Lucinda Singleton was the wife of a small farmer near Tullow, in County Carlow. Shortly after her son, Thomas, was born, Lucinda’s husband died of consumption. Afterwards, life was difficult for her, but she worked hard, supplementing her income by selling butter in Carlow town.

When Thomas left home to become a police officer, Lucinda was lonely and wished she had someone to share her life with. Perhaps she should have been happy with her lot because when her wish came true, she got more than she bargained for. As her mother used to say, ‘A little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns.’

The ‘big fire’ that came into her life was a farmer and horse dealer called Walter Sly. Initially, Lucinda was wary of the man because he had a reputation for drinking too much, but he assured her that his bad habit was behind him. She gave him a chance, and over the next few months they started stepping out together. During that time, Lucinda never saw Walter take more than a single drink, so she was convinced he’d changed his ways. Eventually, he proposed to her and asked her to move in to his farm at Oldleighlin.

But Lucinda was no fool; she knew that if the marriage didn’t work out she’d be left with nothing, so she agreed to marry Walter on condition that she could keep her own farm.

‘Fine,’ said Walter. ‘We’ll rent it out.’

Lucinda was happy with this but wanted to make the agreement legally binding, so they had an attorney draw up a document stating that Walter could not sell her farm. However, unbeknownst to her, Walter added a clause that the agreement would become null and void if Lucinda wasn’t a good wife to him.

In August 1831, the couple got married and Lucinda Si