Our Legal Heritage

In 1937, a story emerged in the newspapers about a girl from Glasgow called Julia Clarke who had been sentenced, in absentia, to one month's imprisonment for “kissing a boyfriend in public”. Ms Clarke and the (notably unnamed) local boy had been seen kissing on church property in Blackro

On 24 March 1661, Florence Newton was committed to prison in Youghal, Co Cork, having been accused of bewitching a young servant girl named Mary Langdon. At Florence’s trial on 11 September 1661, Mary gave evidence that the previous Christmas, Florence had gone to the house of John Pyne, where

The first person to die in John St. John Long’s care was Ms Catherine Cashin. Ms Cashin was 24 years old when she arrived in London in August 1830 with her mother, Lady Cashin, and younger sister, Ellen. Lady Cashin went to Long seeking a cure for Ellen who was reported to have tuberculosis; h

Social media is replete with various examples of quackery; from detox teas and bee-sting facials, to more sinister bleach therapies and cancer cures. Far from being a novel issue, quackery in Ireland has a long history, and many of us who have grown up in rural areas have heard stories of people who

In March 1817, Peter Blake brought Mary Wilkins to Court seeking compensation for breaking a promise of marriage. Mary Wilkins was a wealthy woman in her sixties, whose husband had died over 40 years earlier, leaving her the bulk of his fortune. 

Upon merging with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, members of the Phoenix Society were trained in the use of rifles and military tactics by Irish-American officers of the Fenian Brotherhood (Shane Kenna, Jerimiah O’Donovan Rossa: Unrepentant Fenian (Merrion Press, 2015)). This brought Jerimia

On 10 September 1831, Jerimiah O’Donovan Rossa was born in Reenascreena – a townland nestled between the villages of Leap and Rosscarbery in West Cork. Jerimiah was the second of four children, and his parents were tenant farmers. Like so many Irish families, the O’Donovan’s

On 18 September 1867, Police Sergeant Charles Brett was shot dead while transporting prisoners, including two members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), from Manchester police court to Bell Vue Gaol.

Over 100 years after the tragedies that befell Rathcannon, another Holycross parishioner was the victim of one of Ireland’s most infamous miscarriages of justice. Henry 'Harry' Gleeson was born in Holycross, County Tipperary in 1903. One of twelve children, he was asked by his maternal uncle,

...continued from last week's Irish Legal Heritage: On 1 October 1827, Daniel, Laurence, and Timothy Mara were working on the building of the police barracks in Rathcannon alongside a Mason’s Apprentice. On their way home, eight armed men pursued them, and all but Daniel Mara escaped.

On 30 June 1827, the nephew of a landlord was shot dead in Rathcannon, County Tipperary. Twenty-five-year-old Richard Chadwick was a magistrate and a land agent for his uncle, and had evicted a number of tenants in the Rathcannon area. He had also started building a police barracks in Rathcannon, an

On 25 October 1920, Terence MacSwiney died in London’s Brixton Prison after 74 days on hunger strike. MacSwiney was a republican poet and a playwright who was elected as MP for Mid-Cork in the 1918 general election, and one of the many TDs marked as ‘fé ghlas ag Gallaibh’ (i

Richard Pigott was a journalist who worked with several nationalist newspapers across the island of Ireland, including the Ulsterman and the Nation. For most of his life, Pigott appeared to support the Fenian movement and had been imprisoned for seditious libels on the government during his career.

The Garda Síochána Act 1958 provided for the admission of women to membership of An Garda Síochána, and this month marks the 60th anniversary of women joining An Garda Síochána. However, the 12 Ban Ghardaí appointed on 10 July 1959 were not the first

During World War II, Ireland’s official policy was one of neutrality. Under international law, the state was required to arrest and intern belligerents who landed here by accident – or in some cases were rescued by Irish ships. A total of 314 belligerent personnel were interned at the Cu