The Stone Court Centre opened in 1998, offering a mix of retail and residential units in a visually striking development in the heart of Roscommon Town. The interiors are modern, polished – but just a glance at the frontage will tell you that this building has stories to tell. Not necessarily of ghosts, but certainly of past characters.

Stone Court incorporates the structure of an eighteenth-century gaol. Those held here were often moved on to larger prisons or transported overseas, but executions also took place within its walls. And many of those deaths are said to have come at the hands of a woman known as Lady Betty. Her story was recorded in the 1850s by Sir William Wilde – a Roscommon native who gathered accounts from people who lived within memory of her life and death.

Lady Betty is believed to have been born around 1750. Her early life was marked by poverty and hardship. After the death of her husband, she was left destitute, struggling to provide for her two children. Setting out for Roscommon Town in search of a better life, tragedy struck along the way when one of her children died, leaving only Betty and her son, Pádraig. They survived as best they could. Begging. Stealing. Taking shelter where they could.

Given the hardship she endured, it is perhaps not surprising that it was said she had a short temper. But over time, her temperament became more and more erratic, and this eventually caused a rift between mother and son.
Pádraig left – bound for America – with good intentions. Time and distance can heal things, and he hoped that he could one day return and change their fortunes.

But years passed and there was no sign of him returning.

Betty continued to scrape a hard living, taking in travellers for whatever small payment they could offer in return. But then, one night, a man arrived… and he had money. She decided that she needed that more than he did, so she waited until he fell asleep… and then she killed him.

Only afterwards, going through his belongings, did she realise the truth: The man she had murdered was her own son.

What followed is where history and legend begin to blur.

Betty was arrested, tried, and sentenced to hang. But on the day of her execution, it is said that several of those condemned alongside her were Irish rebels – and no one present would carry out the sentence. According to accounts recorded by Wilde, Betty made an offer: She would hang them herself… in exchange for her own life. The offer was accepted.

From that point on, Lady Betty became something far more feared than a condemned woman. She became the executioner. It is said she carried out hangings within the gaol, living out her life inside its walls – her death sentence commuted in recognition of her grim “service.” Some accounts claim she executed dozens, even hundreds, of prisoners.

Other details are less certain. Stories tell of condemned men being led from a third-floor room to their deaths… of Betty taking a grim pleasure in her role… of walls marked with drawings of those she had hanged. Whether these details are literal truth, or later embellishments shaped by memory and fear, is impossible to say. But the woman at the centre of them is no invention.

Lady Betty is believed to have died in 1807. Some say of natural causes. Others claim she met a more violent end – struck down by a prisoner in the yard.

The gaol itself closed just a decade later, in 1817. In the years that followed, it served many purposes – asylum, fever hospital, market house – before eventually becoming part of the development we see today.
And what of Lady Betty?

Some claim she never left.

There are whispers – nothing consistent, nothing well documented – but enough to suggest that her presence may still linger within the fabric of the old gaol. Perhaps someone local will see this and continue the story.