As part of the Maynooth Studies in Local History, this book relates the story of the controversial trial, conviction and imprisonment of William Burke Kirwan, a Dublin artist, for the murder of his wife, Sarah, in 1852. His trial and the extensive and divisive social commentary it provoked provide a representation of the strata of society to which he belonged, the Protestant middle class of the mid-nineteenth century, allowing an examination of many of the attitudes and values that they subscribed to.