“A person, though he knows a person is drunk, cannot sometimes explain exactly [why].” How to prove drunkenness in a pre-breathalyser era? The below case from Dungarvan Petty Sessions, reported in the Waterford Evening News of 7 January 1914, which… Continue reading

From the Staffordshire Sentinel of 1 November 1878, this account of Edith Shaw, a former governess with a taste for the high life, charged at the Dublin Commission Court with stealing passengers’ luggage at railway stations: Edith managed a number… Continue reading

Litigation in respect of the buying and selling of horses was once a major part of the Irish legal system. Although Sport (Dublin) did not usually carry legal reports, it made an exception on 13 February 1915 in respect of… Continue reading

From the Porcupine, 18 April 1801, a harrowing story of abuse bordering on homicide by Mary Doyle, a fiend in human form whose treatment of infants procured by her from the Foundling Hospital, Dublin for money-making purposes was dreadful enough… Continue reading

From the Fermanagh Herald of 28 January 1928, this account of the appearance before the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in Green Street of the irredeemable Mary Knott, a ten-time convicted middle-aged fraudster of refined taste and extraordinary ingenuity. Armed with… Continue reading