Elizabeth Sugrue

Elizabeth Sugrue (; – 1807), also known as Lady Betty, was an Irish executioner.

Life Born around 1750, Sugrue was left destitute after the death of her farmer husband. Evicted from her home, she set off with her two children on the long walk to the town of Roscommon. On the way, her younger child died of starvation and exposure, leaving only the elder, Pádraig.

On the day her death sentence was due to be executed, twenty-five others were also due to be hanged, including sheep and cattle thieves and ‘Whiteboys’, young men who tore down fences and hedges surrounding what had once been common land. On the day of her hanging, the hangman was ill. Betty volunteered to hang all of the others in exchange for her life being spared, allegedly after three others refused. She lived in the prison thereafter, carrying out executions and floggings, including a number of rebels executed during the 1798 Rebellion. She was known to draw portraits of the men and women she hanged on the wall of her lodgings with charcoal.

She was not the first hangwoman in Ireland, however; an unidentified woman hanged two men for murder on 13 November 1782 at Kilmainham. The men were also quartered. The sheriff received abuse for making a hangman of a woman.

In 1802, her own sentence was commuted, in recognition of her service to "the safety of the public".

Elizabeth died in 1807 and was buried in an unmarked grave inside the walls of Roscommon Gaol. The account held in the National Folklore Collection claims she was murdered by a prisoner.

Popular culture In 1884, an article on her written by Charlotte O'Conor Eccles appeared in the Weekly Irish Times. She is the centrepiece of a narrative poem by Áine Miller, titled "Betty Sugrue - Hangwoman; The Woman From Hell", and the main character in Declan Donnellan's 1989 play Lady Betty.

In 2021, a short animated film Lady Betty was produced by Irish production company Whackala. It was directed by Paul McGrath and starred Colm Meaney and David Pearse.

TG4 (Ireland) released a short Irish-language documentary on Elizabeth Sugrue in March 2026.