June 5th 2008 was the 202nd anniversary of the hanging deaths of Dominic Daley and James Halligan.  I was privileged to attend this event and was asked to place flowers at the base of their memorial stone.  They were two Irish Immigrants to Massachusetts who were accused of murder.  The atmosphere in Massachusetts at that time was anti-Irish and anti-Papist.  On that day 25,000 people gathered in Northampton to witness the double hangings.  Their bodies were taken down from the gallows and dissected and their bones strewn in the woods unburied...as was the punishment in those days for heinous crimes.  Ten years later a local farmer was said to have confessed to the murder on his death bed.

     I researched this true story and in 1984 my play "THEY'RE IRISH!  THEY'RE CATHOLIC!!  THEY'RE GUILTY!!!" was presented for the first time to pressure Governor Michael Dukakis into granting them posthumous Exonerations  This was successful and the pardon was granted to them on March 16, 1984.