Stories of the Four Courts

Sharing the history of the Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland, through old newspaper stories and images.

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the trials
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The Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland, has been the centre of the Irish legal system for over 225 years. The building takes its name from the old superior courts of Chancery, King’s Bench, Equity and Common Law, which it was originally built to house. Although these four courts were subsequently merged into a single court, the High Court, the name still lives on today.

This site uses old newspaper articles and historical images to bring the reader back in time to the Four Courts of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was, for a time, the centre of Dublin life. In it, you can find information about the following:

The Four Courts building, from its initial construction in the 18th century up to its destruction in 1922, and its subsequent reconstruction and re-opening in the 1930s.

The uniquely vibrant locality of Dublin surrounding the Four Courts known as St Michan’s Parish, and the often fraught relationship between the Courts and its inhabitants.

Famous (and infamous) events associated with the Four Courts, including but not confined to notorious trials, horse-whippings, challenges to duels and the Battle of the Four Courts during the Irish Civil War.

The three Law Libraries of the Four Courts and their lively occupants, court advocates known as barristers. whose colourful and eventful lives make fascinating reading.

Latest Posts

  • The First Barristers’ Robing Rooms, 1851

    From the Dublin Weekly Nation, 14 August 1875, an illustration of the Liberator Daniel O’Connell exiting the original robing room of the Four Courts. This room’s situation below the Round Hall rendered it vulnerable not only to flooding, but also… Continue reading

  • The First Law Library, 1850

    The 1830 Law Library* formerly situate in the upper airspace of today’s Supreme Court was lit almost wholly from the roof – an elegant arrangement which, on at least one occasion, threatened not only the Bar’s safety but, even worse… Continue reading

  • The Gambling Devil, 1836

    For young 19th century lawyers not yet able to afford their own carriages, the daily trip to the Four Courts not only posed health and safety risks but also – in circumstances where it was impossible to reach Inns Quay… Continue reading

  • Female Lay Litigant Insists on Being Described as a Lady, 1836

    Female advocacy did not begin in 1919. Throughout the previous century, there run accounts of skirted lay litigants occasionally creating consternation in the manly precincts of the Four Courts. As this story from Saunders’ Newsletter of 6 December 1836 shows,… Continue reading

  • A ‘Seduction’ and its Consequences, 1830

    A tragic story from the Pilot, 12 April 1830: “On Friday a child only about fourteen years old, and small for her age, appeared before the magistrates at College Street Police-office, to charge an unfortunate associate in crime with having… Continue reading

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