Month: April 2023

From the Yorkshire Gazette, 21 December 1822:

“HALL OF THE FOUR COURTS

Some very able papers are now in the course of publication in the New Monthly Magazine entitled ‘Sketches of the Irish Bar;’ giving an account of the various forensic characters in our sister country, and of the mode of practice in the Courts there. The following animated account of the scenes daily occurring in the Hall of the Four Courts is from the last No. of the above-named miscellany:

‘The law, and the practice of the courts, in Ireland, are with some trivial exceptions, precisely the same as with us, but the system of professional life in the sister island is in some respects different. One of the particulars in which they differ may be made a source of interest and recreation to a stranger in Dublin, at least it was so to me. I allude to the custom, which the Irish Bar have long since adopted, of assembling daily for the transaction of business, or in search of it, if they have it not, in the Hall of the Four Courts.

The building itself is a splendid one… in the centre of the interior, and o’er canopied by a lofty dome, is a spacious circular hall, into which the several courts of justice open. I was fond of lounging in this place.

From the hours of twelve to three, it is a busy and a motley scene. When I speak of it as the place of daily resort for the members of the legal profession and their clients, I may be understood to me, that it is the general rendezvous of the whole community; for in Ireland almost every man of any pretensions that you meet, is either a plaintiff or defendant, or on the point of becoming so, and, when in the capital, seldom fails to repair at least once a day to the Hall, in order to look after his cause, and by conferences with his lawyers, to keep up his mind to the true litigating temperature.  It is here, too, that the political idlers of the town resort to or pick up the rumours of the day.

There is also a plentiful admixture of the lower orders, among whom it is not difficult to distinguish the country litigant. You know him by his mantle of frieze, his two boots and one spur, by the tattered lease, the emblem of his tenement, which he unfolds as cautiously as Sir Humphry Davy would a manuscript of Herculaneum, and, best of all, by his rueful visage, in which you can clearly read, that same clause in the last ejectment act lies heavy on his heart. 

These form the principal materials of the scene, but it is not so easy to enumerate the manifold and ever shifting combinations into which they are diversified. The rapid succession of so many objects, passing and repassing eternally before you, perplexes and quickly exhausts the eye. It fares still worse with the ear. The din is tremendous. Beside s the tumult of a thousand voices in ardent discussion, and the most of them raised to the declamatory pitch, you have ever and anon the stentorian cries of the tipstaffs bawling ‘The gentlemen of the Special Jury to the box’ or the still more thrilling vociferations of attorneys and attorneys’ clerks, hallooing to a particular counsel that their case is called on, and all is lost if he delays an instant.  Whereupon the counsel, catching the sound of his name, wafts through the hubbub, breaks precipitately from the circle that engages him, and bustles through the throng, escorted, if he be of any eminence, by a posse of applicants, each of them trying to monopolise him, until he reaches the entrance of the court and plunging in escapes for that time from their importunate solicitations. 

The bustle among the members of the Bar is greatly increased by the circumstance of all of them, with very few exceptions, practicing in all the courts.  Hence at every moment you see the most eminent darting across the hall, flushed and palpitating from the recent conflict and, no breathing time allowed them, advancing with rapid strides and looks of fierce intent, to fling themselves again into the thick of another fight. It daily happens that two cases are to be heard in different courts, and in which the same barrister is the client’s main support, are called on at the same hour… On such occasions it is amusing to witness the contests between the respective attorneys to secure their champion…

The preceding are a few of the constant and ever-acting elements of noise and motion in this busy scene; but an extra sensation is often given to the congregated mass.  The detection of a pickpocket (I am not speaking figuratively) causes a sudden and impetuous rush of heads with wigs and without them to the spot where the culprit has been caught in flagranti.

At other times, the scene is diversified by a ground of fine girls from the country, coming, as they all make a point of doing, to see the courts, and show themselves to the Junior Bar.  A crowd of young and learned gallants instantaneously collects, and follows in their wake; and even the arid veteran will start from his legal reverie as they pass along, or, discontinuing the perusal of his deeds and counterparts, betray by a faint leer, that, with all of love of parchment, a fine skin glowing with the tints that life and nature give it, has yet a more prevailing charm. 

Lastly, I must not omit, that the Hall is not infrequently thrown into ‘Confusion, worse confounded’ by that particular breach of his Majesty’s Irish peace, improperly called a ‘horsewhipping’.  When an insult is to be avenged, that place is often chosen for its publicity as the fittest scene of castigation. Besides this, particular classes in Ireland, who have quarrels on their hands, cherish certain high-minded and chivalrous notions on the subject – The injured feelings of a gentleman, as they view the matter, are to be redressed, not so much by the pain and shame inflicted upon the aggressor, as by a valiant contempt of the laws that would protect the backs of the community from stripes; and hence the point of humour is more completely satisfied by a gentle caning under the nose of justice, than by a sound cudgeling anywhere beyond the sacred precincts.”

The above was the Hall of the Four Courts before the Irish Famine, and the establishment of County Courts, which combined to make the Four Courts a less attractive destination for pickpockets, country litigants, and young ladies seeking husbands among a significantly depleted Junior Bar! The occasional horsewhipping, however, continued to take place in its vicinity…

Sketches of the Irish Bar, available here, was co-authored by Richard Lalor Sheil and John Philpot Curran‘s son William Henry Curran. A statue of Sheil stood in the Hall of the Four Courts for many years, until it was destroyed in 1922.

From the Clonmel Herald, 24 October 1829:

“On Wednesday morning, at an early hour, a vast concourse of persons had assembled in Pill Lane, to witness the battle royal which was expected to take place between the Lord Mayor and the Fishmongers.  At a few minutes before six, his Lordship, attended by his personal staff, and accompanied by a strong party of the horse police, arrived on the ground; and having duly reconnoitered the position taken up by the fish women and their adherents, and having the fear of dead cats before his eyes, his Lordship, acting upon the suggestion of his portly henchman, thought it more prudent to observe the battle from a neighbouring alehouse, than to expose his person by mixing in the melee.

About seven o’clock, a car, laden with fish, and consigned to Mr. Coleman, came into Pill Lane by the direction of Mary’s-abbey.  Upon its entrance into Pill Lane, one of the staffmen laid hold of the bridle, and endeavored to turn the horse; Mr. Cantwell, who attended to direct the course that the trade should pursue, interfered, and declared that the staffman or any other person should not interfere until the Lord Mayor should come down. 

After some altercation, the staffman continuing violently to drag the horse, the Lord Mayor called upon the horse police to act, and drive the people out of the street.  Mr. Cantwell called upon the people not to be intimidated but stand and act firmly, for that his Lordship and police were violating the law.  He conjured the people to be temperate, and not to follow the illegal example set by the police – the Lord Mayor, who was standing at the door of the ale-house, called out twice, ‘I am the Lord Mayor, or I am not;’ to which Mr. Cantwell replied, ‘but, like every other citizen, you are subject to the laws of the land. 

Mr. Cantwell again called on the people to stay firm, and said he was rejoiced they were so firm; and since the Lord Mayor would prevent their entrance into the market, he advised them to go to Mr. Classon’s concerns.  The Lord Mayor protested strongly that the car should not go to any place but to Stephen’s market.  Mr. Cantwell insisted that it should proceed to Classon’s and called upon the owner to bring his horse there. 

His Lordship again called upon the police to act, two of whom immediately seized hold of the horse, and the rest commenced riding about, dispersing the people in every direction; finally, the police forced the car into Stephen’s market.  His Lordship directed that two of the horse police should go and stand at the gate of Mr. Stephen’s market and prevent any fish from coming out that had gone into it. 

Mr. Cantwell went upon the flag-way of Boot Lane, to his Lordship, and conjured him if he valued the peace of the City to prevent the police from riding down the people.  The Lord Mayor said, ‘Do you want to insult me, Mr. Cantwell?’ to which Mr. Cantwell answered, ‘I want you to act as a Magistrate ought.’ – His Lordship vehemently protested that he would not permit anyone to stand on the flagway, upon which Mr. Cantwell said, he understood his Lordship’s object by the order, but he had a right to stand where he was, and there he would until ridden down.  The Lord Mayor declared he would commit him if he continued to insult him.  Mr. Cantwell denied that he had insulted him and defied his Lordship to arrest him. 

The Lord Mayor called upon the horse police to make everyone leave the flags, upon which they rode up to the flags, where Mr. Cantwell alone was standing, against whom one of the policemen rode, and pressed him against the wall, eventually seizing hold of, and dragging him into the centre of the street.  Mr. Cantwell again called upon the people to be quiet and avoid giving the police any pretence to use their swords. 

The majority of the fish dealers then proceeded to Classon’s market, where the business will continue to be conducted until the right of the Lord Mayor shall be decided by an appeal to the higher authorities.“

Pill Lane originally led to a harbour at the edge of an originally much wider Liffey, and fish had been sold along its sidewalks for centuries prior to this incident. The Lord Mayor’s intervention of 1829 ultimately got rid of most of Pill Lane’s bigger, wholesale fish-sellers into a yard at nearby Boot Lane, which then became known as the Fish Market.

In 1834 Mr Todd, the then owner of the Fish Market, brought a case before the Dublin Magistrates Court against a Mr. O Shaughnessy, who had made use of a stand in it contrary to his instructions.  Mr. JM Cantwell again features, representing Mr. O’Shaughnessy.  He submitted that the yard was a public market and not private property, as the public rights of the Pill Lane fish dealers had transferred to it.  The magistrate Mr. Cole was of the opinion it was a case in which he ought not to interfere and dismissed Mr Todd’s complaint.

There were, however, smaller fish dealers, mostly women, who continued to ply their wares on the sidewalks of Pill Lane after the wholesale fish dealers had been moved on, selling inferior fish to poorer citizens.  Another battle, this time a legal one, would take place between these women and the city authorities a couple of generations later.  One of the weapons employed by the fishwomen in their campaign would be the opinion of a leading Senior Counsel, whose descendants still practice in the Law Library today. 

More to come!

From the Dublin Weekly Nation, 17 July 1869:

“SUDDEN DEATH

On Monday Mr. John McNally, solicitor, had an awfully sudden death in the coffee room of the Angel Hotel, Inns Quay, Dublin. He went in to have some refreshment, and almost immediately after having ordered it dropped dead on the floor. Mr. McNally was a son of Counsellor Leonard McNally, who ‘defended’ the State informers of 1798, and at the same time betrayed their secrets to the Government, whose pensioner agent he was all the time. The son was not accountable for the misdeeds of his father, but this startling occurrence has for a moment brought the odious memory of the traitor prominent before the public mind.”

Mr. McNally, unfortunate son of the infamous Leonard, was not the only person with legal associations to die suddenly at the Angel Hotel. In 1852, the Weekly Freeman’s Journal reported the demise of Thomas Budds, Esq, the coroner for the Queen’s County, who died suddenly of disease of the heart in his room in the hotel the previous evening.

The Freeman’s Journal of 1 June 1882 reports a further sudden death, of Captain Wilcox, JP, Chapelizod, who having driven to town from his residence, and got down, as he was in the habit of doing, at the Angel, failed to return to his coachman at the appointed time and was found in a fit in its lavatory.  According to the report, Dr Willis, Ormond Quay, was at once sent for, and did all that medical skill could do, but Captain Wilcox never recovered consciousness and expired in about 20 minutes after the doctor’s arrival.

Something to do with the menu?

The Angel Hotel was established at 11 Inns Quay, Dublin in 1850 by William Browne, and advertised by him in the newspapers of the time as healthily and conveniently situated for gentlemen and families visiting Dublin on business or pleasure.

Beds were available for one shilling per night, and it was suggested that professional gentlemen and others attending the Law Courts during term would find it to their advantage to take up their residence at the above establishment.

Many of them did. Due to proximity to cattle markets, the hotel was also reputed to be popular with graziers.

A later owner of the hotel was John Bergin, who died in May 1861. Some years later, the Bergin family left the Angel for another hotel in the vicinity, the Provincial, at 6 and 7 Usher’s Quay.

The Angel Hotel subsequently became the Four Courts Hotel, which survived into the late 20^th century until it was in turn replaced by Áras Uí Dhálaigh.

More about the Four Courts Hotel here.

From the Northern Whig, 25 May 1916:

‘DEFENDERS OF THE FOUR COURTS

A great many members of the legal profession and officials of the Four Courts have been for more than a year in military training for home defence, and when the Sinn Fein rebellion broke out and the rebels took possession of the Four Courts these quasi-military officials rendered a good account of themselves.  At a meeting of the Benchers of the King’s Inns, under the presidency of the Lord Chancellor, a few days ago, a resolution was passed placing on record their approval, appreciation, and best thanks to the officers and men of the Four Courts Division of the St John Ambulance Brigade and Veteran Volunteer Corps for the very efficient services provided by them during the Sinn Fein Rebellion.’

The Four Courts Division of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade and Veteran Volunteer Corps referenced above was set up by Four Court officials under the command of the Lord Chancellor, Sir John Ross.  In his autobiography, ‘The Years of my Pilgrimage,’ a good read albeit replete with all the prejudices of his time, Ross describes the Division as consisting mainly of registrars, court criers and messengers. 

‘As the difference in rank among the volunteers presented difficulties, I drilled myself as an ordinary private and was duly yelled at to keep up my head throw out my chest and keep step like the rest.  Some of the company went out to France as stretcher bearers and others proved most useful in unloading hospital ships and conveying patients to hospital.’

Another judicial member of the Four Courts Division of the Corps was Mr. Justice Barton, who was to remark at a 1915 Volunteer Corps Association meeting in Dundalk that when at drill, he had to salute a young barrister, and the following morning when he took his seat on the bench the barrister with the usual respect saluted him. Perhaps it was Barton’s membership of the Corps that gave rise to later unfounded legal gossip that he was being held prisoner in the Four Courts during the 1916 Rising.

But 1916 was a long way away when initial Corps drilling took place in the yard of the Four Courts, where the sight of august judges being put through their paces created, according to Ross, great amusement among local onlookers:

“While we were engaged in our drill in the yard of the Four Courts, an old woman outside the gate was heard calling to a friend.

Come here Biddy, till you see all the ould Judges practicing to be sodgers.”

Subsequently, a Four Courts Auxiliary Munitions Association was also established by Ross, with a view to keeping factories going over the weekend when regular workers were taking a rest, although he took a less active role in the day-to-day work carried out by it.

Membership of this association, which involved recompense in kind of 1 shilling an hour, was confined to barristers, solicitors and civil servants.

The decision to exclude from this paid work non-professionals working in the Four Courts was criticized by the Freeman’s Journal, which wrote:

‘The minor officials at the Four Courts must feel the slight more keenly because as forming the greater part of the Voluntary Association Brigade they have always given their services free and ungrudging on the occasion of the arrival of hospital ships in Dublin… class barriers have everywhere been demolished in the splendid democracy created by the crisis.’

If Ross is to be believed, however, the most unlikely characters turned to weekend factory work with alacrity:

‘Some of the foremost men at the bar proved themselves the most efficient workmen. Serjeant Sullivan, one of the principal leaders, and now winning distinction at the English bar, showing himself as effective at skilled handwork as he is at legal exercitation.’

The Northern Whig’s description of the Four Courts Division of the Volunteer Corps as ‘Defenders of the Four Courts’ during the 1916 Easter Rising is somewhat misleading. When the Rising came, there was no hand-to-hand fighting between the Corps and the rebels occupying its former home, although Mr. JF Browning, an Examiner in the Land Registry, ‘a most accomplished and able lawyer’ was shot and killed in the vicinity of Beggar’s Bush barracks when returning from a route march with a group of unarmed but uniformed Volunteers, whether from the Four Courts Division or a different one is unclear.

Lord Chancellor Ross himself spent the early part of the Rising reading Plutarch in his garden in Stillorgan before witnessing from a neighbour’s house the sight of the Helga gunboat demolishing Liberty Hall.

Mostly, however, as befitted its connection with the St John’s Ambulance, the Four Courts Volunteer Corps was kept busy in ferrying the wounded, with the Northern Whig publishing a list of the following men in the Division whose names had been forwarded to Lord Chancellor Ross for having rendered valuable service:  George W May, John Healy, WH Boyd, IA Tiling, RW Stuart, LW Jewell, HM Whitton, HP May, J Greville, AH Robinson, JC Marlow, MF Linihan, AG Holinshead, W Dick, JL Lynd, Granby Burke and JW Rooney.

The report continued:

‘These gentlemen acted with the greatest bravery, carrying wounded under fire and removing them in ambulance wagons to the hospitals.  Mr. George May specially distinguished himself in the vicinity of the Customs House and was unfortunately wounded while in discharge of his duties when attached to a wagon.  We were very pleased to learn his wound was not serious and he is now making a satisfactory recovery.’

On returning to the Four Courts after the Rising, Ross was surprised that, although the door of his chamber had been broken down by rebels, no other damage had been done – his books, his robes, both full dress and ordinary, and his wigs and papers had been respected.  On a later occasion when acting as chairman of the committee appointed to deal with an internment camp, he found before him the rebel commandant of his wing of the Courts and, in his own words, ‘took the opportunity to thank him for the consideration and care shown.’

A few undetonated bombs in the Law Library aside, the 1916 rebels in the Four Courts showed considerable respect for the contents of the building they were occupying – even leaving the contents of the drinks cupboard in the barristers’ tearoom untouched.  Read more about their decorous occupation here.

Previous posts on the long-running saga of Irish barrister Richard Dunn: (1) Mr Dunn BL in Love, 1836 (2) Mr Dunn BL in Love Again, 1838 (3) Mr Dunn BL in Prison for Love, 1838 (4) Mr Dunn BL Back in Town, 1839-40.

The saga continues below.

From the Northern Standard, 16 May 1840:

“LONDON POLICE, FRIDAY, MAY 8

ASSAULT ON AN IRISH BARRISTER

UNION HALL – Charles Crawley, the proprietor of the Park Hotel at Norwood, where Sir Francis Burdett, his lady, and Miss Angelina Burdett Coutts, were lately staying, was brought before Mr. Trail, charged by Mr. Richard Dunn, the Irish Barrister, with aiding and assisting an alleged assault on Mr. Dunn.

Mr. Dunn stated that he called at the Park Hotel for the purpose of seeing Sir Francis, that having sent in his name by a servant, word was sent out that the gentleman could not be seen, and Mr. Dunn was about to retire, when he was accosted by Mr. Crawley and another gentleman, one of them saying that he had no business there, that although his appearance was lie that of a gentleman, yet his conduct was not of that character.  At this period several persons came up and collected about him, and he heard Mr. Crawley exclaim that he, the complainant, deserved to be thrown into the pond, this was on the road opposite to the hotel, and when he got about one hundred yards from it, he was followed by the defendants and others, one of whom snatched up some dust and gravel out of the road, and threw it in his face.  Mr. Dunn added that he declared most solemnly he never went to the Park Hotel for the purpose of insulting or giving offence to anyone whatever, and that he never anticipated the gentleman whom he called would not have received him.

Mr. Crawley said that an accusation had been brought against him, and that he wished to publicly rebut it.  He then proceeded to state that Sir Francis Burette, Lady Burdett and Miss Angelina Coutts Burdett, had been subjected to a degree of annoyance on the part of Mr. Dunn, particularly the latter young lady. Some days previous to the transaction in question, Mr. Dunn made his appearance at Norwood, and soon found the Park Hotel. On that occasion Miss Angelina was walking with a lady in the grounds attached to the house, and the moment Mr. Dunn espied her, he commenced waving his handkerchief, and actually got over the hedge into the grounds, no doubt for the purpose of approaching, when the ladies, no doubt alarmed at such behavior, made a precipitate retreat into the hotel, for the purpose of shunning the intruder.

The magistrate Mr. Trail said that there was no use in hearing any more on the subject, as he had determined on not giving a decision in the case.  The magistrate then adjudge Mr. Crawley to enter into his own recognizance in the sum of 50l to appear at the sessions to answer the complaint of Mr. Dunn.

The parties then left the office.”

We next hear of Mr. Dunn in London the following month when the London Evening Standard reported that about two hours prior to the closing of the Marylebone court, he had been brought before the sitting magistrate Mr. Rawlinson, to answer a charge preferred against him by Boyd Alexander, of No 15 Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Park. Mr. Alexander stated that on the same day, between 12 and 1, Miss Burdett Coutts had come to his house for protection, and soon after Mr. Dunn knocked at the door which was opened by the servant, who answered him, and Mr. Dunn then went away, but as he still remained near the house, Mr. Alexander went out and seeing a constable, gave him in charge.

“Mr. Rawlinson This is I believe an affair which we have all heard of before.  Have not articles of the peace been preferred against the defendant?

Mr. Alexander: I believe so, Sir.  I know he has been in custody.

Mr. Dunn Did I knock a second time.

Mr Alexander: I only heard you knock once.

Mr. Dunn – Where was Miss Burdett Coutts when I walked up to your door?

Mr Alexander: On the balcony.

Mr. Dunn – And pray, where was she before I knocked.

Mr Alexander – Under the arcade, taking shelter from the rain.

Mr. Dunn – Now, will you swear that she was not in an enclosure in front of your house playing with the children before I went to your door at all.

Mr Alexander – I don’t know whether she was or not.

Mr. Dunn – What did I say to you when you spoke to the policeman about us.

Complainant _- I cannot recollect.

Mr. Dunn – Then I will tell you.”

After propounding at length, Mr. Dunn was once again bound over to keep the peace.

The negative publicity arising from the above did not dissuade Mr. Dunn from continuing with his proceedings against Mr. Crawley in respect of the alleged assault at the Park Hotel. His case against Mr Crawley came up for hearing at the Surrey Sessions in Guildford in July 1840 and was not disposed of until past ten o’clock at night. During the whole of the time, the court was crowded to excess in every part and the proceedings appeared to create great interest.

Mr. Dunn had the thrill of being able to examine under oath his prospective father-in-law, Sir Francis Burdett, to whom he had written many letters requesting the hand of his daughter, the heiress Angelina Burdett Coutts, to whom Mr. Dunn, despite considerable effort, had so far never been formally introduced. Sir Francis said he had only read the first letter; after that, presumably to retain his sanity, he passed on all correspondence received without reading.

The jury, after a few minutes’ deliberation, returned a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ in respect of Mr Crawley.

Dunn, however, had had his day in court. If the Burdett family would not speak with him outside the courtroom, he could, by means of a subpoena, make them converse with him therein. It was by this means that Dunn, plying all the skills of the Irish Bar, and not a few of the modern stalker, subsequently proposed to wage his campaign for the hand of Angelina.

These days, this frustrated performance artist with a dash of legal knowledge and an unshakeable belief in his own ability to change reality, would probably have set up a website, or used mass email or social media as a method to communicate his delusions and boost his appetite for attention.

Would Dunn ultimately go too far?  Yes, but not for a long time, and with a different woman, after Angelina Burdett-Coutts’ future had been substantially destroyed by his obsessive and delusional pursuit of her.

More anon.