The Four Left-Handed Maidens and the Highwayman of London City in 1799: An Investigation by Brock Adair, the Resident Detective of Ballymena, County Antrim, and Kitty Bradshaw Brennan, the Red-Headed Mistress of Disguise from Wexford

By Ned Byrne

In 2006 a bundle of hand written pages were discovered buried in a garden in the outskirts of Cullybackey near Ballymena, County Antrim. They had been penned by Charles Kinhilt a lawyer from Cullybackey, County Antrim. They had been sealed in sacking and placed in a wooden box which had been covered in what appeared to be bitumen. The contents revealed the journal of one Brock Adair outlining his investigations into crime in County Antrim and indeed the whole of the island of Ireland in the late 1700s and into the 1800s. Further reading revealed a lady called Kitty Bradshaw Brennan from Wicklow who is believed to be Irelands first female investigator although this is not a proven fact .She and Brock conducted many successful enquiries together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728397412

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2020 Ned Byrne. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/03/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9739-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9740-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-9741-2 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

A Note to the Reader

Prologue

The Four Left-Handed Maidens and the Highwayman of London City in 1799

Chapter 1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Jean Pelham for her collation and Janice Blight for her portraits.

A NOTE TO THE READER

In 2006, a bundle of handwritten pages was discovered buried in a garden in the outskirts of Cullybackey near Ballymena, County Antrim. They had been penned by Charles Kinhilt, a lawyer from Cullybackey. They had been sealed in sacking and placed in a wooden box covered in what appeared to be bitumen. The contents revealed the journal of one Brock Adair, outlining his investigations into crime in County Antrim and indeed the whole of the island of Ireland in the late 1700s and into the 1800s. Further reading revealed a lady called Kitty Bradshaw Brennan from Wicklow, who is believed to be Ireland’s first female investigator, although this is not a proven fact. She and Brock conducted many successful inquiries together.

The following are the details as written by Charles Kinhilt.

PROLOGUE

1844

My name Charles Kinhilt, and I am a lawyer from the town of Cullybackey. I practice my profession in the province of Ulster, and I commit to paper the following information.

My dear friend Brock Adair, investigator of this county and the town of Ballymena, has passed away, in this year of 1844 on 5 May. He has been laid to rest on private ground in the Brocklamont area of Ballymena by special permission from the authorities.

Dear reader, I would like to outline some details of my friend’s life and times for the future so those of this area and of the surrounding villages will know the works of this fine man. Brock Adair was a gentleman, a fine investigator, and an astute observer of people and places. He was also a man who liked his privacy, being humble and unassuming. Were it not for the investigations of my dear friend Brock, many a felon would still be outstanding in this district and causing havoc and hurt. Brock assisted the authorities with many an investigation—some serious, some amusing.

I have attached herewith a number of investigations of Brock Adair, and perhaps it is true to say that Brock would not want these notes and investigations to be made public. I feel, however, that sometime in the future it would be pertinent, and indeed proper, for these investigations to be made public. I now outline the life and times of my very dear friend Brock Adair.

In July of the year of 1771—a warm month indeed—Brock was found abandoned and well wrapped on private land near the highway in the Brocklamont area of Ballymena. It appeared that he was a new-born infant, perhaps just hours old. The owner of said land, Mrs Elizabeth Adair, had been walking and discovered the child. She and her husband, Bruce, were wealthy, kindly folk, and it was their wish, having failed to trace the infant’s mother, to raise the child as theirs. He was given the name Brock after the area of Ballymena in which he was found. This area was known for its numerous badger setts. I have learnt of late that the word brock means badger in Irish.

He had