“Dinner to Stephen Woulfe, Esquire, Assistant Barrister:
The solicitors practising in this district invited our learned and impartial Assistant Barrister to a sumptuous dinner at Kilroys on Saturday last. Every luxury of the season was served up in the best style, and the wines, which were of the choicest description, circulated in plentiful profusion. Our worthy Mayor, Edmond Blake Esq, Mr JJ Bodkin, MP and Counsellors John Blake, Henry Baldwin and William McDermott were invited on the occasion, and the evening passed off in the utmost harmony and good humour – Connaught Journal.“
‘Kilroys’ was the famous Kilroys Hotel, Gort, described in the Athenaeum of 1843 as providing comfortable accommodation and an intelligent host, although Thackeray disliked the view and had a poor opinion of the company (presumably the Connaught Bar was elsewhere at the time of his visit?)
The 19th century Irish legal system allowed practising barristers to fill part-time judicial roles as ‘Assistant-Barristers’. Mr Woulfe was later appointed Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. Sadly, his time in Court 3 was very brief, possibly due to courtroom sanitary issues. Hopefully Circuit gourmandising did not contribute!
“COURT OF COMMON PLEAS – YESTERDAY – THE HOT WATER PIPES
Previous to the commencement of the business of the court, Mr Serjeant Fitzgibbon complained of the constant steam that was coming up from the pipes underneath the table close to which the gentlemen of the inner bar were obliged to stand. He declared it was equal to a warm bath, and was likely to be attended with the worst consequences to Queen’s Counsel, who sometimes had to remain under the influence of the steam for hours. He asked… Chief Justice [Monahan] if he were a member of the building committee of the benchers, and, if so, to represent the matter to them, in the hope of having the nuisance abated.
The Chief Justice quite agreed with Mr Serjeant Fitzgibbon, and said he would represent the matter to the Board of Works. Mr Serjeant Fitzgibbon said that Gandon, the architect of the building, had designed fireplaces for the sides and corners of the building, which was the only proper means of heating the court.
Judge Ball said he hoped that improvement would be carried out such that his corner, which was exceedingly cold, would be taken into consideration. (Laughter)
The Chief Justice said that if Mr Serjeant Fitzgibbon sent in any suggestions on the subject they should be attended to.”
Steam heating was very popular in the mid-19th century but, as the above account shows, it had its drawbacks! Thankfully, the only steam which now rises from the bench reserved for Senior Counsel in the former Court of Common Pleas (now Court 2), is due to injured feelings in the cut and thrust of litigation.
Judge Ball (appointed in the 1830s) must have been sitting in that cold corner for quite a while. He doesn’t seem to have lost his sense of humour. Let’s hope he got to enjoy at least a couple of years of workplace warmth before his death in 1865!
“FOUR COURTS GARDENS: Sir – Having had occasion to visit the Four Courts I sauntered round the new buildings, and as I reached the rere opposite to the police offices I was forcibly struck with the neglect and apathy of the surroundings. Here there is a considerable extent of high, uncut, tufted grass, over which is scattered dirty papers etc. If these grass plots were, as they ought to be, kept as similar plots surrounding the Law courts in London are, they would be more than a pleasure to the eye in this dark neighbourhood and, if at all possible, would elevate the minds of the poor creatures to whom, unfortunately, this spot is only too familiar… I hope that this letter may cause… early attention to the matter, and that the plots will in future be kept as similar plots in like surroundings are kept across the Channel…
ANNA LIFFEY“
Things have certainly improved since Anna’s letter, with all vacant spaces in the Four Courts now clear of papers and either necessary car parking areas or beautifully tended lawns.
From a botanical point of view, the Four Courts falls short of the idyllic Inner Temple gardens depicted in the image above. The grassed over quadrangles on either side of the portico, however, offer lots of potential for floral display. The quality of the soil should be good, as the Law Library car park nearby was once a very nice cloister garden, back in the old Inns of Court and St Saviour’s Priory days.
The 16th of June may only come once a year, but it’s never too late for every day at the Four Courts to be a Bloomsday!
From the Freeman’s Journal, 7 March 1900, and the Islington Gazette, 5 March 1900:
“At the Clerkenwell County Court, Mrs Dorcas Poyntz sued Miss Rosita Tennyson, an actress, for £25.12s, the value of goods formerly belonging to her daughter, Evaline Poyntz, who had been visiting Miss Tennyson at the date of her death, and which Miss Tennyson had handed over to Mr Eustace Johnstone, a member of the Irish Bar resident in Dublin, where he principally practised.
Mr Johnstone said he was engaged to the deceased young lady, who went to stay with the defendant, as she was so unhappy at home. Mother and daughter were on most quarrelsome terms… the goods claimed, except a brooch, had all been bought by him for the deceased, as his intended wife.
Mr Johnstone admitted that his age was between 52 and 54, and the deceased was only half his age.
Mr Johnstone’s letters to Miss Poyntz were read, in which he wrote: ‘I feel as unnerved as if I have been struck by a torpedo.’
Mr Scarlett (cross-examining): Were you ever struck by a torpedo?
Judge Edge: I am afraid we should not have been investigating this case if he had been.
Mrs Poyntz said there was no truth to the rumour that she and her daughter were living apart or on bad terms. As a matter of fact, the deceased died of blood-poisoning, and she was not satisfied about it at all.
Judge Edge said he thought the case had gone quite far enough for him to see the real question at issue.”
Mrs Poyntz must have felt some belated satisfaction in 1903, when Mr Johnstone and his friend Frank DuBédat, the former president of the Dublin Stock Exchange, were convicted of having fraudulently obtained money for shares from members of the public on foot of a cancelled concession. Both parties, however, were released when the crime was disproved by subsequent evidence.
At the time of the proceedings above, Rosita Tennyson was well-known to the British public through her recitations and singing of Kipling’s ‘The Absent Minded Beggar.’ Of reputedly Spanish, or possibly even Brazilian, origin, she was described by contemporaries as possessing a Rossetti-like beauty. She was also the long-term mistress of Frank DuBédat, whom she subsequently married.
Eustace Johnstone returned to practice in November 1904. The Northern Whig of 1921 describes him in his later years as:
“a very old and also very wide member of the Irish Bar who was brimful of queer and out of the way legal points, yet if he got into court they seemed all to melt into thin air.“
A bit like the circumstances leading to the death of this Irish barrister’s sweetheart, and the reasons behind his decision to retain her belongings, matters once possibly capable of determination, but now, with the passing of time, susceptible only to the airiest of speculations!
“Great excitement was occasioned yesterday by the announcement that the north-eastern wing of the Four Courts was on fire, and that a large quantity of valuable documents had been consumed.
At twenty-five minutes past seven o’clock, Mr James Reid and Mr Matthew Kennedy, and Police Constable 20D, observed smoke breaking from the building at the north angle, near the recently erected Bankruptcy Court. They proceeded at once to Winetavern Street and gave the alarm to the Fire Brigade. In the meantime, Mr Mordon of the Board of Works got the men employed on the premises together, and by means of water obtained with much difficulty, owing to the volume of pungent smoke issuing from burning papers, they succeeded in keeping the flames in check unti the Fire Brigade came up. No time was lost in getting the steam and No 3 engines to work, with water supplied under the direction of Mr Crofton.
It was found that the fire had originated in the office of Master Gibson at the fireplace, and had extended into the Chancery General Taxing Office and through the flooring into Master Litton’s office. After much hard work the flames were got under at twenty minutes past eight o’clock , and were finally extinguished soon after, but not until all the furniture in the three apartments, as well as a vast quantity of valuable documents, were destroyed… a brief bag filled with title deeds left yesterday by a gentleman has been consumed and nothing remains of its contents but the iron framework, lock and clasp.”
The writer went on to suggest that the fire might have been caused by the housekeeper having permitted some of the cinders to fall under the hearth rug when raking out the grate in Master Gibson’s office the previous day. This was flatly contradicted by none other than the housekeeper herself, who stated, in the Dublin Evening Mail of the following day, that she had gone round all the offices at six o’clock that day with several other women under her charge and made quite sure all the fires were extinguished!
The cause of the fire therefore remained a mystery, as the room in question was too high to be approachable by the only other suggested cause: incendiaries. What was clear was that the fire had been exacerbated by the partitions in the offices having been constructed of lath and plaster, with sods of turf in between for the purposes of deadening sound – a highly flammable fit-out!
This was only one of many 19th century fires to threaten the Four Courts. The first, which broke out between nine and ten o’clock on the 30th August 1805, in the stables of the New White Cross Inn (the current Law Library site), could have destroyed Gandon’s Four Courts almost as soon as it was constructed. The flames of this fire, which initially raged with the greatest violence, were fortunately extinguished by officers of the Pipe Water department and detachments of the 28th and Royal Tyrone Regiments without half the damage apprehended actually occurring.
In February 1823 another fire broke out on a Saturday night in the Offices of the Common Pleas in the eastern quadrangle; the damage was trifling and the court officers and clerks working during the weekend were commended for their prompt action in extinguishing it.
A more serious scare occurred on the 19th March 1828, when a stable at the rear of Gandon’s building, appropriated some time previously by the Master of the Rolls for stabling his horse, went up in unexplained smoke. High winds were prevailing at the time, and the difficulty of procuring water added much to the alarm, since none could be obtained from the pipes in the street, or through the paving-carts. Eventually the fire was got under by local inhabitants (the much maligned occupiers of Pill Lane), using water from pumps and cellars in the neighbourhood.
These 1805 and 1828 fires contributed to the subsequent decision of the Wide Streets Commissioners and the Benchers of the King’s Inns to appropriate the western side of Pill Lane into the Four Courts with a view to insulating it from the surrounding neighbourhood.
The potential carelessness of Four Courts’ housekeepers with regard to fire was discussed in the Dublin Evening Post of the 21st March 1843, which asked readers to reflect on the consequence of millions of pounds of property being left in the nighttime care and keeping of women. It seems that by 1867 a more enlightened attitude prevailed and the fire of that year did not lead to the end of the housekeeping system in the Four Courts, which continued for a few decades thereafter.
There was another fire in 1887, in the Vice-Chancellor’s Court, which resulted in the destruction of its interior. An interesting feature of this fire was that, although the flames were first observed about 2 o’clock in the morning, the hands of the stopped clock in the court pointed to 9 p.m., which led some to speculate it might have started at this time. Of course, timekeeping in the Four Courts was never very regular! Again, the cause of this fire went unascertained.
By 1867, the new Records Building in the Four Courts was under contemplation and, following the December fire, attention was drawn to the proposed status of this building as a ‘vast fireproof receptable’ and consequent need for it to be completed as soon as possible.
Proof against the usual sort of fires the Records Building may have been, but that did not stop it being destroyed in the Great Four Courts Fire of 1922 of which the above events were but a mere foreshadowing. To be fair, the fire experts who constructed the Record Building could hardly be expected to foresee that it might one day be filled with munitions booby-trapped with firebombs, while large shells rained down at intervals from across the river! Not much that even the most committed fire brigade could do in that situation!
