Month: July 2023

The start of the legal Long Vacation in August marked – and continues to mark – the annual abandonment of the Four Courts and the flight of its inhabitants further afield.

But, try as holidaying lawyers might to escape from the law, sometimes Justice draws them inexorably back.

Such was the case with the 78- year-old Father of the Munster Bar George Blake Hickson SC, whose 1865 vacation jaunt to London culminated in unanticipated testimony at the famed Bailey and Middlesex Sessions.

From the read more

Later to become one of the most famous cross-examiners of all time thanks to his performance in the Oscar Wilde libel action, Sir Edward Carson cut his legal teeth in local courts in Waterford, Ireland. A considerable number of his clients were women plaintiffs – read about one of their cases below.

From the Waterford Standard, 26 June 1880:

“JEWELS – A NOVEL CASE

FEEHAN V HANAN

This was an action to recover certain articles of jewellery valued for about £14 –

Mr Carson read more

From the Dublin Evening Mail, 6 September 1841:

“BELFAST PETTY SESSIONS – WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1

RAISING THE WIND BY RAISING GHOSTS

Our readers, we are sure, will not have forgotten an extraordinary case, tried at our Quarter Sessions Court, in which an old wretch, named Milliken, and her husband, were convicted of swindling Mrs Coburn, an inn-keeper of North-street, out of upwards of £200 by working on her credulity with so much art, through the means of her own servant girl, that they brought read more