The Strange Story Of Sarah Kelly

Born Sarah Birch in 1801 at Broadstairs, Kent, she was abducted and seduced, as a teenager, by a wealthy profligate from Ireland named Meredith, and taken to Dublin, where she was abandoned, together with her infant son.  After years of street-wise destitution, Sarah met and married Edmund Kelly, a wealthy attorney and land agent, thirty-five years her senior, from Kiltoom, Co. Roscommon.  On his death in 1845 she inherited his vast wealth, but had to endure years of litigation in Irish courts, before his will was proved in her favour.  A harsh and cruel, if able, landlord she carried out several evictions of her tenants and was murdered at Ballinderry, Moate, Co. Westmeath in April 1856.  In this factual and fascinating account of her life, the story does not end with Sarah Kelly's death, and the varying fortunes of her relatives from Kent, who inherited her houses and estates in Ireland have been followed right up to the date of publication.