Killen, John (c.1763–1803), publican and convicted rebel, was born at Kinnegad, Co. Westmeath; there are no details about his family or early life. He moved to Dublin where he purchased a small public house on Thomas Street, beside James Street. There he married a notorious widow, who had already survived three husbands and had a reputation for never washing; Killen became known popularly as ‘the husband of the dirty cook’. Together they made a success of the business, taking in lodgers, serving food throughout the day, and selling alcohol.
There is no evidence that Killen was involved in the planning by Robert Emmet (qv) of a rebellion in 1803. However, it seems that he was one of the hundred or so Dubliners who became embroiled in the conflict after Emmet began his abortive march on Dublin castle at nine o'clock on the night of 23 July. The rebellion quickly disintegrated into a drunken riot, Emmet abandoned the attempt, and the leadership of the mob was assumed by James Bannon, a former soldier in the British army, and Felix Rourke (qv), the brother of the proprietor of the Yellow Bottle tavern. Killen and John McCann, a publican from Dirty Lane who had been a rebel in 1798, ventured out onto Thomas Street. It was later alleged that they were handed weapons by Rourke and instructed to ‘Do your duty and free your country’. Carrying a pike, Killen went down Dirty Lane and was ordered to kill two wounded men who were making noise. He impaled one of them, and McCann fired a pistol at point-blank range at the other; afterwards Killen told Rourke that the ‘business is done’.
Arrested a few days after the collapse of the rebellion, Killen was tried for high treason, together with McCann, on Wednesday 7 September 1803. The case for the prosecution rested upon the testimony of two pedlars and confidence tricksters, Michael Mahaffy and John Ryan, who claimed to have been inducted into the fighting by Rourke. The prisoners were defended by John Philpot Curran (qv), who made a skilful attempt to prove their innocence; he produced numerous witnesses who claimed that Killen had remained indoors all night. The jury, however, was not convinced and after forty-seven minutes’ deliberation found both men guilty. Summoned to the bar on 9 September to hear the verdict of the court, Killen protested his innocence and claimed that he had never handled a pike in his life, while McCann insisted that he had not touched a pike or a pistol within ‘these five years to my knowledge’ (Ridgeway, 75). Both men were executed 12 September on Thomas Street.
The unreliable testimony of Mahaffy and Ryan has convinced some historians that Killen was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Much was made at the trial of an overheard conversation in which Ryan accused Mahaffy of implicating Killen for financial reward. Nevertheless, many of the men caught red-handed on the night of the rebellion protested their innocence, and while the evidence against Killen was not conclusive, neither was the testimony of his innocence entirely convincing. Certainly the government was convinced from its secret sources, including the informer Leonard MacNally (qv), that it had found those responsible for the events of 23 July 1803.