April 2022 – Ruth Cannon BL, Barrister, Four Courts History

Portico Problems, 1786-1925

A side-on comparison of the porticos of Gandon’s Four Courts (above, via Google Streetview) and the former Irish Houses of Parliament (below, image by Patrick Byrne, via National Gallery of Ireland). The portico of the Four Courts was originally intended, like that of the Parliament Building, to project over the entirety of the pavement in front. For reasons set out below, this never happened.

From the Evening Herald, 5 March 1925:

“A Chara – may one hope, from two lines in your most interesting article on the Four Courts, that Gandon’s original plan for the portico may at long last be executed and the renewed pile be adorned by the grand and noble entrance he designed.

‘The question of the Central Hall and its surroundings is under consideration.’

Your article appropriately appeared on the 3^rd of March – the very date on which the foundation stone of the Four Courts was laid in 1786. An extraordinary incident marred the occasion. The Lord Chancellor and the chief judges had only retired from the ceremony when, in Gandon’s words, ‘a gentleman of considerable fortune and influence, a Privy Counsellor and a member of the Irish parliament. stopped his travelling carriage to inquire the cause of the enclosures being made on the quay. Being informed that the ceremony of laying the first stone of the new Courts of Law was the cause, this gentleman left his carriage and addressed me in a manner not very courteous ‘What is all this going on here? Who ordered the quay to be enclosed? Etc etc.’

Gandon explained, saying all the authorities had sanctioned what had been done; had seen, examined, and approved the designs, and had just taken part in the laying of the first tone. This precious bully then ‘immediately left the ground, observing that if the building proceeded, it should be pulled down!’

Gandon continues: ‘Knowing the gentleman’s influence, and thinking to prevent clamour, I was induced… to set back the portico originally designed to cover the footway. This I considered a great sacrifice of the beauty of the front; but even this sacrifice of my design was not sufficient, for as the gentleman had not been consulted about the building, he disapproved of the designs, which he condemned in every particular…’

Looked at from the quay on which it stands, the long almost unbroken flatness of the front strikes the eye forcibly from its want of beauty of proportion. Looked at the from the opposite quay, the splendid relief which would have been given to the front and the great additional beauty to the whole block had Gandon’s design been carried into effect are obvious at a glance. The dome, the drum of which is so vast, would appear to have much less preponderating weight were the portico to advance, as designed by Gandon, well in front of the rest of the building. The adjoining arcades would, prospectively, retire, by reason of the projection of the portico, with most graceful effect, from the lightness of their construction; and in the rejuvenated Four Courts the capital would at last have in all the glory of its original conception what the great block was first intended to do.

WL Cole

3 Mountjoy Square”

Gandon’s Four Courts had recently been destroyed in the Civil War of 1922 and their reconstruction was in contemplation at the date of the above letter. An article in the Dublin Evening Telegraph of the previous September had likewise suggested that the reconstructed building might be improved to embrace the entire footpath – as was the case with one of Gandon’s other buildings, the former Parliament Building in College Green.

Its alleged over-projection was not the only element of the six-columned Corinthian portico which had to be varied. The Freeman’s Journal of 15 September 1808 notes a recent lowering of the pavement at the entrance and under the portico to ‘obviate the inconvenience or injury resulting from wet weather, and especially a species of nuisance justly censured… a saline and ungracious practice professionally justified on the principal that ‘necessity has no law.’

Possibly a delicate allusion to the vexed question of public urination? If so, the following letter from ‘JF’ in Saunders’s Newsletter of 1819 suggests that the above works may have been less than successful in achieving their objective:

“Mr Editor

May I, through your valuable Paper, put a question viz Why the principal entrance into the Great Hall of that beautiful edifice, the Four Courts, is so shamefully neglected and abused? It has become the receptable of the greatest filth, to the shame of the person whose province sit to see and keep it otherwise… should the external of the building be without the necessary servants for its preservation, this statement may meet the eyes of the Judges and give employment to some industrious and starving family. The Watchman stationed near the spot could prevent nightly abuses and the daily attendance of a decent man would entirely do away the abuse contained of.”

*A 19th century photograph showing the portico from another angle. Then as now, Edward Smyth’s sculptures of Moses, Mercy, Wisdom, Justice and Authority adorn the pediment above.*

Clearly something must have been done since there were no more complaints about the condition of the portico – at least until the occupation of the Four Courts during the 1916 Rising, when its pillars were damaged by bullets – possibly misfires intended for the statue of Moses on the pediment, which myopic British soldiers were convinced was a sniper.

*Moses and companion, post-1922, via Europeana*

Irish Free State soldiers knew better during the Battle of the Four Courts in 1922, when Moses survived without a scratch, though his companion statues of Mercy, Authority and Wisdom were described afterwards as ‘grimy and careworn’ and Justice had lost her face from ear to chin. The portico, in fact, was one of the few portions of the Four Courts to survive the bombardment, its pillars and pediment, gashed and torn by shell-fire, still in place gamely supporting the skeleton of the collapsed dome.

Perhaps the survival of the portico in outline form operated as a disincentive to follow Mr Cole’s suggestion of extending it – its projection over the pavement after the reconstruction being the same as previously.

Did the Irish Free State miss an opportunity to improve this beautiful building? Or has it always been simply perfect as it is? Have a look above at the images side-by-side of the portico as it currently subsists, and its companion portico in College Green, reflecting Gandon’s original plan, and decide!

Sandymount Lady Sues English Lieutenant for Breach of Promise, 1920

From the Dublin Evening Telegraph, 31 March 1920:

“A WAR-TIME COURTSHIP”

Today in the King’s Bench Division, before Mr Justice Dodd, in the action of Sarah Reynolds, of 41 Londonbridge Road, Sandymount, Dublin, v Wm B Huskisson, Mr CS Campbell (instructed by Mr DA Quaid) applied for an order giving leave to issue and serve a writ out of the jurisdiction. The cause of action was breach of promise of marriage.

Counsel moved on the affidavit of the plaintiff, who stated that the intended defendant had been for several months resident in Ireland whilst his regiment had been stationed at Wellington Barracks, Dublin, he being then a lieutenant in the North Lancashire Regiment. She first met him in Dublin towards the end of July 1918.

*Londonbridge Road, Sandymount. No. 41 is third from left.*

Their acquaintance ripened into affection, and when visiting her mother’s house, 41 Londonbridge Road, Sandymount, he proposed marriage to her. Thereafter he constantly visited at her mother’s house as her accepted suitor and repeatedly alluded to their forthcoming marriage taking place in a very short time.

Mr Justice Dodd – The hand of a skilled draughtsman is obvious in the framing of this (Laughter).

The affidavit proceeded to state that when the intended defendant was about being transferred from Dublin to England, in course of demobilization in May, 1919, he promised to return to Dublin to marry her within six weeks, telling her that she might make all arrangements. She accordingly made the necessary arrangements for their marriage, and her mother and herself went to considerable expense in connection with the intended marriage but the defendant had never returned to Dublin. He subsequently wrote letters to her and to her mother in reference to his breaking off the engagement.

The letters contained intimation that the intended defendant was unable to carry out his promise to marry her, the grounds of his inability to do so being stated to be that he was not in a position to enable him to marry. But from statements made to her, and from information she had acquired through her solicitor, she had every reason to believe that the suggestion made by the intended defendant as to his circumstances in these letters quite misleading, and was designed with the object of endeavouring to justify the breaking off of the engagement.

She was informed that the defendant’s father, who lived at ‘The Knowle’ near Preston, Lancashire, died last May. Her solicitor had learned that the father was well off, being reputed to have property in Preston. As he died very suddenly, it is believed he did not make a will, and that the intended defendant was entitled to a share of his property.

Mr Justice Dodd granted the application.”

*Mr Justice Dodd. A man with a sense of humour – much needed, as he was the High Court judge who primarily dealt with breach of promise cases.*

Although there is no record of the final outcome of the case, the trusting and hospitable Reynolds family of 41 Londonbridge Road were back in the news again in December 1930 as victims of former convict Michael Thomas Brosnan, alias O’Brien, Byrne and Kelly, who had obtained lodgings on credit from them by professing to be an engineer specialising in wireless telephony and holding a position of great importance in the service of the General Post Office.

Sarah’s mother, Mrs Reynolds, told Judge Little in the Dublin Police Court that she had been impressed by the ‘airs’ and statements of the defendant and because he kept on announcing that ‘he would get his cheque on Thursday’ she lent him several small sums in cash amounting to £1 5s 3d, which were never repaid. When asked if she expected to get them back, she replied philosophically: ‘Well, how can I, seeing where he is now.’

Mrs Reynolds’ son Charles and sister Maud also gave evidence for the prosecution, but there was no reference to Sarah – hopefully she adopted a similarly philosophical approach to her jilting and found a replacement suitor of greater fidelity!

A Robbery at the White Cross Inn, 1814

*The New White Cross Inn, directly behind the Rolls Court and Record Court of the original Four Courts; now part of the extended Four Courts site.*

From Saunders’s News-Letter, 11 October 1814:

“A few days since a Welshman of the name of Owen Thomas, came to lodge at the White Cross Inn, Pill Lane, where a Mr Donald McKay, from Aughnacloy, likewise took up his abode. They had been but a few days residents of this Inn, when the North Countryman found his cash diminished upwards of ten pounds.

On investigation, some circumstances were disclosed which led to a suspicion that Owen Thomas knew something of the matter; he was accordingly taken into custody, and brought before the Magistrates of Ormond-Quay Office, where he confessed that he came from Wales to try his fortune, and having a few very useful keys, he opened the trunk of his neighbour Mr McKay, and borrowed the cash missing.

A Rev Mr McFerran, who was also a lodger at the Inn, missed five guineas in gold, which the prisoner acknowledged that he could give the best account of. He returned four of the guineas, and produced a parcel of English Bank Notes, which he stated he had bought with the plundered Notes. He returned them all, in the hope that there would be no prosecution; but the proprietor of the Inn conceived in his duty not to allow him to escape, consequently he was fully committed to Newgate to abide his trial.”

Posterity does not record the sentence received by Mr Thomas!

Nor is it clear from the story whether the hostelry involved was the old White Cross Inn at No. 65 Pill Lane or the New White Cross Inn a few doors up at No. 72. You can see both premises on the map below.

One of the new clubs formed by the United Irishmen after its proscription in 1794 was the Friendly Club (later the United Society of Pill Lane) which met in the old White Cross Inn. The Club, also known as the Committee, was reputed to consist of seventy members, many of them men of great property, and to exercise a supervisory or leadership role within the organisation. William Drennan (whose grandson William Drennan Andrews and great-grandson James Andrews went on to become noted judges), Oliver Bond and Henry Jackson were all members.

Ghosts of United Irishmen aside, another spectre who may haunt the location of the old White Cross Inn is the Reverend Mayne, a clergyman from Northern Ireland, who died after throwing himself out of one of its windows some time in the 18th century.