William Hare, the famous murderer, was born near Scarva around 1800. In his youth he tended horses for lighters on the Newry canal near Poyntzpass. He emigrated to Scotland, married and ran a boarding house in Edinburgh. In 1828, over a period of just twelve months, he and William Burke committed 16 murders, selling the victims’ bodies for medical research. When the pair were arrested, Hare turned Queen’s Evidence, and was eventually released, whereas Burke was hanged.
Scotland was now too ‘hot’ for him, so he fled back to Ireland with his family. However, his notoriety had preceded him and on 3rd April 1839 he was recognised in a pub in Scarva.
“Hare the murderer called in at a public house in Scarva, accompanied by his wife and child, and having ordered a noggin of whiskey, he began to inquire for the welfare of every member of the family of the house…However, as Hare is a native of this neighbourhood he was very soon recognised, and ordered to leave the place immediately, with which he complied, after attempting to palliate his horrid crimes by describing them as having been the effects of intoxication. He took the road towards Loughbrickland, followed by a number of boys, yelling and threatening in such a manner as obliged to him to take through the fields, with such speed that he soon disappeared, while his unfortunate wife remained on the road, imploring forgiveness, and denying, in the most solemn manner, any participation in the crimes of her wretched husband…He was born and bred about one half mile distant from Scarva, in the opposite county of Armagh; and shortly before his departure from this country, he lived in the service of Mr Hall, the keeper of the eleventh lock, near Poyntzpass. He was chiefly engaged in driving the horses, which his master employed in hauling lighters on the Newry Canal. He was always remarkable for being of a ferocious and malignant disposition, an instance of which he gave in killing one of his master’s horses, which obliged him to fly to Scotland where he perpetrated those unparalleled crimes.”
Hare and his family are said to have ended up in the workhouse in either Newry or Kilkeel.