Month: March 2021

A Barrister’s Right to Walk Unobstructed, 1893

From the Cork Constitution, 17 April 1893:

“STRANGE CONDUCT OF AN IRISH BARRISTER

CHARGED BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES WITH STREET OBSTRUCTION

Mr William C Hennessy, barrister-at-law, Tralee, was charged by Constable John Foster with obstructing the footpath on the Grand Parade, at four o’clock on Friday evening.  Mr Hennessy had been arrested and remained in custody during Friday night.  He was not, however, asked to appear in the dock. 

Mr Hennessy applied for an adjournment, as he was anxious to be represented by a solicitor, and anxious that the case should be tried on a convenient day.  He complained that he was not allowed out on bail on the previous evening.  If he had been allowed out on bail he would have been in a position to instruct a solicitor and able to go on with the case that day.  He could not get a note sent to the Recorder of Cork, and he was twenty-one and a half hours in custody.  He now asked the constable under what Act he brought the charge?

Constable Foster – He was walking along the Grand Parade yesterday evening close by the shops, and everything he met outside the doors he tossed further into the flagway.  I saw him take balls of goods, carpets and trunks, lying outside the doors and knock them down on the footpath.  There was a crowd after him.  I cautioned him, but he told me he would persist in doing it.

Mr Humphries (chief clerk) – I suppose Mr Hennessy was quite sober.

Constable Foster – He was.  I told him I should have to arrest him, but he defied me.

Mr Hennessy – Well, I suppose the case will be conducted regularly.  What is the charge.

Constable Foster – Street obstruction.

In reply to Mr Humphries, the constable said the shopkeepers whose goods had been disturbed were not in court.  He himself witnessed the acts of the prisoner when he knocked down the goods at the door of Mr Lynch’s furniture shop, Grand Parade.

Mr Hennessy – They were obstructing the footpath; not I.  If a crowd of rioters choose to follow me I can’t help them.

Mr Humphries – You only arrested him when he said he would persist in doing it?

Constable Foster – Yes.

Mr Hennessy – Does he know it is illegal to block the footway with goods?  Answer yes or no.

Constable Foster – They were not blocking the footway.

Mr Hennessy – Is it true that there was a bale of carpets separated by a foot from the shop in my way?

Constable Foster – I did not see.

Mr Hennessy – What did I knock down then?

Constable Foster – A carpet outside Lynch’s.

Mr Hennessy – Did these goods interfere with my passage.

Constable Foster – They did not, they were quite close to the door.

Mr Hennessy – We will have this point thrashed out as in Tralee and Killarney.  Did I go out of the direct line I was walking in to interfere with the goods? I never go out of the line I take and did not in Tralee or Killarney.  Under the circumstances I have to ask for an adjournment of the case to a date that will be convenient for the magistrates.  I want to get the case tried out.  I have to be in Tralee where we are trying the same points on Monday.

Mr Humphries – There are a number of statutes to prevent the obstruction of the footway.  You are a lawyer learned in the law.  The constable is an officer, and could not see the goods knocked about, even though they obstructed.

Mr Hennessy – I am unconscious of doing anything except turning them over.  Some of the trunks I lifted carefully – with a mother’s care (Laughter).

Case adjourned.”

Whatever punishment was inflicted on Mr Hennessy did not stop his crusade against street obstruction.  On the 31st July 1893 he appeared again before the Cork Police Court summonsed by Mrs Elizabeth Mayne, Patrick Street, for having on Wednesday last wilfully and maliciously broken a crate of china outside her shop in pursuance of a line of conduct that he had been carrying on in Cork (and from the sounds of it, Tralee and Killarney) for some months past.

In reply, Mr Hennessy described the pathways in the city as a disgrace to Zululand, said that the first rule of the common law was that the King’s highway could not be blocked and he would assert his right to walk the public pathway whatever the consequences.  He had the greatest confidence in the Cork Bench and would leave himself in their hands.

The Cork Bench, on the other hand, held that Mr Hennessy had no right to act has he had done and fined him 20s and 35s compensation.  Mr Hennessy then asked to have a case stated and he also objected to one of the magistrates, Mr Roche, adjudicating the case as he was mixed up with commercial affairs in certain houses involved in the prosecution.  He also suggested that the penalty should be increased in order that he might be able to appeal.

The Bench granted the application and increased the amount of the fine to 21 shillings..

An obituary in the Kerry Evening Post of 15 June 1898 contains some interesting information in relation to Mr Hennessy’s background. The son of William Maunsell Hennessy, antiquary and Keeper of the Records in Ireland, it had been thought that a very bright future lay before Mr Hennessy when called to the Bar sixteen or seventeen years previously, but the illness which had killed him (consumption) had led him instead to what was described as ‘a curious existence in a weak and witless way’ in Dublin, Cork, and Tralee before the recovery of his senses in the last year of his life had coincided with failing bodily powers.  

The writer tactfully omitted reference to Mr Hennessy’s street obstruction campaign of 1893 and his preceding arrest by Scotland Yard in Listowel in 1892 for issuing worthless cheques drawn on the Dingle Branch of the National Bank (he was subsequently discharged by the Bow Street Magistrates Court after hearing evidence that he had lost his way after the death of his father and sister and a broken engagement).  The obituary closed by describing Mr Hennessy at his best: full of the keenest wit, well spiced with pungency and leavened with a love of the ludicrous, as much the life and soul of the company when supping with histrionic friends in London as when eating his Christmas goose with friends in Ballymacelligott.

Poor Mr Hennessy!  Some might say that he was a man ahead of his time – and a hero to today’s daily commuter!

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Ormond Quay Prison Break, 1784

From the Hibernian Journal; or, Chronicle of Liberty, 16 July 1784:

“Yesterday in the afternoon, a number of the prisoners, confined in the New Gaol, found means to break into the sewer that communicates from the prison to the Bradogue River, or water course that falls into the Liffey at Ormond Quay; several of them have been re-taken and conducted back to their old lodging, but better secured.  About sixteen it is thought are escaped; a guard is positioned at the mouths of the Bradogue, and at the different grates and necessaries in Pill Lane through which this water course runs as it is supposed several of them are still concealed within.”

The New Gaol would have been Newgate Prison situate at ‘Little Green’ beside Green Street Courthouse.

The Bradogue meandered around a bit, flowing underground from Grangegorman to North King Street and Green Street before reaching the quays. Its primary outfall was at Ormond Quay (below), but according to a news report in the Dublin Evening Mail of 26 June 1857, a tributary flowed under the Four Courts, re-emerging at Arran Quay.

The 18th century drainage system must have been rudimentary, and the stench faced by the escapees appalling.

Could some or all of the sixteen prisoners who failed to emerge at Ormond Quay have expired under the Four Courts then in the course of construction, thus contributing to its very persistent drainage problems?

More digging needed to find out!

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A Princess Arrested in the Four Courts, 1864

Madame Laetitia Bonaparte Wyse, possibly wearing one of Mr Russell’s confections.

From the Waterford Mail, 17 February 1864:

“SITTINGS AT NISI PRIUS

Wyse v Lewis

This was an action brought by Madame Letitia Bonaparte Wyse, widow of the late Thomas Wyse, formerly British ambassador at Greece, against Mr William Lewis, of Messrs Lewis and Howe, solicitors, of Nassau-street, in this city to recover damages for an alleged neglect by the defendant of the plaintiff’s business.  

The plaintiff is the cousin-german of the present Emperor of France, and daughter of Prince Canino, a relative of the Emperor Napoleon I.    In the year 1824 the plaintiff was married to Sir Thomas Wyse, who died in 1861, but after his death a bill was produced made by him in violation of his marriage articles, by which he left his estates to his brother.  The plaintiff was advised to take proceedings in the Court of Chancery to assert her rights, and obtained a letter of introduction to the defendant, who undertook to act as her solicitor.

The plaintiff, about June 1862, having occasion to buy some items of clothing, bought them at Mr Edward Russell’s establishment in Dawson Street, and the price amounted to £20 7s 8d.  She mentioned the matter to the defendant, and observed that she had only French money with her, and the defendant then undertook to pay Mr Russell’s bill.  The plaintiff then wrote a note on the bill to the effect that the defendant would pay it, and sent it back to Mr Russell, who subsequently sent it by his collector to Mr Lewis, on which occasion the defendant promised that if the collector called back in half an hour he would settle it, but, although frequent calls were later made, Mr Lewis could not be seen.

An advertisement for Mr Russell’s wares. Who could resist?

On the 21st April 1862, Mr Russell issued a writ against the plaintiff, service of which was substituted on Mr Lewis, who (as it was alleged) never gave any information thereof to the plaintiff, and the first she heard of it (as alleged) was after she had removed Mr Lewis and employed Mr Valentine Dillon.

The plaintiff was arrested in July 1863, in the courtyard of the Four Courts, and brought off in the custody of the bailiff to the Sheriff’s office in Morgan Place, where, having paid the money and costs, she was discharged after about an hour’s delay.

The defendant’s case was that he had not made any promise whatsoever to Mr Russell’s bill, and had no money of the plaintiff’s to pay it; that the plaintiff knew that the bill was unpaid, and had been informed that an action would be brought on it, and that she had better not come to Ireland for some time.

After some deliberation the jury found for the plaintiff £500 damages.“

This must be one of the earliest actions by a client against their solicitor. William Lewis survived in business longer than Edward Russell, who was already into his second bankruptcy by the time of this case. Selling goods to ladies on credit was a risky business – unless the lady in question had a genuinely rich husband!

Had Thomas Wyse been alive, he would have been liable for Madame Laetitia’s debts – and perhaps it might have been worth it. The famous alluring charm of the woman born a princess and known in her younger days as ‘the Venus of the Bonapartes’ seems to have worked its magic indiscriminately on Dublin jurors and European noblemen alike.

Read more about her career here!

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The Man Who Married His Mother-in-Law, 1904

From the Belfast Weekly News, 12 May 1904:

“The trial of James Thompson for having married his mother-in-law took place on 10th inst, in the Recorder’s Court, Dublin.  Mr Bushe KC, who prosecuted, stated the case for the Crown.  He said in 1896 the prisoner on 2nd June married a girl of the name of Tully.  She died in 1899, and he was once more free to marry.  But, of course, his wife being dead, he was not at liberty, under the law, to marry certain relations of hers who were surviving.  For instance, he could not marry his deceased wife’s daughter by a previous marriage, he could not marry his deceased wife’s sister, nor could he marry the mother of his deceased wife.  This man formed the intention of marrying his deceased wife’s mother.  He knew that such a marriage as that could not take place legally, or, if he did not, he should have known. Notwithstanding that he made a declaration and signed a document which set out that there was no impediment between him and the woman whom he desired to marry.

Mrs Jane Millar deposed to the marriage.  On cross-examination she said sailors make the very best of husbands.  Her own husband was a sailor.

Mr O’Mahony (for the defendant) – ‘They say sailors have a wife in every port.’

Mrs Millar – Don’t you believe a word of it.  Sailors are all right.

Mrs Tully, or, as she called herself, Mrs Thompson, was then examined.  Speaking in a strong Scotch accent, she said she saw nothing wrong in marrying Jim – not a bit of harm in that.  Jim was a ‘guid mon,’ a sober mon and a ‘keerect mon.’

‘What kind of husband did he turn out to be?’ asked Mr O’Mahony.  – ‘The very best of husbands. (Laughter).  He only stayed half an hour after we being married, and off he went to sea. (Roars of Laughter).

‘He didn’t even wait for a cup of tea?’ – ‘He did not even do that, then.’ (More laughter)

‘The kettle wasn’t boiling, I suppose?’ – Well now, there wasn’t even time to boil the kettle for a cup of tea.

The Recorder – He must have been in a terrible hurry to get away (Laughter).

Mr O’Mahony – He wanted to get out of hot water, my Lord (Renewed laughter).

Detective Ahern said Thompson seemed surprised when arrested.  He remarked, ‘Many a man is sent to jail for beating his mother-in-law, but this is the first time I ever heard of a man being arrested for marrying his mother-in-law’ (loud laughter) – and the sailor looked very happy with his new bride in their little home.

Mr O’Mahony addressed the jury on his client’s behalf.  He said the situation brought to mind the words of the poet –

‘Twas talk in the morning, at night it was jaw

All on account of my mother-in-law’ 

(Laughter.) James Thompson did what no other man would think of doing.  He did it with pride and in the best of good faith.  He was a sailor, and about to leave to undertake a long voyage.  Before going on that voyage, he married his mother in law, who was a Dundee woman, as he was a Dundee man.  He had some property, and if he were drowned at sea no one could get that property except his widow or children.  He had no children, and in taking his mother-in-law – for whom he had a strong affection – as his wife, he was doing what he thought would be a good thing for all concerned.  It was a sailor’s idea of how things ought to be done (Laughter.)  Unfortunately for himself, his voyage of matrimony was made rough for him by the squalls of legal authority.  His barque struck upon the hidden rocks of the legislature, and now he was stranded not in a hospitable shelter, but was tight bound in a dock awaiting to be discharged. (Laughter.)  

And the little mother-in-law, when she came up she told the jury she was perfectly contented with her good sailor husband. (Laughter.) But each was perplexed to know what were their relations to one another.  What relation was he to his deceased wife’s sister he had married his mother-in-law – (loud laughter) – and what relation was his deceased wife’s mother to his step-daughter now that he has made his mother-in-law his wife? (Roars of laughter.)

The Recorder – I give it up.  There’s one thing to be certain, you must have a wife before you can marry a mother-in-law.  (Laughter.)

The Recorder, summing up, said if the jury were satisfied that Thompson made the declaration and entered into the marriage without knowing that he was committing an offence, they ought to acquit him.

The jury found that the accused had made a false declaration, but that he did not believe there was any impediment to his marriage.   The Recorder said that was a verdict of acquittal, and he ordered Thompson to be discharged.”

According to another report, the happy couple left the court hand-in-hand. So unusual to read any case – never mind a criminal one – so joyous and happy throughout! Mr O’Mahony must have put a lot of work into his entertaining closing submissions! 

It sounds like Mr Thompson wanted to pass on the benefit of a life insurance policy.

The prohibition on marrying one’s deceased (or divorced) wife’s mother continues today, though hopefully the alternative practice of beating them is less prevalent today than in Edwardian times!

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Carlow Solicitor Takes Down Two IRA Men in Career-Ending Gun Battle, 1923

From the Freeman’s Journal, 19 February 1923:

“INDOMITABLE COURAGE

RAIDERS FOUGHT BY CARLOW SOLICITOR

TABLES TURNED

INTRUDERS SHOT: ONE KILLED

Sensational to an almost incredible degree is the account that has just come to hand of experiences that befell Mr Edward S Maffett, a Co Carlow solicitor, and his family some time ago.

Held at the point of the gun by two men, who were ransacking his house, he succeeded in eluding his captors, armed himself with an automatic pistol, and in the most dramatic fashion turned the tables on the raiders, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

Although the tragic affair took place on January 5, the details have, for some unexplained reason, not been previously disclosed.

THE CALL TO HALT

Mr Maffett has offices in Carlow, but resides at ‘Thornville,’ about four miles on the Dublin side of the town, in close proximity to the well-known Burton Hall.  The house is a spacious old Georgian mansion, standing about 80 yards off the road, and approached by a winding avenue.

On the morning in question Mr Maffett left as was his practice, at 10.30 o’clock to cycle to his office.  He had only reached the top of a steep hill about 200 yards from the house when he was suddenly called on to halt by a young man sheltering behind a wall on the left hand side of the road.  Mr Maffett had no option but to dismount, and the young man, afterwards ascertained to be Patrick Bermingham, scrambled across the road and approached him.

He ordered Mr Maffett to put up his hands, and kept him in that position for three or four minutes, whilst a second man, to whom he had whistled, approached across a fied.

OMINOUS WORDS

During this interval Mr Maffett asked what was the reason for being held up. 

The young man replied by asking ‘Are you Maffett?’ and, receiving an answer in the affirmative, said ‘You will soon know the reason damned well.’

On the arrival of the second man, Edward Snoddy, Bermingham said ‘I have got him’.   

The two men searched Mr Maffett, after which they ordered him to return home, saying that they wanted to search the house for arms.

While walking up the avenue to the house Snoddy, pointing a revolver at Mr Maffett, said ‘If we get any arms in the house I’ll plug you.’

The men were met at the halldoor by Mrs Maffett, who was naturally surprised to see her husband coming up the avenue with his strange escort.

DUEL ON THE STAIRS

What happened in the house is best told in the words of Mr Maffett himself, as related to a Freeman’s Journal representative who visited the scene.

‘I went in first, followed by the two men, who first searched the dining-room, where they found an air gun and two or three old cartridges that had been lying for years in a drawer.  They then said they were going to search the upper part of the house.  I led the way upstairs, and went first to the schoolroom, which has a separate staircase.’

‘As you can see,’ said Mr Maffett when showing our representative through the house, ‘this schoolroom has two doors – one at the head of the stairs and the other leading into a bedroom, which in turn communicates with the top landing, off which is my dressing-room.  The men did not notice this second door, as there was a heavy portiere curtain hanging over it.’

While the men were engaged searching a cupboard at the opposite side of the room, Mr Maffett, who had been standing near the concealed door, quickly slipped through it.

SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY

‘I pulled the double doors after me and in a second reached my dressing-room, and opened a black tin box in which I had my automatic pistol.  Having secured the automatic I took up my position on the top landing, from which I commanded a view of the stairs from the schoolroom, and also the double door through which I escaped.’

‘I was barely there,’ he proceeded, ‘before I heard Bermingham coming down the stairs and then I saw his head and revolver coming round the foot of the staircase.  He saw me immediately and raised his revolver to fire, but I fired before he had time to do so and he fell, the revolver dropping out of his hand.’

‘I then watched for the other man, who immediately after the shot rushed at me through the double doorway, and I fired at him.  He turned back immediately for cover, and just as he was entering I fired again, thinking I had missed him, the first time.  He then fell in the door way and did not move again.’

Mrs Moffett stated to our representative that shortly after Bermingham went out she heard a shot, and said to her youngest daughter, ‘Ruby, is that your daddy?’ – thinking Mr Maffett had been shot.  She ran through the double door, and Ruby followed. 

Snoddy shouted to her to come back, and caught hold of Ruby by the arm, but the latter, who is a fine athletic girl of about 17 years, struck him in the face with her clenched fist, and broke away.  She heard the other shots and afterwards saw that Snoddy was lying on the floor.

In the meantime Bermingham, who had been shot through the side of the face, tried to get hold of the revolver he had dropped, but was prevented in time by the older girl, Muriel, who snatched it away from his reach.

WOUNDED MAN’S BOMB

Mr Maffett then went down to the lobby, where Bermingham was lying.  The latter asked for a drink of water, and Mr Maffett said whiskey would be better, and sent his daughter Ruby to get some, which she brought in a tumbler with water.

‘I lifted him up to give him a drink,’ said the solicitor, ‘but observing him putting his right hand into his overcoat pocket, I dropped him and searched his pocket, in which I found a Mills No 5 bomb.‘

His daughter afterwards cycled into Carlow to report the matter to the military, who at once rushed to the scene, and took away the dead body of Edward Snoddy and the wounded man, Patrick Bermingham.

DEFENDED HIS HOME

Asked by our representative whether he could offer any explanation of why the men held him up and searched the house, Mr Maffett said the only reason he could suggest was that one night some months ago a party of Irregulars, some 40 strong, had tried to break into the house.

He had fired on them, shots had been exchanged and the party went away.  After that, Mr Maffett had sandbags placed on the windows in case of a repetition of this attack.   He received threatening letters at the time, but paid no heed to them.

Mr Maffett is a native of the county, and has been established all his life in practice in Carlow.  In politics he was always a Unionist, but like so many men of his way of thinking in the Free State, he has philosophically accepted the new order of things, and was quite ready to give the new Government full recognition and loyal service.  He has never taken sides in the present conflict.

RAIDERS’ RECORDS

Edward Snoddy, who was shot dead, belonged to Blackbog, outside Carlow.  He had been a railway porter, and was a political prisoner till quite recently.   It appears he had been arrested by the military and, pending trial, had been sent to a military hospital as a consequence of injuries received at the time of his arrest.  He escaped only a few days before his death and was, it is said ‘on the run,’ at the time of the raid on Mr Maffett’s.

A DESPERATE ATTACK

Attention has been further roused by an attempt on Saturday, February 10, to murder Mr Maffett.  He was driving home from his office about 2 o’clock that day, when three shots were fired from behind a road fence at practically the same spot where he was previously held up.

Since the occurrence the house has been occupied by a strong guard of National troops.”

Alfred Harmsworth BL and Geraldine Maffett, parents of newspaper proprietor Alfred Harmsworth.

Mr Maffett was the son of William Maffett, an Irish barrister. His aunt Geraldine had married another Dublin barrister, Alfred Harmsworth BL; they subsequently moved to England. Their son, another Alfred Harmsworth, went on to revolutionise the British newspaper industry by founding the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail – just one of many Irish legal offspring to make their names in areas outside the legal world!

There was some surprise – and not just in papers controlled by the Harmsworth family – when the Carlow inquest jury returned a verdict of manslaughter by Mr Maffett. Though subsequently arrested and remanded on bail, it does not seem that he was ever prosecuted. Perhaps a compromise was reached. On April 23, 1923, a notice appeared in the local paper to say that he had retired from the business of solicitor, and that his practice had been acquired by Mr O’Donnell, ‘a popular local practitioner.’

After that, Mr Maffett, aged 59 at the date of his retirement, occupied his time with farming, sport and fishing, occasionally surfacing in newspaper reports of shareholders’ meetings. His 1948 obituary in the Nationalist and Leinster Times described him as a foundation member of the Bective Rugby Football Club who had come to Carlow in 1893 and practised at Leinster Crescent with a very extensive practice in Carlow and surrounding counties.

At Carlow Circuit Court the following week, Judge Sealy referred to Mr Maffett’s recent death, saying that although the name of the deceased could only be a name to most lawyers in court as he had retired very many years ago, he, as a member of the Bar, had known Mr Maffett very well and he was a man of great ability in the profession and of high integrity. He was a very satisfactory man to deal with and he never concealed his opinion about any man. His clients, in whose interest he never spared himself, appreciated that. Mr R O’Hanrahan BL, as senior member of the Leinster Bar present, said that, although the late Mr Maffett was a practitioner in that Court long before they came there, the current Carlow Bar had heard of him as a man of character and ability who did his best for his clients without fear or favour. Mr Maffett’s descendants now live abroad.

The remains of Ned Snoddy, aged 18, were first conveyed to Carlow Military Barracks and then to his father’s residence at Blackbog, where they lay overnight, numerous people coming to pay their respect to the dead and sympathy with the living. The subsequent interment took place in the family burial ground, Ballinacarrig, and, according to the Irish Independent of January 1924, the funeral was large, all classes, creeds and shades of political thought being represented. The funeral cortege was preceded by the Graigecullen Fife and Drum Band, playing appropriate music along the route. Following the coffin was a large guard of honour, composed of the dead man’s comrades in the Carlow Brigade IRA and the Carlow Cumann na mBan. The general public followed. A volley was fired over the grave and the ‘Last Post’ sounded, and the large crowds then dispersed.

The loss of one man’s life – and another’s career! Would Mr Maffett have been better not to resist? Or would he have been shot had he not done so? Where does a man’s right to defend himself begin – and end? Would any of this have ever happened if the Carlow Brigade of the IRA had considered that a solicitor might have the skill and determination to protect himself and his family?

Just one of a multitude of tragic stories during a decade of change!

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