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Tue 06 Jun 2007Hangman's letters releasedNational Archives:A series of letters from the "official executioner to the British government" Thomas William Pierrepoint to the Irish High Sheriff are among those released by the Department of Justice. He describes an execution at Mountjoy but also complains of turning up for another only to find that the prisoner had been granted a reprieve.Pierrepoint's letters began on November 20th, 1923, when he thanked the High Sheriff for an appointment at Mountjoy Prison, where William Downs, the 25-year-old killer of a police officer, was to be hanged on November 29th. On arriving in Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) he wrote: "I will make my way straight to the Prison Sir, as it does not do to hang about and advertise yourself on these jobs."