Documentary on One: the Murderer, Me and My Family Tree

Documentary on One: The Murderer, Me and My Family Tree Dylan Haskins finishes the search his late father started, to find out if they are related to the last man hanged at Wicklow Gaol.

When Dylan Haskins was 11 years old, he was in the car with his father, driving along the road, when a voice boomed out of the radio: James Haskins, you have been sentenced to death by hanging.

Dylan's father almost crashed the car. Not only was his name James Haskins, but so was his father's, and his father's before that.

That was in 1998, and the voice was part of a radio ad promoting the re-opening of the newly refurbished Wicklow Gaol as a tourist attraction. James Haskins, it turned out, was the last man ever to be hanged in the gaol, on Saturday 18th March 1843.

Dylan and his dad went on a mission to find out what crime had cost his namesake his life, and whether this James Haskins might be in their bloodline. They spent the following summer driving around Wicklow and searching through old church records. While they found out some information, nothing was conclusive and the matter was shelved as a cold case in their family history.

Dylan's father has since passed away and so, 17 years later, Dylan reopened the case and determined to find out what heinous crime James Haskins committed.

The task takes him from the cells of Wicklow Gaol to rural pubs, strangers' homesteads, around the fields and b ithr ns of County Wicklow and finally to the House of Lords in London.

Along the way, he meets long-lost relatives and locals with long memories as he tries to complete what his father started by answering the question of whether his family could be related to the last man hanged in Wicklow Gaol.

Documentary on One: The Murderer, Me and My Family Tree will broadcast this Saturday 8th August at 1pm on RT Radio 1. The documentary will be available to download from www.rte.ie/doconone and the Documentary on One app for iOS and Android from Friday 7th July.

LINK:	http://www.rte.ie/about/en/press-office/press-releases/2015/0804/71914...
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