Mary Telford, a married woman, living with her husband at Armagh, who caused some amusement in Court by admitting that for some years she smoked a pipe because of a bad stomach and bad teeth, was awarded £200 damages yesterday at the Four Courts, Dublin, in an action for libel against Michael J Burnside, a gentleman farmer, residing at Fivemiletown.
The libels were alleged to be contained in certain letters written by the defendant and which, plaintiff said, contained statements seriously injurious to her moral character.
The Lord Chief Justice, in summing up, referred to the lady’s smoking propensities. He said as to smoking to promote the care of one’s teeth he could not express any opinion; he smoked very little himself. There were some people who acknowledged gladly that they smoked because they thought the possession of minor vices was an indication that they had not major ones.”
A fuller report of the case in the Freeman’s Journal from 5 June 1907 describes Mrs Telford as ‘about 36 years of age,’ the wife of a carter in the employment of the Great Northern Railway Company, and a former domestic servant of the defendant.
Mrs Telford gave evidence that, when she left Mr Burnside to be married to Mr Telford, the former made her a present of £50, which, he said, he had intended to leave her in his will. A couple of weeks after the marriage, Mr Telford received a letter from Mr Burnside saying that, immediately after Mrs Telford had left his service, he had missed a long basket, jam-pots and two very expensive cellular nightshirts, which must have been stolen by her.
In reply to a subsequent letter from Mrs Telford’s solicitor, Mr Burnside made further allegations against the moral character of his former employee, describing her as ‘an outrageous liar’ who had ‘smoked all the time she was with him,’ adding ‘a liar is often a thief.’ In court, Mr Burnside gave evidence that he had given the £50 to Ms Telford in the belief that she was leaving for America with her 10-year-old son, born outside wedlock; there had been no reference to any intended marriage on her part.
A case of hell hath no fury like an employer spurned?
The Cork Examiner of 1 December 1909 records the following story of the Limerick Winter Assizes of 1788, featuring a leading 18th century Irish judge, Sir Robert Day:
“Quite a large number of young men were indicted for high treason and, as it was expected that the hearing of the charges would occupy a goodly space of time, Judge Day announced that the cases would be tried overnight so that he might be able to keep his time for opening the Commission in Tralee. The Bar protested earnestly and vehemently against this course, but the Judge would listen to no remonstrance. After quite a round of unheeded entreaties had been urged by the members of the Bar, a note was put into Judge Day’s hand by the court crier. The Judge read it, his features broke into a smile, and he suddenly declared, ‘he would go no further that night.’
The note contained the following lines, written by a member of the circuit named Casey:
‘Try men by night! My lord forbear –
Think what the wicked world will say
Methinks I hear the rogues declare
That Justice is not done by Day.’”
The same story, with appropriate variations, is also told about a later English judge of the same surname, who may well also have been a late sitter, but the Irish version is the earlier, and presumably the original.
Insomniac Baronof the Irish Exchequer William Cusack-Smith, via Wikipedia.
One judge who was obviously not familiar with the story was Sir William Cusack-Smith, Baron of the Irish Exchequer in the early 19th century, a noted insomniac who kept late hours. Although some said he never went to bed at all, Cusack-Smith’s persistent morning lateness to court suggests he may instead have been one of those who nod off at the crack of dawn.
As a consequence of Cusack-Smith’s late night hours, his judicial superior Chief Baron O’Grady made a point of taking into his carriage a stuffed owl. When his friends rallied the Chief Baron on this curious eccentricity, he replied with tears in his voice: ‘Ah, why do you ridicule me for a little matter of sentiment? I bring this bird always about with me, it so reminds me of my Brother Smith.’
The joke went a little flat after the Armagh Assizes of 1834, when Sir William insisted on not only continuing, but actually commencing, successive criminal trials after midnight. This resulted in a subsequent motion by Daniel O’Connell to have him replaced – a motion which ultimately proved unsuccessful after the point was made that a member of the bench working too hard was a matter to be commended rather than censured.
There was no love lost between the O’Connell and Smith families, with O’Connell already having nicknamed Sir William’s barrister son Thomas Berry Cusack-Smith ‘Alphabet’ by reason of the multiplicity of his forenames. Like most such nicknames, it stuck, and the younger Cusack-Smith was ‘Alphabet’ to all thereafter.
In an ironic reversal of fate, Alphabet, by now Irish Attorney-General, was tasked with prosecuting O’Connell at the latter’s trial in 1844. Alphabet’s somewhat erratic behaviour during the trial was suggested to have been due to an acute bout of the indigestion from which he was known to suffer throughout his life.
Perhaps the elder Smith’s insomnia may also have stemmed from digestive issues?
The historic and beautiful castle of Luttrellstown in County Dublin for well over 500 years was in the ancient family of Luttrell, from which family the place took its name. Alas! The historic name is now forgotten and gone in these parts. This magnificent castle was built about 1100, historic records tell us, and through its long history several ghosts are interwoven. The most outstanding was the Grey Lady, once the victim, it is said, of the cruelty of Luttrell. Many people from time to time have testified having seen her wandering about the corridors at night dressed in a grey shroud to her ankles. It is believed she spoke to one person to assure them that she ‘meant no harm’. For a Luttrell’s injustice she swore to be revenged by haunting his castle, and in spite of change of ownership she could not alter her vow. On a moonlit night tradition states one is supposed to see the devil down by the ruins of what is known as the Devil’s Mill on the estate.
Luttrellstown’s third ghost is the ghost of the first Luttrell to bring disgrace on the family, namely Colonel Henry Luttrell. At one period in his life he became the most unpopular man in the country in the `17th century as he betrayed the cause of King James at the Siege of Limerick. It was only by a hair’s breadth that he escaped execution as a traitor. He was saved by a truce and he escaped from prison to the enemies’ quarters. From this he went from bad to worse. Later he took a commission in a Dutch regiment and received 500 pounds a year blood money from the crown. He betrayed his brother to William as a Jacobite and Colonel Henry Luttrell therefore came into possession of the family home, which is brother should have had.
However, he did not live long to enjoy his ill-got property, for on one November night in the year 1717 he was dragged out of his sedan chair in Dublin and murdered on his way home. Afterwards his body was not allowed even to rest in peace, for his enemies raided his grave, dug up his corpse and smashed in his skull.”
According to the Dublin Warder and Weekly Mail of 20 February 1836, the murder of Colonel Luttrell occurred in Greek Street, just behind the site of the future Four Courts, while he was on his way back to his residence in nearby Lattin’s Court.
A Wide Streets Commission map from the early 19th century, showing the north-east corner of the Four Courts as it then was, with Greek Street and Lattin’s Court behind.
Although there was at one time a classical school in Lattin’s Court, it was not called by that name because of the school, but because it was owned by a Mr Lattin. One suspects Lattin’s Court came first, and Greek Street later! Lattin’s Court is now gone but Greek Street survives today. It is a long, narrow street and, walking down it on a dark winter evening, it is easy to imagine the Colonel’s final journey, which must have ended quite close to the corner where the Hilton Hotel now stands – at the time one of the most fashionable quarters of the city.
Doreen Mills goes on to state, regarding the murdered Colonel, that
“Ill luck followed his children, who inherited his unhappiness. His son who became the first Lord Carhampton, lived mostly in England, and crimes even worse than his father’s were committed by him. Even his son, the second Earl, was as unpopular and cruel as his father, and he sold the ancestral home with 400 acres for 40,000 pounds. Shortly afterwards this great family was gone and forgotten. The last of the Luttrells, a beautiful girl, poisoned herself and died when a prisoner on the Continent. A great beauty in her day she gambled her money away, and ran into heavy debt. Later, abroad, she married a hairdresser and went from bad to worse. Wandering about robbing, cheating, till finally in Augsburg she was convicted for pickpocketing, thus ending the tragedy of one of the greatest families in Ireland.”
Luttrellstown Castle was subsequently acquired by publisher Luke White, of the Huguenot Le Blanc family, who also acquired the premises of the Hellfire Club at Killakee. Was Luke a white knight cleaning up property formerly despoiled by the Club, or did his purchases merely represent a transition of power within a surviving organisation now operating underground?
Several vintners were summoned before the magistrates to answer the complaints of police-constables, who charged them with having violated the Spirit Act.
Bartholomew Romainville, a French proprietor of a well-known tavern, situate in Portobello, was charged by a constable with having kept his house open for the sale of spiritous liquors before two o’clock on Sunday the 23rd of October.
The magistrate inquired of the defendant whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty.
M. Romainville (with much vivacity) Coupable par son montre (pointing to the constable), mais non-coupable par le mein?
Magistrate – What do you mean?
M. Romainville – Monsieur, I do mean to say that I am guilty according to the watch of the gens-d’armes, but not guilty according to my own clock that ticks in my own hall. The defendant then proceeded to explain how he had a great big Newfoundland dog, who had a great big tail like a sweeping -brush, which he wagged about on all sides. This great big dog, in passing through the hall on Saturday night, happened to knock his tail against the weight of a German clock which hung suspended against the hall, and the blow had so magic an effect upon the mechanism of the aforesaid clock that it put it back by thirty-two minutes behind the actual time of day. He had been misled by this unhappy event on the day following, and when he opened his shop, he was under the impression that the hour was two o’clock instead of thirty-two minutes after one, as it appeared to be by the constable’s watch. Defendant assured the bench that this house was one of unexceptional character. He had married a new wife recently, and she kept everything in regularity.
The magistrates imposed the mitigated penalty of five shillings and M. Romainville left the office in great glee.”
Lord Justice of Appeal in Ireland Gerald FitzGibbon, by Walter Osborne, via Wikidata
From the Dublin Evening Telegraph, 23 October 1909:
“JUDGE FITZGIBBON’S HOWTH RESIDENCE
In connection with the death of Lord Justice FitzGibbon there have been frequent references to his house at Howth, which is associated with so many prominent men. Many eminent Irish judges have houses outside the city, but none of them acquired the same unique individuality as that of Lord Justice FitzGibbon on the north-eastern slope of Howth Hill. A representative of the Evening Telegraph spent a quarter of an hour there on Thursday evening last with an Evening Telegraph artist. While the latter, from a bye-walk, was sketching the front of the seaside home that Judge FitzGibbon had made for himself on the northern cliffs of Ben Edar, he wandered around the grounds sloping down towards the sea, and wondered at the extraordinary judgment and taste of the young Gerald FitzGibbon of thirty years ago in selecting this spot – then practically a waste, as a Howth boatman described it to the present writer – for his future seaside residence.
The grounds of Lord Justice FitzGibbon’s residence are not very large, nor could they ever be mistaken for those of a great hereditary potentate, but they are laid out, small as they are, in a way which gives to the visitor to them, from beautifully planned walks and through umbrageous frames of trees, some of the most wonderful sights to be seen anywhere on the wonderful coast of Ireland.
The sketch of the house made by the Evening Telegraph artist, and which we give, is taken from the walk that runs down through the shrubbery and trees from the north side of the hall-door to the front of the grounds, where one has such beautiful views of Howth Harbour, Ireland’s Eye and Lambay. The other sketch is that of Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Justice FitzGibbon on their way to Kilrock, the Lord Justice’s residence, from the railway station, just at the time, in the early eighties, when the statesman had reached the full flower of his evanescent fame.
When Lord Justice FitzGibbon determined to build his summer residence on the hill of Howth many years ago, Howth Harbour was the great resort on the east coast of Ireland of the herring fleet during the fishing season. Here at that period of the year a great concourse of vessels, manned by Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen, as well as Irishmen, anchored often six deep along the quays, and in the evening the Lord Justice could see as many as a hundred of those picturesque ‘smacks’ unfold their brown lug sails and drop out of the pretty harbour one by one.
Judging by the position of the Lord Justice’s house, it would seem as if, when choosing the site, he had in view a possible influx of the public as residents, for it stands on a shoulder of the Hill on the north side and cannot possibly be overlooked by any of the countless homes that have since been erected by Dublin capitalists. The entrance which is mostly used is the stone wicket, the path from which winds by zig zags through an evergreen shrubbery up to the plateau upon which the residence stands. The carriage entrance is situated higher up the Hill; inside the gate there is a pretty little red brick lodge. The main entrance is not much used, however, for none of the Lord Justice’s family would think of driving to the railway station except in bad weather. All the reception rooms are on the ground floor, and each commences a charming prospect, those on three sides of the house affording a combination of sea view and landscape unrivalled for beauty and picturesqueness.
From the writing table in this said residence at which the Lord Justice was wont to work there is a full view of Ireland’s Eye and Lambay, and the low-lying coast of North Dublin, and away, sixty miles to the north, on a clear day the Mourne Mountains appear in their grand and serrated outline, pencilled against the sky, lying magnificently east and west and out boldly to sea. The writing table mentioned is in the library, and the bookshelves are filled with a most varied collection of volumes, including many presentation copies, the authors of which were at one time or another Judge FitzGibbon’s guest on the Hill. These books include Lord Wolseley’s ‘Wellington,’ Lord Morley’s ‘Voltaire,’ Lord Roberts’ ‘Forty-one Years in India,’ Professor Webb’s ‘Faust’ and many others.
Naturally there are a large number of classical works, considering that the Lord Justice was a great Scholar, and that he passed brilliantly through Trinity College. He did not mind showing a visitor his case of medals, which included the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, the Gold Medal in Classics, the Silver Medal in History, Law, and Literature, and two secured at the Historical Society, one for essay witing and the other for oratory.
In this room there are two large and very interesting photographs. One is a group of four young barristers – Edward Gibson, Samuel Walker, Gerald FitzGibbon, and RP Carton. The other represents a group of three – Lord Chancellor Ashbourne, Lord Chancellor Walker, and Lord Justice FitzGibbon – and it was only an accident, it appears, that Judge Carton was not present when this picture was taken.
Adjoining the library is the drawing room, from the windows of which there is a fine view of the Harbour and Balscadden Bay. The pictures in this apartment are nearly all by Irish artists, for Judge FitzGibbon did not feel, as unfortunately so many of our prominent Irishmen do, a compelling necessity to go outside Ireland on all occasions to for canvases to adjourn his walls. These pictures have all been hung at the Exhibitions of the Royal Hibernian Academy and include ‘Lough Fee’ by Colles Watkins, ‘Ballachulish’ by Bingham McGuinness, a Scotch landscape by Catterson Smith and ‘Still Life’ by Miss Curry.
In the dining room – a room as large and generous as Lord Justice FitzGibbon’s hospitality – there are Irish pictures also including ‘Adversity’ by JB Yeats, father of the poet, ‘St Patrick’s Dublin’ by Walter Osborne, a reproduction of which in pastel was purchased under the terms of the Chantrey bequest. There are several portraits of dogs by the same artist, ‘On the Thames’ by Augustus Burke, and ‘Skiddaw’ by Miss Benson.
Very few people are aware that the Lord Justice was an eager photographer. He used to show his friends his work in this line in several portfolios. At his famous Christmas week parties, he used to ‘take’ his distinguished guests either singly or in pairs, and there are Lord Morley, Lord Roberts, Mr Balfour, Lord Wolseley, Lord Ashbourne, and Lord Randolph Churchill. His interest in pictorial art is shown also in the fact that more than once he entertained at Howth the members of the Dublin Sketching Club. They returned the hospitality by presenting him with a souvenir in the form of a number of watercolours by themselves, which are also in a portfolio. Here too, may be seen the sketch book of the artist who represented the Illustrated London News at the great O’Connell State trial in 1844. The book contains a large number of drawings of the person concerned in that historic event.
An interesting object in the dining room is a handsome chandelier adapted to the use of oil. Ther is a similar one in the late Judge’s house in Merrion Square; and both were purchased out of two of the World’ first prizes for the best solutions of a series of acrostics.
As everybody knows, Lord Justice FitzGibbon was the chief promoter of the great Masonic Bazaar in aid of the Masonic Female Orphan School, which took place at Ballsbridge in 1893, and after dinner he used to pass round to his guests what he regarded as his most treasured possession, a gold and enamelled snuffbox presented to him by the committee in memory of his services on that occasion.
If you cross the road from the house, you find right below you what is popularly known as FitzGibbon’s Bathing Place. There are few Dublin bathers, we imagine, who do not know the steps cut out of the rocks by which one gets down to it along the steep cliff. These were made at Judge FitzGibbon’s expense, and it was he, too, who put up the iron ladders and the spring-boards. Anyone who has ever had a plunge at that most beautiful of bathing places can never fail to feel grateful to the man who is just gone for his great and unselfish thoughtfulness for those who, during the summer, go down to the sea for dips. Many of his kindnesses during life may, in time, be forgotten, but surely not this one while Dublin men love a swim and enjoy it at FitzGibbon’s Bathing Place.”
A ’Celebrity at Home’ article in the Irish Independent of 29 March 1899, from which much of the above information is taken, further described Lord Justice FitzGibbon as ‘a devoted member of the Masonic body,” also noting in his house “a picture in enamel representing two of the Masonic Orphan Schoolchildren in their quaint eighteenth-century dress, and in the other in the costume or uniform at present worn by the girls in the school.”
Lord Justice FitzGibbon, the eldest son of Gerald FitzGibbon, master in Chancery, was called to the Irish bar in 1860. The 1899 article says that:
“three years later he had made such headway in his profession that he felt justified in getting married, his wife being the second daughter of the late Baron Fitzgerald of the Irish Exchequer. From 1872, his advancement was very rapid, he was appointed law adviser to Dublin Castle, from which he was promoted to the Irish Solicitor-Generalship. Within a short period of six years from the date of becoming a QC he found himself a Lord Justice of Appeal in Ireland at the unprecedentedly early age of forty-one.”
An obituary in the Belfast Daily Telegraph of 1909 stated that:
“for some time past it was noticed that the deceased Lord Justice was failing in health… and was no longer characterised by that physical alertness which was such a distinguishing feature of his naturally commanding physique. For the first time he was absent from the half-yearly meeting of the Masonic Female Orphan schools…”
The same article went on to describe the late Lord Justice as
“Ireland’s most distinguished mason – its virtual head in Ireland, and adorning the most distinguished position open to any Freemason on this side of the Irish channel, being the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council for Ireland of the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite – an office which he had held since the retirement through declining health of the late Commander of the Order, Vice-Chancellor Chatterton, some three years ago. He worked unceasingly to make the Orphan Schools, especially that of the girls, the finest in the country, and to see that the pupils were turned out thoroughly equipped for the duty of life, attending most regularly in the mornings at the School to talk familiarly with the orphan children, each of whom was known to him by name, while he was acquainted with the history of almost every child in the establishment.“
Lord Randolph Churchill’s friendship with Lord Justice FitzGibbon dated as far back as 1876, when the former was private secretary to his father when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Randolph, father of Winston, always spent part of some of his Christmas holidays with FitzGibbon in Howth in the company of a select group of Dublin wits, literary men and raconteurs. Medical men, too, attended – on one occasion when Lord Randolph had to return to England early after Winston suffered an accident, he brought a fellow guest, a surgeon, with him to attend to his son.
A somewhat acerbic account of these Christmas parties is to be found in the Private Diaries of Sir Algernon West, former private secretary to Gladstone, and a man ‘who knew everyone that was anyone,’ published in 1922:
“Dined in shooting coats and slippers, or anyhow, provided they were not clean, at 7, ate and drank until about 8.30, Played cards till 12, then a supper of oysters and snipe, then cards till any hour… No woman was allowed in the house, and in the morning at 10 Lord Justice FitzGibbon, unshorn and untoothed, brought them each a cup of tea in his dressing-gown. They breakfasted at 11, they again began to play cards, and this went on for a week.”
An annual orgy of gambling, informal dress, oysters and snipe – no wonder hospitality at Kilrock House was so highly praised!
