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

From Saunder’s News-Letter, 22 December 1810:

“A few days back, a young woman, rather well dressed, with a green coat hanging loosely on the shoulders, walked into a respectable shop in the neighbourhood of Werburgh street, and contrived to carry off a parcel which lay on the counter papered and ready for delivery; and the better to evade pursuit, walked into the shop of Mr Michael O’Connor in the same street, under pretence of purchasing a pair of shoes. While Mr O’Connor was endeavouring to please his new customer, he was astonished to hear his neighbour’s young man demand the bundle she had stolen, which she sternly denied, but on opening her great coat, the bundle became too visible. Mr O’Connor, contrary to his usual custom, made an unsuccessful attempt to detain his new customer, who thought it best to be at liberty without a coat, than by retaining it to enter a prison. The manner in which Mr O’Connor disposed of the coat, evinces not only his feeling for the misfortunes of his fellow creatures, but his wish to render service to society in general, as he sent the coat to the Bow Street Asylum, for the most deserving of the penitents.”

*An advertisement of a fundraising concert for the Bow Street Penitent Asylum, from the Hibernian Journal, 27 April 1805, via the British Newspaper Archive.*

In the early years of the 19th century, Bow Street, Dublin, close to the Four Courts, was the home of an asylum for penitent females voluntarily seeking to retire from a life of prostitution, founded in uniquely romantic circumstances. According to Warburton’s History of the City of Dublin, Vol. 2:

“Some years ago a young child was sent to the house of a tradesman residing in Church-Street, with a request that he would bring it up and the promise of a certain annual sum for its support. This sum was regularly paid, and the child grew up under the care of his adopted parents, without the smallest knowledge of his own. When of a competent age, he learned the trade of a bricklayer from his adopted father, and worked at it for his support. In this state of indigent obscurity, he was returning home one night from his daily occupation, when he was accosted in Dame Street, by an unfortunate female as desolate as himself. Being a young man of moral principles, he was shocked at the address, and being of a serious turn of mind he exhorted her on her mode of life. The unfortunate female told a story of desertion and distress somewhat similar to his own, and excited his sympathy to such a degree that he invited her to his poor dwelling, till he could provide her temporary accommodation elsewhere. Having related the circumstances to some companions as well disposed as himself, a small sum was raised from their daily labour, and a humble asylum was established, of which this poor sincere penitent became the first inmate. In some time after, a letter was received from abroad by a merchantile house of great eminence, inquiring anxiously for the boy. His name was now ascertained to be Dillon, and his family of much opulence and respectability. He subsequently became a merchant of high repute, and in prosperity supported that estimable moral character which he so strikingly evinced in adversity. He at present resides in Monte Video, in South America; meanwhile his asylum continues to prosper. It is now established in Bow Street, and receives into its bosom 30 repentant sinners.“

‘A view of Montevideo,’ by William Marlow, via Reprodart.com

The hero of the above story, John Dillon, subsequently moved from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, where he became a famous man of business, founding Argentina’s first brewery. His descendants were notable in the history of 19th century Argentina with one son, Juan Dillon, becoming a justice of the peace.

*Juan Dillon, son of John Dillon, founder of the Bow Street Penitent Asylum*, *via Wikipedia*

As can be seen from the story at the start of this post, Dublin residents were very proud of the asylum founded by Dillon, and, for the first few decades of the 19th century, until it was taken over by the Catholic Church, they contributed generously to it. The asylum operated at 13 Bow Street, on the site of what is now Bow Street Courthouse. The events of the story appear to date from the last decade or so of the 18th century, when the Four Courts itself was still under construction – indeed, it is not improbable that Dillon, as a bricklayer, may have assisted with its construction.

*Relevant locations as marked on Rocque’s Survey of the City of Dublin, with additions and improvements by Bernard Scale, via* *Bibliothèque Nationale de France*.

*13 Bow Street today, via National Inventory of Architectural Heritage*.

One mystery remains – how was it that the infant Dillon came to be sent to Church Street in the first place? Was he, as he initially thought, the child of a non-marital relationship? Or was his family in Spain anxious for some other reason that he be brought up in Dublin? Perhaps some of his descendants in South America might know?

A true Cinderella story!

From the Irish Examiner, 3 November 1941:

“After eight days in a lifeboat, following the torpedoing off the West African coast of a Dutch ship in which he was travelling, Mr Robert Lindsay Sandes, a Dublin barrister who has been practising in South Africa for a number of years, was picked up and taken to Konakri, capital of French Guinea. He has now been handed over to officials of British Gambia, says the Associated Press. Mr Sandes, who was formerly well-know in Dublin legal circles, is a barrister-at-law of King’s Inns, Dublin, and Gray’s Inn, London. He was an advocate in the Supreme Court in South Africa. He is the author of the legal work entitled: Criminal Procedure and Evidence,’ which reached a second edition.”

Robert Lindsay Sandes BL had previously come to prominence in June 1926 when he acted as a Deputy District Court Judge in Donegal while the local District Court Judge was on holiday. This promotion to locum tenens initially caused some perplexity, not just because the appointment itself was unusual, but because of the appointee’s presumed lack of association with the new regime. Pondering the point, the Derry Journal whimsically remarked regarding Sandes that

“He may, of course, have done a bit in the ‘Tan’ war, though his name has not exactly a mise le meas flavour about it. But perhaps Mr Sandes is a very modest man who figured in many an ambush up the country… perhaps he was even in the GPO in Easter Week, but has been too bashful to tell the world… for whereas only a few handful of men where thought to be associated with the fight in the GPO in 1916, vast numbers have now manfully come forward and admitted their connection with that exploit… Owing to the smoke and flames that enveloped the burning building it is quite obvious that a great many of them could not have been seen…”

Sandes did not remain long in Donegal, departing on Judge Walsh’s return, but the following review of the first edition of his Criminal Procedure textbook from the same newspaper of August 1930 is testimony to his popularity during his brief time there.

“It is said that ‘somewhere in Ireland there is a a justice of the District Court of Saorstát Eireann who is kept right in matters of law by his motor driver; and to the list of queries, which this useful functionary is wont to put to his perplexed master, when they are packing the bag on a court morning, the driver now always takes care to add the very important one – ‘have you Sandes with you all right? ‘ The reference is to a very handsome and comprehensive book entitled Criminal Practice, Procedure and Evidence in the Irish Free State, written by the facile pen of Robert Lindsay Sandes, well know to Donegal people as a very capable and broadminded and sympathetic Deputy Justice of the District Court. This wise and learned chauffeur, drawing on his long and varied experience of ‘coorts’ is evidently of opinion that it is not safe to allow any Justice to mount the Bench without having Mr Sandes most useful book at his hand. I am inclined to agree with him – except that I would go further and like to see it in the hands of every District Court Clerk, every Garda officer, and every sergeant or other Garda who really wants to learn his job and to secure his advancement. Above all, I would like to see the volume in the office of every solicitor, who has ever to appear at a District Court or to handle a criminal case before any of our tribunals.”

We find Robert Lindsay Sandes back in Ireland again in August 1950 as a witness at a bigamy trial in Ennis Circuit Court, giving expert evidence regarding the validity of an English marriage. The marriage may have been English, but the accused’s defence was uniquely Irish – he claimed to have separated from his first wife after being visited by the ghost of her deceased father.

Sandes himself married late in life in 1940, decades after his call to the Bar, to an Irish rector’s daughter. It is not reported whether or not she was with him during his Atlantic adventure. A third edition of his text came out in 1951, which continues to be referenced in a number of recent textbooks as well as in the report of the Morris Tribunal. Whoever would have guessed at its author’s wartime experience!