Month: March 2021

The Bar Cricket Club in Season, 1889-1890

From the Clonmel Chronicle, 10 July 1880:

“The members of the Bar of Ireland sometimes unbend the legal mind in the soft excitement of lawn tennis; but when they do, the learned gentlemen have their little frolic in ‘chamber’ as it were, and not in court.  They had what is called a ‘Lawn Tennis Tournament’ recently on the Earlsfort Terrace Rink, and a member of the Press went up to tell the public how it went on and off, but the notetaking chiel wasn’t admitted.  He says that as he stood at the door, he saw an eminent and amiable judge doing wonders with the ball, and that the learned lot were shouting and tumbling about like so many schoolboys, which shows that they were enjoying themselves.  There is no truth in the statement that wigs and gowns were worn on the occasion.  It is said that there is in full swing a Bar Bicycle Club.  I doubt it; but this is a wonderfully professional age, and I don’t suppose there is any reason why, so far as the Bar is concerned, the line should be arbitrarily drawn at bicycling.”

Any tennis and cycling clubs subsequently established had the good sense to keep their activities out of the papers, but the Bar of Ireland Cricket Club enjoyed a brief flurry of publicity in the closing decades of the 19th century before golf became the favoured sport of off-duty barristers. From the start, the Bar Cricket Club played at the Vice Regal Grounds in the Phoenix Park and their very first reported match – against the Vice Regal Club – took place here in May 1872 as the opening match of the 1872 season.  Another match, against the Army this time, is reported as having taken place in June 1885 at the Garrison Ground.

But it was a series of matches against a Vice Regal Lodge team in 1889 and 1890 that really brought the Bar Cricket Club to public prominence. The first of these matches, which took place in beautifully fine weather on 14 May 1889, in the grounds of the Vice Regal Lodge (now Aras an Uachtarain) was graced by the presence of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, the then Lord Lieutenant Lord Londonderry (who went out to bat), the band of the West Surrey Regiment and a large concourse of spectators on horse and foot.  According to the Dublin Daily Express, the weather was splendid, the assemblage and surroundings of a very striking character and very seldom had a larger gathering been seen at any cricket match on a Saturday afternoon.

Not only did the ladies attend in great numbers but the attendance of members of the Bar was of such a character as to lead one to believe that the interest felt in the match was universal amongst the wearers of the wig and gown. In contrast to the other amenities, the play was merely of a fairly good character but, as the Express kindly pointed out, allowances had to be made on all sides for the early period in the season at which the match took place.  The result was Vice Regal 103, Bar 94.

The return match, which took place on the Vice Regal Ground on Sunday 19th May 1889, was described by Irish Society, Dublin as a red-letter day with everything combining to make it an enormous success, beauty again gracing the field in the form of a large female attendance, and with the weather of a most delightful character for the votaries of the willow.  Judges attended too, on horse and foot, Judge Webb riding up on what was described as ‘a serviceable cob’ and soon-to-be-deceased Lord Justice Naish driving up in a hack which he optimistically discharged in order to walk home alone.

Although the idea initially prevailed that the Bar would turn the tables on their conquerors at the second time of asking, this second match offered practical demonstration that the previous win of the home team was by no means a fluke, with the overall result being a chastening Bar 127, Vice Regal 185.  According to Irish Society, the only regret expressed was that these matches were not more frequent, possibly because business was so brisk amongst the members of the Junior Bar that they could not afford the time, but perhaps something might be done during the Long Vacation.

Something was indeed done during the Long Vacation, with a third match taking place on 17 August 1889 in the grounds of the Vice Regal Lodge.  According to the Dublin Daily Express, both sides were represented by strong teams with Lord Londonderry again occupying his usual position in the field at slip.  There was a slight shower in the forenoon but the sun prevailed in the afternoon, when the attendance became numerous and the band of the Seaforth Highlanders attended and played a selection of music.  Thankfully, the Bar Cricket Club redeemed its honour by winning on this occasion; though details of the score are not available, its ultimate victory over Vice Regal was described as a stout thrashing.

The next year’s match against Vice Regal in May 1890 was a two-day affair, and according to the Freeman’s Journal, a trial of skill in real earnest.  Once again, the weather was beautiful, with the Dublin Daily Express describing the Lodge gardens, where the match again took place, as a charming glade evidencing the tenderest tons of green relieved by the whiteness of May blossoms bursting into life and fragrance.  The former Attorney-General, Peter O’Brien, who had organised the matches the previous year, was now Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and, though he did not play, was described as ‘generalling his team in the most masterly and fatherly fashion, putting them up to some tips of wily procedure which doubtless contributed greatly to their success.’

Unfortunately, an immense rainfall during the past fortnight meant that the ground was damp and somewhat elastic, the great heat of the day did not aid the players either in scoring or taking wickets. Though the first match was won by the Vice Regal, the barristers stormed to victory in the second day’s contest. By this time, Lord Londonderry had been replaced as Lord Lieutenant by Lord Zetland, who – despite gamely travelling up from his Kilmurry fishing lodge, bat in tow, to play for the Vice Regal team – may not have had quite the same level of interest in the event as his cricket-loving predecessor!  

Perhaps because of this administrative change, or indeed because members of the Bar had had quite enough of taking direction from the Lord Chief Justice in their leisure hours, there were to be no more big cricket events to compare in any way with those of the 1889-90 seasons. We can only be grateful that the above reports of joyous play in glorious weather beneath the trees of the Phoenix Park survive to give us a brief window into the all-too-limited leisure hours of busy 19th century barristers – and a sense of the newsworthiness of any activity of the Bar and Bench, no matter how slight, in an era in which the Four Courts and the quasi-independent legal system operating out of it stood almost alone as one of the few remaining symbols of distinct and separate Irish identity!

Image Credit

Boys’ Night In Ends in Three Months’ Hard Labour for Elderly Barrister, 1892

From the Derry Journal, 8 June 1892:

“At the Petty Sessions, Nenagh, Mr Sadleir Stoney, Barrister at Law and Justice of the Peace for Dublin, who resides at Ballycapple, between Nenagh and Cloughjordan, surrendered to heavy recognisances and was charged with having assaulted Mrs Alice Bunbury, wife of Captain Bunbury, in her own house at Woodville, about a mile and a half from the defendant’s residence.

Mr Stoney conducted his own defence.

Mrs Bunbury was examined.  She said she was visiting a lady friend on the evening in question, when Mr Stoney went to her house; she had previously objected to his going to the house. ‘I knocked at the door of the parlour,’ she continued, ‘where he was with my husband, but I would not be let in. I asked why he dared to keep me out of my parlour, and Mr Stoney said I would not be let in; that the parlour did not belong to me.  I took a hatchet to break in the door, and he opened it, struck me on the face, and knocked me down.  He took the hatchet and struck me with it, and was going to strike me a second time, when one of my servants snatched it from him.  He gave me several kicks; the servant went out and when he came Mr Stoney had me by the hair of the head, and was flogging me with a whip, and the servant and myself fled downstairs; we locked the door; in about five minutes time we heard screams, and on going up to the nursery, I found him following the nurse round the table threatening to kill her; when he was going away he said ‘I will get plenty of help, and I will kill you all.’

The magistrates retired to consider and returned after half an hour, when they sentenced the defendant to three months hard labour in Limerick Jail, sureties to keep the peace being required at the end of this period.”

An appeal by Mr Stoney to the Nenagh Quarter Sessions a few days later was unsuccessful. The County Court Judge affirmed the conviction, saying that he was aware that Mr Stoney was an old and delicate man and that imprisonment would be very hard upon him but if there was any danger to his health an appeal could be made to remit the sentence. It seems that his prison term did not finish off the redoubtable Mr Stoney, who died in 1899, aged 76.

Some additional detail about Captain and Mrs Bunbury can be found on the wonderful history website of their family member Turtle Bunbury, author of many history books including the great recent publication, ‘Ireland’s Forgotten Past: A History of the Overlooked and Disremembered.’ The Captain, a childhood friend of Mr Stoney, had recently taken the 26-year-old Mrs Bunbury (née Stone, daughter of a Dublin solicitor) as his much younger second wife. Presumably Mrs Bunbury, with all the confidence of youth, had embarked on a campaign of getting her new husband to change his old habits!

Few boys’ nights in end in such unmitigated disaster!

Image Credit

The ‘Cleansing’ of Bull Lane, 1878

From the Freeman’s Journal, 1 March 1879:

“During the past few months, quietly and unknown to the general public, a work has been in progress in Dublin calculated to materially benefit the city.  By a judicious use of the authority vested in them and a rigid exercise of their legal powers, the police have succeeded in thoroughly cleansing that den of infamy, a disgrace known as Bull-Lane. 

The existence of this moral plague spot has been for very many years a shame to civilisation and a disgrace to Dublin.  The alarming increase in the number of robberies, thefts and minor offences committed by the male and female denizens of Bull-Lane, and in addition the number of violations of the law concealed by them, impressed the police authorities with the absolute necessity of thoroughly clearing the place of its criminal inhabitants, and after two months’ hard work they have succeeded in doing so, and at the present moment any one may walk from end to end of Bull-Lane without in any way being molested or insulted.  It would rather remind one at the present time of a street in the city of the dead, for all the houses of ill-fame, which numbered nearly twenty, have been closed up and are now untenanted.  

This moral campaign has been carried on under the direction of Superintendent Devin, and has been conducted on the simple principle of, to speak plainly, making the place too hot to hold its animal population.  Two policeman, relieved at stated periods, were placed on duty at the end of the lane, and a close watch kept on everyone entering and leaving it.  By this process the police were enabled to detect an immense number of breaches of the Licensing Acts, for the illicit drink trade was carried on here with greater briskness.  Each week convictions were obtained against the proprietors and frequenters of the houses of infamy, and they were sent to prison for terms extending from a week to two months.  Meanwhile every stranger who attempted to go up or down the lane was stopped and questioned by the police, informed of the nature of the locality, and warned that if he had money or valuables of any kind on his person he ran a considerable risk of being robbed.  Almost in every case this had the effect of turning such persons back and of preventing others from going near the place.  

The result was that the unfortunate girls who dwelt in the lane were compelled to fly from it, and each day saw several of them, together with such wretched property as they possessed, take to flight.  It is pleasing to state that very many went to charitable institutions in the city to atone their former errors by repentance and amendment.  One of the most important features in the entire work has been the breaking up of the community of idle ruffians called ‘bullies’ of whom there were no less than seventy-six in the lane, living by robbery and the proceeds of infamy of the unfortunate women.  Some idea of the magnitude of the work effected may be formed when we state that the police counted 207 unfortunates living in the locality, and as many were in various parts of the city at the time the census was made, the number may fairly be increased by 150.   Thus is Dublin rid, let us hope for ever, of an abode of crime unsurpassed by any similar spot in the cities of the kingdom.’“

A rather uncharitable and sanctimonious article as regards the ‘unfortunate girls’ referred to!

What the Freeman doesn’t mention, is the location of Bull-Lane very close to the back of the Four Courts. You can see it marked with an arrow between Greek Street and Fishers Lane on the map below.

The lane and its buildings are long-gone but this satellite image makes it easy to work out what has replaced them.

Yes, Hughes Pub, where barristers love to drink, stands just at that point where Bull Lane opened onto Pill Lane (now Chancery Street).

Of course, a street like Bull-Lane could not exist without customers. Brothel quarters tended to be located near prospective clients. Presumably quite a few persons with business in the courts were happy to avail of the services offered by its ‘houses of infamy’?

If Jack the Ripper had visited Dublin in the 1870s, Bull-Lane might have been his Whitechapel, and indeed the above cleansing was preceded by a number of tragic murders. I hope to cover these, and some of the other stories of Bull-Lane, in later posts.

In the meantime – who would have thought the term ‘bully’ had origins so close to home!

Image Credit: (top) (middle)

Future Supreme Court Judge Unsuccessfully Sued for Negligent Driving, 1924

From the Dublin Evening Telegraph, 4th and 5th March, 1924:

Miss May McConnon, a typist, residing at the Gaelic Hotel, Blackrock, Dundalk, claimed £3000 damages against Mr Cecil Lavery, barrister-at-law, for personal injuries caused, as alleged, by the negligence of the defendant in the management of a motor car near Dundalk.

The Plaintiff gave evidence, in which she stated that she was getting off her bicycle near Hearty’s cottages on the main road between Dublin and Dundalk, in order to borrow a bicycle pump, when she was struck from behind by the motor car.  At the time she was struck she was near the footpath.  She heard no horn sounded.

Cross-examined by Mr Wood KC, the plaintiff denied that she was standing, holding her bicycle, and that when she was mounting it, it wobbled out in front of her.  She did not remember the defendant saying to her ‘Why did you get up on your bicycle like that?’

Dr JV O’Hagan stated that the plaintiff was admitted to the Louth Hospital.  She had a wound on the right side of the scalp, two deep wounds on the left thigh and numerous abrasions. 

Surgeon McArdle gave evidence of having examined the plaintiff about the middle of September.  On that occasion she collapsed in his hall at 78 Merrion Square.  He expressed the opinion to her doctors that she had sustained a severe shock to the brain and spinal cord.  He saw her again in November when she appeared to be worse.  She was suffering from nerve degeneration and was at present in a deplorable condition.

Mr Wood KC, addressing the jury on behalf of the defendant, said that the defence in the case was that there was no negligence on the part of Mr Lavery, and there was no damage caused of the momentous character stated as the result of what happened on the road on the date mentioned.   The defendant, who was an expert driver, was driving along a straight, wide road, having his car under absolute control, and the plaintiff, who was in front, seemed to the defendant, as it were, to get off the bicycle, and then wobbled out in front of him.   His car caught her.  It was immediately brought to a standstill, and he contended that the accident was not caused by any negligence on the part of the defendant, but by an irregular operation on the part of the plaintiff.

Sir William Taylor said that he saw the plaintiff on October 16, 1923, in Mr McArdle’s house in Merrion Square.  All the wounds were practically healed, except one on the little finger of the left hand.  On Saturday last he saw her in a home in Upper Mount Street, and on examination failed to find any organic lesion.

The defendant gave evidence, and said that he was driving at about fifteen miles an hour on the left side of the road, which was about 25 feet wide.  He saw the girl on the left-hand side of the road with her bicycle.  She was off the bicycle.  He kept a perfectly clear course, and just as he was passing her she seemed to lift herself into the bicycle and came across the bonnet at the car.  There was no question of avoiding her, and the only thing he could do was stop the car, which he did.  The front of the car came against the bicycle and plaintiff was between the front wheels.  It was not true that she was under one of the wheels and that the car had to be lifted to remove her.  He said to her: “Why did you come out across me like that?” but did not receive any reply. 

The jury, after an absence of one hour, found that the defendant was not guilty of any negligence.”

A very young Mr Lavery, appearing in the Irish Independent as winner of the John Brooke scholarship.

Mr Lavery, son of an Armagh solicitor, had previously featured in the Irish Independent on the 27th June 1915 as winner of the John Brooke Scholarship for that year. He had a large junior practice and took silk in 1927. He subsequently became Attorney General and Leader of the Irish Bar.  A note in the Belfast Telegraph on the 17th April 1950 on the occasion of his appointment as a Supreme Court judge stated that his name had featured on one side or the other in almost every important case at the Eire Bar.

An older Mr Lavery KC snapped by Tatler at Leopardstown Races, shortly before his appointment to the Bench.

Road traffic accident claims – later temporarily stalled due to petrol shortages during the Emergency – continued to be a increasing source of revenue for the Bar for the next decade and a half.

The Belfast Telegraph of 30 October 1925 contained a report of another High Court case in which one Mary O’Connor, of Fair Green, Dundalk, claimed £500 damages from the Reverend Bernard Maguire, Parish Priest, as compensation for personal injuries caused to her by the alleged negligence of the defendant in the management and control of a motor-car which had knocked her down at the junction of Earl St and Francis St, Dundalk.

The case, subsequently settled for £55 and costs, must have called up some memories for one Mr Lavery BL instructed as Junior Counsel for the defendant!

Image Credit: (top left) (top right)

An Aggrieved Apprentice, 1874

From the Freeman’s Journal, 16 December 1874:

“To the Editor of the Freeman.

SIR – Would you kindly insert the following in the interest of the grievances of attorneys’ apprentices.  The facts are briefly these:- In the second week of last month a sessional examination was held at the Four Courts to test the knowledge of the apprentices who attended the professors of law lectures during the preceding year.  No official announcement of the result has yet been afforded, and the apprentices who then went in for examination (I myself being of the number) are, comparatively speaking, left in ignorance.  Of course if any one goes into the secretary’s office he will be there informed as to the result, but we have no notice posted in that part of the solicitors’ building allotted to notices referring to solicitors’ apprentices.  Is anyone to blame for this apparent negligence?  Law students have informed me, so have medical students, that they are always officially acquainted with the results of their examinations.  Surely apprentices should take some steps to protest against such a state of things. – Yours obediently,

AN APPRENTICE.”

A prescribed course for testing the attainments of intended apprentices, and the fitness of those seeking to be admitted, had been introduced by the Incorporated Society of the Attorneys and Solicitors of Ireland in 1861, following a report of the Council of the Society. 

The 1887 Lecture Theatre.

Lectures and exams took place in the Solicitors’ Hall, Four Courts (now the Law Library), which premises were adapted in 1887 under the supervision of Alfred E Murray, Architect, to incorporate a purpose-built theatre suitable for the purposes of lectures.  All persons who have worked in the Law Library will recognise the ceiling of this theatre!

The concern of the apprentice who wrote the 1874 letter does not appear to have been that they did not receive their marks, but rather that the absence of an official posting of all marks meant that they were not able to assess their marks relative to the rest of their class. 

Accusing the Society of negligence, however, seems a bit strong.   

Of course no good deed goes unpunished, and law students are a competitive bunch, but still a few eyebrows must have been raised – no wonder that the apprentice letter-writer preferred to remain anonymous!

Image Credits: (top) (bottom)