Author: Ruth Cannon BL

Irish barrister sharing the history of the Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland, and other Irish courts.

English Divorce Granted After Errant Wife Run to Earth in Four Courts Hotel, 1904

This advertisement for the Four Courts Hotel published in a Dublin Grand Opera Society Brochure from 1951, via Archive.org, includes a photograph of the exterior of the hotel.

The Four Courts Hotel opened beside the Four Courts on Inns Quay in 1902, in place of its predecessor the Angel, which, as previously documented, had suffered a number of mysterious deaths during its period of operation. If the cuisine at the Angel foreshortened lives, the bedrooms at Four Courts Hotel did the same thing for marriages – below is the story of just one of a number of divorces in which its staff were called to give evidence.

From the Daily Mirror, 9 March 1904:

“DRAPER’S read more

Slander Action over Michael Collins’ Death Ends in Ha’penny Damages, 1958

Would Michael Collins (above, via Whytes) have been outraged at the suggestion that his old comrade ‘Coneen’ was responsible for his death? Or would he have disapproved of the latter’s predilection for slander actions as strongly as the judge in this case?

On 22 August 1922, Michael Collins, Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, was shot dead in an ambush at Béal na Bláth, County Cork. The person who fired the shot that killed him has never been conclusively identified.

Thirty six years after the shooting, its memory still resonates in this slander action involving local personages from the interestingly named village of Kilbrittain, with the barrister nephew of none other than Collins himself joining in the fray with read more

Irish Barrister and Historian Falls Victim to the Alps, 1908

Turner’s Aiguillette from the Valley of the Cluse, 1802. It was on this peak that Irish barrister Caesar Litton Falkiner (below) perished a century later. Image via Meisterdrucke

From the Irish Independent, 11 August 1908:

“The news which flashed over the wires on Thursday night telling us that death had cut short the many activities of Caesar Litton Falkiner, brought to every student of Irish history and biography the keenest feelings of regret.  As a writer on the history of his country he had given promise of rising to the highest place, and it is marvellous, notwithstanding the engagements of his official life as an Assistant Legal Land Commissioner, what read more

Bicycle Theft from Four Courts Yard Ends in Probation Act for Fifteen Intrepid Pre-Teens, 1957

The Four Courts around the time of this incident. Image via Digital Repository of Ireland. Youngster not believed to be one of the offenders.

From the Irish Press, 9 October 1957:

“TOOK BIKES FROM FOUR COURTS YARD

Eight boys and seven girls from eight to eleven years old were charged in the Children’s Court yesterday with taking ten bicycles belonging to officials employed in the Courts of Justice and the Land Registry offices at the Four Courts, and damaging them to the extent of £17.

Evidence was given by Capt. Peter McDonagh, Officer in Charge, Department of Justice, Four Courts, that the children had been in the habit of getting read more

Jephson v Brenon, 1909, Pt 4: The Outcome

Chiswick, where the remarkable Edward St John Brenon ended his days, as depicted by Camille Pissarro, 1897. Image via Museum.org.

From the Chiswick Times, 9 July 1909:

“END OF THE IRISH SUIT

THE ACTION AGAINST A CHISWICK GENTLEMAN

JUDGE’S STRONG REMARKS

The remarkable law suit against a Chiswick gentleman, which had been before the Courts in Dublin for many days, was concluded on Friday last by the Master of the Rolls setting aside a deed of February 20th, 1875, by which John Boyce, now an imbecile in a Dublin institution, who was found starving in a Naples garret, conveyed all his property to Mr. St John read more