A Body Snatcher in Kilkeel: The Story of Burke and Hare

The inmates of the Kilkeel workhouse are buried along the river, with no visible markers indicating their graves. One infamous inmate, a body snatcher, William Hare is said to be buried here.

William Hare is reported to have been born in Newry between 1792 and 1804. He moved to Edinburgh where he met William Burke. Hare helped run a boarding house which catered for vagrants and elderly people.

When an old lodger died still owing money in rent, Burke and Hare decided to sell his body to medicine, making £7.10.0. They sold the bodies, to be dissected, to a Dr. Knox. The money they made spurred them on and they began digging up graves and selling off these bodies. The two men began eventually got sick of digging up corpses, and decided to  prey on the living instead. They mostly chose old or ill people, got them drunk and then strangled them. [1]

The two men became careless and carried away with their gruesome exploits, arousing the suspicion of neighbours. It is estimated that Burke and Hare murdered between 14 and 28 people, a crime spree now known as the ‘West Port Murders’. Hare testified against his accomplice Burke, who as a result was hanged in 1829.

The story goes that Hare decided to ‘lie low’ in Kilkeel, and lived out his last days in the Kilkeel Workhouse. His body is said to be buried in the Burial Banks

Another version of the tale claims that Hare did seek refuge in the workhouse until a Dr. Reid from Edinburgh recognised him, and told the local population of his crimes.

Hare apparently escaped to Carlisle where a lynch mob blinded him and threw him in a lime pit to die. Despite this fate, Hare is said to have escaped again and went to London where he died penniless in 1859.[2]

A rhyme capturing the chilling crimes of Burke and Hare goes as such;

'Up the close and down the stair,
In the house with Burke and Hare.
Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief,
Knox, the boy who buys the beef.'[3]

** BURKE AND HARE UPDATE**