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[The following curious sketch is from Mr W. R. Wilde's Irish Popular Superstitions, printed in M'Glashan's Readings in Popular Literature. It does not refer to a superstition, but to one of those facts which exhibit as much of the preternatural as the wildest excursion of fancy. A portion of the little volume is reprinted from the Dublin University Magazine, and, for aught we know, Lady Betty may have made her appearance originally in that work.]

The old jail of Roscommon stood, and, although now converted to other purposes, still stands in the market-place, in the centre of the town. It is an exceedingly high, dark, gloomy-looking building, with a castellated top, like one of the ancient fortresses that tower above the houses in many of the continental cities. It can be discerned at a great distance; and, taken in connection with the extensive ruins of O'Connor's Castle, in the suburbs, and the beautiful abbey upon the other side of the town, seems to partake of the character of the middle-age architecture. The fatal drop was, perhaps, the highest in Ireland. It consisted of a small doorway in the front of the third storey, with a simple iron beam and pulley above, and the lapboard merely a horizontal door hinged to the wall beneath, and raised or let fall by means of a sliding-bolt, which shot from the wall when there was occasion to put the apparatus of death in requisition. Fearful as this elevated gallows appeared, and unique in its character, it was not more so than the finisher of the law who then generally officiated upon it. No decrepit wretch, no crime-hardened ruffian, no secret and mysterious personage, who was produced occasionally disguised and masked, plied his dreadful trade here. Who, think you, gentle reader—who now, perhaps, recoils from these unpleasant but truthful minutiÆ—officiated upon this gallows high?—a female!—a middle-aged, stout-made, dark-eyed, swarthy-complexioned, but by no means forbidding-looking woman—the celebrated Lady Betty—the finisheress of the law—the unflinching priestess of the executive for the Connaught circuit, and Roscommon in particular, for many years. Few children, born or reared in that county thirty, or even five-and-twenty years ago, who were not occasionally frightened into 'being good,' and going to sleep, and not crying when left alone in the dark, by huggath a' Pooka, or, 'here's Lady Betty.' The only fragment of her history which we have been able to collect is, that she was a person of violent temper, though in manners rather above the common, and possessing some education. It was said that she was a native of the County Kerry, and that by her harsh usage she drove her only son from her at an early age. He enlisted; but, in course of years, returned with some money in his pocket, the result of his campaigning. He knocked at his father's door, and asked a night's lodging, determined to see for himself whether the brutal mother he had left had in any way repented, or was softened in her disposition, before he would reveal himself. He was admitted, but not recognised. The mother, discovering that he possessed some money, murdered him during the night. The crime was discovered, and the wretched woman sentenced to be hanged, along with the usual dockful of sheep-stealers, Whiteboys, shop-lifters, and cattle-houghers, who, to the amount of seven or eight at a time, were invariably 'turned off' within four-and-twenty hours after their sentences at each assizes. No executioner being at hand, time pressing, and the sheriff and his deputy being men of refinement, education, humanity, and sensibility, who could not be expected to fulfil the office which they had undertaken—and for which one of them, at least, was paid—this wretched woman, being the only person in the jail who could be found to perform the office, consented; and under the name of Lady Betty, officiated, unmasked and undisguised, as hangwoman for a great number of years after; and she used also to flog publicly in the streets, as a part of her trade. Numerous are the tales related of her exploits, which we have now no desire to dwell upon. We may, however, mention one extraordinary trait of her character. She was in the habit of drawing, with a burnt stick, upon the walls of her apartment, portraits of all the persons she executed.