This rather explicit letter from 20 year old Malcolm Johnston, heir to Johnston’s Bakery, Ballsbridge, to James Pillar, a Rathmines wine and tea merchant three times his age, was included in the brief to Counsel in the Dublin Scandals trials… Continue reading

Out of the eight men put on trial for homosexual offences in the Dublin Scandals of 1884, two of them – Gustavus Cornwall, the head of the Irish Post Office and James Ellis French – head of the Intelligence Department… Continue reading

That phenomenon of litigation and prosecution which became known as ‘the Dublin Scandals’ commenced in 1883 with a series of articles published by William O’Brien M.P. in his journal ‘United Ireland’. The articles were directed at James Ellis French, chief… Continue reading

Ireland had its own Epstein scandal in 1884. No island was involved, but rather a grocery shop run by James Pillar at 56 Rathmines Road, Dublin, where, in the evening, its owner offered to a different set of customers the… Continue reading