Criminal cases
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Deciding on Drunkenness Pre-Breathalyser, 1914
“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
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Former Governess’s Gentlemen’s Oyster Supper Cancelled due to Arrest for Luggage Theft, 1878-9
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
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The Devil’s Cure, 1801
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
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Not What They Thought She Was, 1928
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
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The Rival Sweethearts of Paddy Moriarty, 1895
From the Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, 27 September 1895, this account of a legal tussle at the Killorglin Petty Sessions between two women smitten with the same man, with a dialogue worthy of – and perhaps an inspiration… Continue reading