Was Jack the Ripper really from Cavan?

It’s the greatest whodunit in history. Who was behind the brutal murders of 11 women in the East End of London, stretching from April 3, 1888 to February 13, 1891. Who was Jack the Ripper?

Now a prominent Irish crime writer and Ripperologist is attempting to trace the origins of one of the case’s prime suspects. Her research has led her to west Cavan and the surrounding areas and she’s appealing to anyone in the county who may have any information in relation to a man called Francis Tumblety and his relatives or ancestors.
Published crime profiler Siobhan Patricia Mulcahy, like many others, believes Irish-born Francis Tumblety may have been the man who seemingly evaded all capture throughout the investigation into the infamous Whitechapel murders.
Then colourful Tumbelty, born in Ireland circa 1833, is widely considered as one of the chief Scotland Yard suspects in the Jack the Ripper case. As a teenager, he and his family emigrated from Ireland on the Ashburton famine ship circa 1847, moving to Rochester, New York along with his 10 brothers and sisters.
While there is information regarding the family and their life in the US, his origins in Ireland remain an enigma as no records have been found to date by researchers both here and abroad.
The unearthing of a reference to 'Innikillen Falls’, Scots spelling of Enniskillen, perhaps today’s Marble Arch or Tullydermott Falls near Blacklion has seen the investigative trail lead to the Breifne County and surrounds.
“When I came across information that he had visited a place called 'Inniskillen Falls’, it poses the question as to why, when he came back to Ireland did he go to that place? There had to be a reason for it. He only ever mentions one other place in Ireland and that was Kerry. The information there is that his mother’s name is thought to be Sullivan or O’Sullivan - so is perhaps from Kerry,” said Ms Mulcahy.
While living in America in the early part of his life, Tumbelty set himself up in business pertaining to be a “great physician”. History books, however, remember him more as an eccentric, a person who was a vocal denouncer of women, reserving special hatred for prostitutes and who displayed a collection of preserved female reproductive organs to his guests at dinner parties.
From practicing medicine in Canada in the 1850s, Tumbelty moved to New York and Washington, DC, where he claims to have first been introduced to Abraham Lincoln. Interestingly, through his alleged association with David Herold, who was captured with John Wilkes Booth, Tumbelty was arrested but later released in connection with the assassination of the nation’s 16th President.
Tumbelty though visited Europe several times, including Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany and France where he claims to have been introduced to Charles Dickens and King William and provided treatment to Louis Napoleon, for which he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
Tumbelty’s links to high-ranking circles, Ms Mulcahy says, caused police in Ireland at the time to attempt to speak to him in relation to the so-called Phoenix Park Murders, the fatal stabbings on May 6, 1882 of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke.
On November 7, 1888, London police arrested Tumbelty on charges of “gross indecency”, apparently for engaging in homosexuality, which was illegal at the time. He fled to France and then to America where, already notorious for self-promotion and previous criminal charges, his arrest was reported in The New York Times as being connected to the Ripper murders.
“He was as slippery as a fish. He never really was, as far as I am aware, convicted of anything. He managed to get away every single time, his story is quite incredible. I mean, the police were all over White Chapel looking for him for the Ripper murders, they were covering the ports and he still managed to get away. He certainly seemed to be able to cover his tracks,” said Ms Mulcahy.
Tumblety eventually returned to Rochester. He was living in Baltimore, Maryland, during the 1900 census but returned to St Louis, where he died in 1903 of heart disease. He is buried in the family plot in Rochester’s Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
As to whether kin of Tumbelty would be forthcoming given his notorious reputation in history, Ms Mulcahy reasons “I don’t think they have anything to be ashamed of. I mean, they’ve done nothing wrong, it just happens to be in their lineage. In fact, I wrote an article a number of years ago 'Was Jack the Ripper Irish?’ and I was talking to a woman in Newry whose surname was Tumbelty. She claimed she might be related, I hadn’t heard of Tumbelty before this but it was then I really started to investigate the links between him and Jack the Ripper.”
“I’d love to be able to be the person who discover’s Jack the Ripper’s exact birthplace in west Cavan/south Fermanagh,” Ms Mulcachy says. “It’s annoying, its frustrating to me and many others that we cannot locate this man’s exact origins in Ireland, or any of his brothers and sisters who were also born here. To be able to answer that question would perhaps open a whole new chapter of history in this story.”
Anyone with any such information on Francis Tumbelty or the Tumbelty lineage in the region can contact The Anglo-Celt or, Siobhan directly at siobhan_mulcahy@hotmail.com.