Capital punishment in the Republic of Ireland was abolished in statute law in 1990, having been abolished in 1964 for most offences including ordinary murder. The last person to be executed by the British state in Ireland was Robert McGladdery, who was hanged on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The last person to be executed by the state in the Republic of Ireland was Michael Manning, hanged for murder on 20 April 1954. All subsequent death sentences in the Republic of Ireland, the last handed down in 1985, were commuted by the President, on the advice of the Government, to terms of imprisonment of up to 40 years. The Twenty-first Amendment of the constitution, passed by referendum in 2001, prohibits the reintroduction of the death penalty, even during a
