Ruth Cannon BL, Barrister, Four Courts History
Sharing old stories from Ireland's historic centre of justice.
From the Weekly Irish Times, 26 April 1902:
“In the early years of the last century, a youthful barrister named Hodgins, just called to the bar, fell in love with a pretty girl he had noticed coming out of a fashionable boarding school in Mary Street. She smiled upon him, they managed in some way to become acquainted in spite of difficulties, and then he eloped with and married her. But ‘the course of true love never did run smooth.’ The young lady was an heiress, and a
A blue transfer-printed Staffordshire china platter, with a central scene depicting the Four Courts, c.1820.
Perhaps originally part of some barrister’s dining set? Now in New England.
Some details below (zoom in closer here).
(1) A very early view of Morgan Place at the side of the courts.
(2) White-trousered gentlemen, possibly sailors? The couple should keep an eye on that dog – pets were regularly stolen on the quays.
(3) The very new Richmond Bridge in the distance. Track its evolution
This fantastic map from the Dublin City Council Digital Archive (minutely zoomable version available to download here) shows the junction of Inns Quay and Arran Quay in 1790, not long before the opening of the Four Courts on the old Inns of Court site close by.
The bridge appearing on the map is the Old Bridge of Dublin, replaced in 1818 by today’s Father Mathew (formerly Whitworth) Bridge. But what are those clusters of buildings on either side?
According to Liffey
From the Freeman’s Journal, 2 April 1875:
“A Bear in the Dock
Two Frenchmen were charged with causing an obstruction to the public thoroughfare at Pill-Lane, that morning, by exhibiting a dancing bear.
The prisoners were placed in the dock, with the bear between them. It was a shaggy, uncouth-looking animal, not at all like that which Goldsmith’s bear leader described as never dancing but to the genteelest music, ‘Water Parting,’ or the duet in ‘Ariadne.’
On
From the Pilot, Wednesday 19 October 1831:
“FIDELITY OF A DOG – On Thursday, a servant man of Mr Ball, the barrister, applied before the magistrates of the Head Office, and stated that he had seen a very large sized Newfoundland dog that day, which his master had lost about three months before at Messrs. Harvey’s warehouse, on Wellington Quay. He said that he had made application to some persons in the establishment to have the dog restored to his master, but was told that
