I refer to the very interesting and informative article written by Fabian Mangion entitled ‘The fate of a young, polite, fair-haired man’, (The Sunday Times of Malta, June 4).

A lithograph by Charles de Brocktorff showing HMS Rodney being struck by lightning on December 7, 1838.

The author rightly mentions how the local people at Vittoriosa still tend the burial place of the Irish Catholic seaman Thomas McSweeney, who was hanged on board HMS Rodney on June 8, 1837, for an unfortunate incident which led to the death of Lance Sergeant James T. Allen.

Mr Mangion also says that some consider McSweeney a saint and that he was judged and condemned to hang for his Catholic beliefs; and that his “burial place has become a shrine for pilgrims commemorating what they declare are the many wrongs inflicted by the English on the Irish”.

However, there may be another reason why the Maltese started giving devotional attention to McSweeney. This may have been divine retribution.

A lithograph by Charles de Brocktorff shows HMS Rodney being struck by lightning on December 7, 1838, only a year and a half after McSweeney’s execution on the ship.

The bolts of lightning are clearly seen on the lithograph. There were two other ships accompanying HMS Rodney - the HMS Pembroke and HMS Dido - and yet they did not suffer the same fate. The event merited an illustration by Brocktorff and the distribution of the print may have triggered enough religious sentiment and perhaps even superstition with the locals, to start praying at his tomb.

If, as claimed, they also received graces through his intercession, it is little wonder that his burial place has been so well-looked after with daily flowers and candles for almost 180 years.