The end of Thomas life seems to me to portray an everyday hard working family man. On tracing back, however, it seems he was ‘notorious’‘, ‘in the most daring gang to ever infest the neighbourhood’, and engaged in not so mysterious ‘doings’ in Dublin.
The earliest reference I found to Thomas was an article pertaining to his arrest. It stated that
McDonogh and Scott apprehended [the suspect]…coming out of Duignan’s public house in Mercer Street… found a large horse pistol… his own hat was subsequently found on the road at the scene of action. These fellows were soon recognised as two of a gang who made themselves notorious for their robberies within the last month… the pistolman the notorious Thomas Finla[y]n, who have very lately been spending seven months in Newgate for similar doings. He and his companion were committed till next Commission, which will sit at Kilmainham on the 9th of next month.[1]
Then I found this one…Thomas had been caught picking pockets in September 1832[2].
Tales2Tell 