James Hanratty no credible alibi for the date in question, but repeated each time that he had nothing to do with the A6 murder. On 11 October, Hanratty was arrested by police in Blackpool, at the Stevonia cafe. On 14 October, Valerie Storie identified Hanratty in an identity parade, after each of the men in the parade had repeated the phrase used by the murderer: "Be quiet, will you? I'm thinking." Hanratty was then charged with the murder of Michael Gregsten. Hanratty's murder trial started at Bedfordshire Assizes on 22 January 1962; it was originally to have been heard at the Old
Capital punishment in Ireland the point of treating him as a common criminal rather than a political prisoner. Harry Gleeson, hanged in 1941 for the 1940 murder of Moll McCarthy, was granted a posthumous pardon in 2015. Seán MacBride was Gleeson's defence counsel and attributed his later opposition to the death penalty to his belief in Gleeson's innocence. Michael Manning was the last person executed in the state. He was hanged for murder by Albert Pierrepoint on 20 April 1954. The same year, Brendan Behan's play "The Quare Fellow" premiered, in which the title character was modelled on Bernard Kirwan, awaiting execution in Mountjoy