From the Leinster Reporter, 25 May 1918:
“DRILLING AT ROSCREA
Before a special court, Mr. J O’Sullivan RM, presiding, with Major Dease RM, on Wednesday at Templemore courthouse, Mr. JA Burke BL, was charged with drilling on the 24th of March and 7th April, at Roscrea, and with having taken part in drilling. He was also charged that on the 5th of May, at Corville, he took part in drilling.
The defendant, who had been removed from Limerick prison, where he had been on remand from the previous week, refused to recognise the court, and he refused also to remove his hat, which was taken off by some of the police in court.
Mr. Gleeson, Crown Solicitor, in opening the prosecution, said this was a different case altogether from the previous cases which had come before them in that court, because the defendant was a member of the learned profession, a barrister-at-law, and a graduate of the National University, and he (Mr. Gleeson) need not say how painful and regrettable it was to him to conduct a prosecution against a man like that, but as a solicitor he was bound to do his duty, and he was quite sure that Mr. Burke would understand that himself. He would put it to the defendant that he ought to follow in the steps of those who were recently summoned for similar offences, and who were now liberated on bail. He hoped Mr. Burke would do what was best in his own just interests, and the interests of his family, who wish to stand well in the interests of the country. He hoped he would do what any sensible man would do in his position. If he (Mr. Burke) did that he was sure that nobody would be better pleased than the executive of the country. If they continued to drill, they should take the consequences.
Constable Timothy Scanlan gave evidence to the effect that on the 24th of March, outside the Sinn Fein Club in Roscrea, there was a number of Volunteers. He noticed Thomas Feehan forming them up. He ordered the men to fall in, form fours etc. He divided the Volunteers into half companies, and took charge of one of the companies himself, and Mr. Burke (the defendant) took charge of the other company. Mr. Burke gave the words of command to his own company and followed Feehan’s company in the direction of Corville. When entering a field both commanders gave orders to form ‘two deep’ and in this formation they marched up to the top of the hill, where they were dismissed, and some of them went hurling and playing football for some time. In the evening the Volunteers marched to Roscrea with Mr. Burke in command of one company.
Head-constable Philip Murphy, Roscrea, deposed that on the 7th of April he was out at a football match at Carrick, and when the match was over, he saw a body of about forty Volunteers march from the field in military formation. Tom Feehan took charge of that body, and they proceeded to drill. Their number consisted of about 36. He then saw another party of Volunteers falling in where Feehan’s body had left. They consisted of about 36 in number and were in charge of Mr. Burke. He gave orders to ‘number off’ ‘form fours’ and ‘right, quick march.’ Next, he gave them left wheel, and when they had gone some distance, he gave them ‘form two deep’. This went on for about three quarters of an hour. He then saw another party of Volunteers falling in where Feehan’s body had left. They were in charge of Mr. Burke who instructed them in signal drill, extended them from the left, and closed them again. Feehan’s company was then halted, and Mr. Burke and Feehan approached each other, and after a conversation the two companies joined up into one, and Feehan was evidently in charge of them from that into town. He could not say where Feehan got all his military knowledge.
Mr. Gleeson – He did not get it when he was a postman, I suppose (laughter).
Sergeant Costigan, Roscrea, deposed that on Sunday 8th May, he was on duty in the town and noticed numbers of the Sinn Fein Volunteers gathering in batches and leaving the town in small batches. He followed them out to Corville demesne where about 190 men were engaged in drilling. They were broken up into seven squads. There were men there from five or six surrounding districts. Mr. Burke was in charge of a squad of about 44. They were in military formation. He heard some words of command spoken by Mr. Burke. The drilling continued for about an hour and a quarter. The Volunteers were not in uniform.
Mr. Gleeson again appealed to the defendant to take the friendly advice tendered to him at the opening of the proceedings.
Mr. Burke, in the course of his address, said, “I deny the right of this court to try any Irishman.” At this point there was a demonstration in court, and the Chairman said if that continued, he would have to clear the court.
Mr. Burke said he did not want any demonstration and he appealed to the people to keep quiet.
Continuing, Mr. Burke said – I deny the right of this court to try any Irishman, and I base that denial on the right of the Irish people to self determination. As long as the British government withholds the right from the Irish people it is an unconstitutional government which maintains itself here by the naked sword. I peremptorily refuse to submit to the authority of any court set up by such unconstitutional authority.
It is for you to explain why I, a member of the Irish Bar of the Honorable Society of the King’s inns, have been compelled to lie on a filthy, unsanitary prison floor like a dog, for advocating the very policy, physical force, for the advocacy of which Edward Carson and EF Smith have been elevated to the highest positions which any man in your profession can aspire to. I was dragged here out of my own petty sessions district, which is an action itself altogether irregular, according to your own law under this obsolete Act of 80 and 81 Vic, to be convicted like a common criminal.
Was this Act in abeyance or in force when men were drilling in Ulster? If it was in abeyance then why is it resurrected now to throw me into prison, or if it were in force why were not Edward Carson, Frederick Smith and JH Campbell sent to jail? Had they a better right to drill than we have Had any people a better light to drill than the Irish people at the present time? You are now dressed in a little brief authority. Make the most of it. I have no further interest in the proceedings.“
The Chairman said that there was one part of Mr. Burke’s address quite relevant to the charge, in which he alluded to the fact that other proceedings of this nature have been allowed to go unchecked by the Executive, and he wished Mr. Gleeson to deal with this.
Mr. Gleeson said that many things had been done, many things be allowed or submitted to, or passed over, which were more or less an encouragement of other people to do likewise, but now the order had gone further that all illegal drilling was to be put down.
A sentence of four months imprisonment in the first division was imposed in default of £200 bail.
Mr. Burke refused to give bail and was removed under a heavy escort of military and police to prison.”
James Aloysius (otherwise Seamus) Burke, from an Irish-American family and a graduate of Fordham University, had been called to the Irish Bar in 1916, the same year in which another Irish barrister, Patrick Pearse, led the 1916 Rising.
This was a period when things changed very quickly, and the continuing authority of such courts in Ireland was indeed to be brief. By 1924, the former prisoner in the dock was the Minister for Local Government and Public Health in the new Irish Free State. In 1929, he married a daughter of the personal attendant to the last Czar of Russia. She was also a cousin of Felix Yussopov, who assassinated Rasputin.
Mr Burke left politics in 1938. Although his entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography describes him as non-practising, he appeared as Junior Counsel in at least one case that year. In later life, he moved to England.
Full biographical entry here.
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