society murder
bbc.co.uk; accessed 26 September 2017.

Famous trials

Curran presided over the trial of

Robert McGladdery Robert Andrew McGladdery (18 October 193520 December 1961) was the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland. He was convicted of the murder of Pearl Gamble, aged 19, whom he had battered, strangled and stabbed ...

for the murder of 19-year-old Pearl Gamble, near

Newry Newry (; ) is a City status in Ireland, city in Northern Ireland, standing on the Newry River, Clanrye river in counties County Down, Down and County Armagh, Armagh. It is near Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, the border with the ...

, in 1961. McGladdery protested his innocence but was found guilty and hanged at

Crumlin Road jail HM Prison Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known ...

in Belfast on 20 December 1961; it was the last hanging in

. A fictionalized account of the trial and execution of McGladdery, ''Orchid Blue'', was written by Eoin McNamee and published in 2010 (McNamee had previously written a

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...

-nominated novel, ''Blue Tango'', about the murder of Patricia Curran). Another McNamee novel, ''Blue Is The Night'' (published in 2014), deals with Curran's involvement in a murder trial in the Northern Ireland of the late 1940s.

Later years and death

Sir Lancelot's first wife, Lady Doris Curran, died on 29 May 1975. He remarried, to Margaret Pearce a year later. He died in

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

in 1984.

References