A description of the the Irish legal profession and its haunts up to and including 1898, from ‘Picturesque Dublin Old and New‘ by Frances Gerard, with illustrations by Rose Barton:

“From the Custom House the shining waters of the Liffey flow, eastward towards the sea, westward in the direction of Island Bridge and Chapelizod.  Dear old Liffey! Insalubrious and ill-smelling as your uncleansed waters may be, there lingers round you a certain atmosphere of romance that condones the unsavoury odours you exhale.  Of a summer’s evening, when the sun is setting on your turbid waters, it touches the great dome of the Four Courts, and slants across the dark houses on the Quays, carrying back one’s thoughts to the long-faded glories of Dublin.

 Along the Quays, the object of the greatest interest is the beautiful building of the Four Courts, as the Temple of Themis is called… Up to this time the Bar of Dublin had led somewhat of a peripatetic existence, being sent, as it might be, from post to pillar in very undignified fashion.  At one period, St Patrick’s Cathedral was made use of as a hall for the Justices; and later we find the located within the precincts of Holy Trinity.  Near Christchurch Cathedral, which was hemmed in on all sides by narrow lanes, there was formerly a passage to which was given the fearful appellation of ‘Hell.’  Here there were some mean shops where lodgings were to let, as we learn from an old newspaper cutting, ‘To be let, furnished lodgings in Hell.  N.B. – They are well suited to lawyers.’  In an archway leading to the Chancery Lane there was a wooden statue of his Satanic Majesty, with horns and tail complete.  The fame of this diabolic figure reached Scotland, for in his ballad ‘Death and Doctor Hornbrook’ allusion is made by Burns in the following lines:

‘But this that I am gaun to tell

Which lately on a night befell

Is just as true’s the Deil’s in Hell

In Dublin City’

His effigy was there at all events; for a gentleman not many years dead remembered seeing it.  When it was removed, it was worked up by some ingenious tradesman into stuff-boxes and other relics. Sic transit gloria Diaboli!’

It has been said that of the Irish capital that its two great possessions are the Castle and the Four Courts.  Whatever may be the opinion concerning the first-named, it is quite certain that the legal element dominates society in Dublin and is held in the highest respect.  The leading members, i.e. the Chancellor and the Judges, do duty for the absentee nobility, who have long since ceased to reside in the little capital, only putting in an appearance during the Castle season.  Hence the lawyers and their wives do the ‘representation,’ live in the finest houses, drive the finest carriages, and entertain the Lord-Lieutenant. 

The Irish are credited, and perhaps correctly, with being a litigious people. ‘All the litigation of Ireland,’ says Carlyle, ‘whatever the wretched Irish people, will still for the voiding of their quarrels come hither’… Carlyle’s sneer does not affect the reputation of the Irish Bar; its rollcall including the names of some of the ablest lawyers Great Britain has ever produced – men whose legal ability was allied to unsurpassed eloquence – a coalition not always to be met with.  Such were Curran, Burke, Plunket, Burrowes, O’Connell, Sheil, Fitzgibbon (Lord Clare) Wolfe (Lord Kilwarden) Scott (lord Clonmel) Yelverton (Lord Avonmore).  These men were the admiration of the last century; while, coming nearer our own day, we can point to Lord O’Hagan, Chancellor of Ireland, and Lord Killowen, Lord Chief Justice of England.  Although the Bar of Ireland cannot boast of such giants of eloquence as heretofore, there are many brilliant speakers who can brighten up the dull monotony of the law by sparkles of wit, which prove that the Irish bar has not lost its reputation for genuine humour…

The chief entrance [to the Four Courts] is through a fine Corinthian portico, upon the apex of which stands a statue of Moses (why Moses?) supported on either side by figures of Justice and Mercy, while at each corner Wisdom and Authority are seated.  The portico leads into the great Hall, in which, says the tongue of scandal, all the gossip of Dublin originates; for her congregate the barristers young and old, all like so many schoolboys let loose from their classroom.”