Here lies a genuine mystery! While researching the McCrystal name for my family genealogy, I stumbled upon a genuine mystery in Co. Cork:
I was investigating Michael as being a potential name for a 3X grandfather in Ireland. There were multiple instances of family lore saying my 2X grandfather came from Co. Cork. Could this be a clue?
It was with genuine excitement I opened the death register from 1929 in South County Cork to view this person. Much to my surprise, this was not necessarily even a Michael McCrystal, even though the index for this entry had popped up. The entry says:
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- Line 250, 11/24/1929, South Cork County, County Home Road;
- Name: Thomas Coatsworth alias Michael McCrystal;
- late of South Cork County, Home Cork Road; male, bachelor, 59 Years Old; occupation – ex soldier;
- COD: hemorrhage due to perforation of lung and large blood vessel near heart from incised wound with knife inflicted by William Power.
- Certified received from John L Morgan, coroner for Cork County; inquest held 26 November 1929;
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So, the alias — who was Thomas Coatsworth really?
All the makings of a mystery – A dramatic death (stabbed, coroner’s inquest); An ironic twist (the one McCrystal in Cork is a murder victim with a fake name); A research journey (the family lore pointed to Cork, months of research said no, and then THIS turns up)!
An ex-soldier living on Cork County Home Road under an alias — stabbed to death by William Power — dying of a knife wound to the lung and a major blood vessel — coroner’s inquest held two days later.
The “alias” detail: Thomas Coatsworth was his real name (or at least his other name) — Michael McCrystal was the alias he was living under in Cork. Or vice versa. Either way, a man with two identities, stabbed to death at 59! Why?
The Cork connection:
The family lore said the McCrystals came from Cork — and the ONE McCrystal who actually turns up in Cork is an ex-soldier living under an assumed name who gets stabbed to death.
The glorious irony:
Months of research firmly establishing mid-Ulster as the McCrystal heartland, Cork has been definitively ruled out — and the single Cork entry in your database is a murder victim using an alias who may not even have been born McCrystal at all. This is a genuinely compelling story even if it is completely disconnected from the 2 X Grandfather, James, research.
Was he was living on County Home Road (or in a county social service provided home)? Was this just an address in Cork city/county, possibly a lodging house, rented room, or any ordinary dwelling on that street? The “ex-soldier” occupation suggests he had a prior career, possibly a pension of some kind – since pensioned ex-soldiers generally had some income. By 1929 many former County Homes had been repurposed or renamed — the road name often survived long after the institution itself had changed function or closed entirely. A more likely story he was living independently on a street that happened to still be named for an institution since closed or shut down for a number of reasons.
The most likely reading of this entry in the death register is that Thomas Coatsworth alias Michael McCrystal, an ex-soldier, a bachelor, aged 59, living in lodgings or a rented room on County Home Road, Cork, stabbed to death by William Power, with a coroner’s inquest held two days later.
Research avenues worth trying someday:
- Irish Newspaper Archives (irishnewsarchive.com or similar) — a Cork man stabbed to death in 1929 with a coroner’s inquest would almost certainly have appeared in local Cork newspapers. William Power as the killer is a named individual — there may be a trial record or incarceration.
- Cork Examiner 1929 — the obvious local paper for this.
[CMC NOTE: when looking for these outlets, they all have a paywall. I am not interested enough to pay for access.]
- British Army records — if he was genuinely an ex-soldier, service records might identify which Thomas Coatsworth served and when/where (yet to be explored).
This leaves me with an obvious question:
The alias: Was McCrystal his birth name and Coatsworth adopted, or the reverse?
And, last but not least: The William Power angle:
A named killer with a coroner’s inquest in 1929 Cork, there should be court records or newspaper coverage somewhere. There has to be story behind this murder – was it a confrontation over an issue (alcohol, woman, money owed, political or religious differences)? A random robbery gone wrong? We may never know what facts contributed to this mystery or what really occurred. However, if I hadn’t been researching a name for the family genealogy records, this story might never had surfaced for the family.
If anyone has additional information they may have uncovered on this mystery, please share it in the comment section below. If you have an opinion or a comment on the mystery or the research, please add it to this entry by commenting below!