An interesting story from the Irish Times of 4th June 1886 recording what seems to have been the first telephone in the Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland, installed by the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland at some point in the mid-1880s, and zealously guarded by its members:

“THE TELEPHONE IN THE FOUR COURTS

Yesterday after an adjournment for luncheon during the trial of O’Callaghan v Vigors, in the Nisi Prius Court, one of the jurors complained to Mr Justice Harrison that the use of the telephone at the Courts was not permitted to him.

Mr Justice Harrison asked whether the telephone was not there for public use?

Mr F George Fottrell, solicitor, said that the telephone at the Courts belonged to the Law Society, and the Telephone Company desired that they should not allow it to be used by the public.

The Juror, in reply to the judge, said he was a shareholder in the company and a subscriber to it.

Mr Justice Harrison said he could not interfere, as the telephone was for private use, but he recommended the juror to make a representation to the Telephone Company.”

O’Callaghan v Vigors was an interesting libel action brought by a Doctor O’Callaghan of Carlow Infirmary against Thomas MCliffe Vigors JP, arising out of a letter written by Vigors and published in the Carlow Nationalist charging the doctor with carelessness in respect of an operation carried out by him on a little boy called John Smullen, the son of one of Vigors’ employees.  Damages were awarded against Vigors in the sum of 500 pounds.  The subsequent reduction of this sum to a mere 100 pounds by the Irish Court of Appeal provoked the ire of the Irish Medical Press, which described the reduced damages as quite inadequate, but noted its satisfaction that Vigors would have the honour of paying the costs of both trial and appeal.

Telephone messages for solicitors on this phone, which seems to have been the first telephone in the Four Courts, were chalked up on a board close to the old Law Society Hall in the Four Courts (now the Law Library), still in place today – see above!