The events of October 6, 1894
Agnes MacDonnell was alone in the Valley House with her little dog Tip on the night of October 6th, 1894 when the cry was raised in the village - "The big house is on fire!". It was the man who set that fire, James Lynchehaun, who appeared at the back door to lead Agnes MacDonnell from the flames. Instead he dragged her behind a haystack, where he savagely attacked her and left her for dead. Her injuries were so severe she was not expected to live. Her nose had been bitten off and she lost one eye as a result of the attack. For the remainder of her days she wore a silver plate over her nose and a veil over her face to hide her disfigurement.
Lynchehaun was arrested and taken to Castlebar jail, from where it was necessary to bring him back to the Valley on four separate occasions for Mrs. MacDonnell's depositions to be heard. This required a journey by rail to Mulranny and from there onwards by jaunting car. On the final trip, although handcuffed and escorted by two armed constables, Lynchehaun leapt off the car and disappeared into the darkness in the vicinity of his uncle's house, which was situated on the Mulranny side of Achill Sound. There his relatives prepared him to run. He reentered Achill by boat and subsequently went into hiding underneath the floorboards in the house of a friend. He remained there for three months, during which an army of 300 Royal Irish Constabulary policemen combed the island for him.
Meanwhile, the government had put a price of £200 on his head, with Mrs. MacDonnell making it up to £300, while the locals where busy composing ballads to celebrate the confusion of the authorities. Eventually the fugitive was betrayed for the money and this time he was incarcerated in Maryborough jail in the midlands. After seven years incarceration there he once again managed to escape, this time clad only in his shirt and drawers.
His adventure ended in Chicago 82 days later where he was apprehended and there began the major political debate of the day, based on the efforts of the British authorities to have him extradited back to Ireland to finish paying for his crimes.The efforts of the British government failed, despite a retrial and a hearing in the Supreme Court, and Lynchehaun remained in America for many more years. At first popular with the expatriate community, he went into decline after Michael Davitt, whom he met in Cleveland at a public meeting, refused to shake his hand, saying "I will not shake the hand of a murderer".
Lynchehaun returned to Achill twice, once in 1907 disguised as an American tourist, and then in 1918 at which time he was arrested and deported. He is said to have died in Girvan, Scotland in 1937 when he would have been around the age of seventy-seven.