Stories of the Four Courts

Category: The Four Courts Building

  • A Trip Around the Four Courts, Dublin

    Join me on a virtual trip around the Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland’s centre of justice for over 200 years, where most of the events archived on this website took place.

  • Discoveries at the Four Courts Bookstalls, 1796-1886

    From the Freeman’s Journal, 19 February 1921: TREASURE HUNTERS HAUNTS Reminiscences of Dublin’s Old Book Stores (By M. M. O’H.) “The old bookshops of Dublin! What a vista of pleasant thoughts they create.  What delightful experiences of eager prowlings round their shelves, of unexpected ‘finds,’ of surprising bargains, of staunch…

  • The Lion, the Unicorn, the Harp and the Little Knobule, 1931-2023

    Every bit of the Four Courts has a story and the sculptures over the entrances into the grassed courtyards on either side of the portico are no exception. Originally depicted with some artistic licence in early illustrations of the Four Courts, the 19th century camera (which never lies) show these…

  • Revolving Doors Require No Hands, 1954

    It’s often said that the Four Courts is not a place for children, but sometimes their presence there is necessary, as in the case of 11-year-old Joseph Moloney who turned up in the Four Courts in May 1924 to give evidence in his claim against Mayo County Council. Moloney had…

  • Portico Problems, 1786-1925

    From the Evening Herald, 5 March 1925: “A Chara – may one hope, from two lines in your most interesting article on the Four Courts, that Gandon’s original plan for the portico may at long last be executed and the renewed pile be adorned by the grand and noble entrance…

  • Relocating the Encumbered Estates Court, 1850-60

    From the Freeman’s Journal, 5 February 1850: “ENCUMBERED ESTATES COURT By one of those blunders peculiar to English government in Ireland the machinery of a vast revolution was set up for the sale of property, and no provision whatever made for the court which was to work the machine.  The…

  • The Mysterious Folding Doors of the Supreme Court, 1937-73

    From the Evening Echo, 8 January 1973, this wonderful article about the Irish Supreme Court and its former Chief Justices: “For a whole decade – 1923-1932 – the Four Courts building was not in use and the Courts sat in the room in Dublin Castle which now comprise the State…

  • The Square Hall Scandal, 1947

    From the Evening Herald, 9 August 1947: “STRANGE AFFAIR AT FOUR COURTS In the interior of the famous building on Inns Quay there is a corridor leading to the law library. The Library is strictly reserved for the gentlemen of the law, but in the corridor their clients are graciously…

  • A Day in the Four Courts, 1890

    From Irish Society (Dublin), 8 November 1890: “‘A DAY IN THE FOUR COURTS BY A M’LUD For those who cannot spare time for a corporeal visit to the Temple of Justice, let them come with me now in spirit, and I will be their guide, philosopher, and friend in an…

  • The Four Courts as a Sightseeing Destination, 1816-1919

    The interior of the Four Courts might not be the first thing to come to mind when thinking of a tourist destination, but once upon a time it was unmissable for sightseers visiting Dublin. J & W Gregory’s ‘Picture of Dublin’ (1816) describes the ‘new’ Courts of Justice as ‘one grand…

  • The Dome(s) of the Four Courts, 1785-2020

    The original Record Office designed for the Four Courts site by Thomas Cooley did not include a dome, but Cooley’s early death in 1784 coincided with an official decision to expand his design to include the Irish Four Courts, previously situate at Christchurch. His successor James Gandon achieved this by…

  • Manager of Four Courts Coffee Room Prosecuted for Adulterating Spirits, 1921

    From the Dublin Evening Telegraph, 7 April 1921: “Today in the Northern Police Court, before Mr Lupton KC, Mr John Barror, Coffee Room Bar, Four Courts, was summoned, at the suit of Mr Tannam, Inspector of Food, for having, on the 15th February last, sold him four glasses of whiskey…

  • No Palles: Health Crisis in Court 3, 1877

    When cleaning out the cesspit below the Court of Exchequer in 1854, no one seems to have thought that it might refill even before future barristers conceived in that year had emerged from their chrysalis of devilling. Certainly not Christopher Palles, when he took on the job of Chief Baron…

  • Letting off Steam: Heating Problems in Court 2, 1860

    From the Irish Times, 17 January 1860: “COURT OF COMMON PLEAS – YESTERDAY – THE HOT WATER PIPES Previous to the commencement of the business of the court, Mr Serjeant Fitzgibbon complained of the constant steam that was coming up from the pipes underneath the table close to which the…

  • Down by the (neglected) Four Courts Gardens, 1904

    From the Freeman’s Journal, 2 December 1904: “FOUR COURTS GARDENS: Sir – Having had occasion to visit the Four Courts I sauntered round the new buildings, and as I reached the rere opposite to the police offices I was forcibly struck with the neglect and apathy of the surroundings. Here…

  • A Most Offensive Stench: Court 3, 1831-54

    No one was ever quite sure what lay below the Four Courts, other than the following: the Dominican monks of the Priory of St Saviour’s were reputed to have installed an extensive network of subterranean passages, and a hidden river, the Bradogue, flowed underground from Constitution Hill to Ormond Quay,…

  • Life-Threatening Law Library Lavatories, 1874

    From the Freeman’s Journal, 18 June 1874: “The life of a barrister practising in the Four Courts is imperilled by two distinct sets of circumstances. In the first place there is in summer the all-pervading Liffey stench. In the second place there is all the year round the noisesome den…

  • The Problem of Paging Barristers, 1846

    From Saunders’s Newsletter, 20 November 1846: “SIR- In consequence of the numerous complaints by respectable solicitors against the present system of calling barristers’ names at the door of the library, and the uncertainty in which inquirers leave the ante-room, after suffering ten minutes’ crushing among clerks, idlers, &c., when the…

  • Round Hall Ablutions Averted, 1808

    From Saunders’s Newsletter, 22 October 1808: “The alterations now making in the New Courts upon the Inns Quay, consist of raising the floor of the great hall up to the level of the platform at the great entrance, which has been somewhat lowered in order to meet the newly raised…

  • Mr Finn’s Four Courts Coffee-Room, 1839

    From the Freeman, 22 January 1839: “John Finn, Henrietta-street, applied for a license for the coffee-room of the Four Courts. Mr Walsh opposed the application, on the part of the Vintners’ Society, and dwelt on the impropriety of such an establishment in the courts. Mr Curran replied in favour of…

  • Bookstalls, Showmen and Dancing Dogs, 1821-1840

    From the Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail, 26 September 1840: “THE FOUR COURTS:- Although law is very busy in the interior, and the lawyers are not idle in their vocation, the exterior of the building resembles an unfortunate criminal, debarred the privilege of counsel and left to his fate. It…

  • The Pill Lane Fishwives, 1835

    From Saunders’ Newsletter, October 1835: “SIR – I beg, through the medium of your valuable Paper, to again call the attention of the Commissioners of the Paving Board to the intolerable nuisance, which has been so long suffered to continue in Pill Lane. Nearly from the corner of Arran Street…

  • Health and Safety Issues in the Round Hall, 1853

    On 4 August 1853, an anonymous barrister, ‘J.P.P’, felt compelled to write to Saunders’ Newsletter complaining about the dangerous condition of the Four Courts: “SIR – During one of the late heavy showers, as I was passing through the hall of the Four Courts to the dark cellar where we…

  • A Pressing Communication, 1881

    ‘Pneumatic’ is not a word commonly used in relation to the Four Courts. However, for a brief period in the 19th century, the Sub-Post Office in the Four Courts was served by the longest pneumatic mail tube in the world. The operation of this system of delivery, based on the…

  • The Corridor between the Four Courts and Rear Yard Extension, 1857

    The 1836 works to the Four Courts not only included fitting a new Law Library, Rolls Court and Nisi Prius Court into the back of the original building, but also involved the erection of an additional rear building comprising a Solicitors Building (situate where the current Law Library is today),…

  • The First Barristers’ Robing Rooms, 1851

    From the Dublin Weekly Nation, 14 August 1875, an illustration of the Liberator Daniel O’Connell exiting the original robing room of the Four Courts. This room’s situation below the Round Hall rendered it vulnerable not only to flooding, but also to incursions by curious members of the public, one of…

  • The Zoo Next Door, 1821

    From Saunders’ News-Letter, 21 April 1821: “EASTER HOLIDAYS The Public are respectfully informed that Polito’s Grand Menagerie, is removed from Abbey Street, to Ormond-Quay, near the Four Courts, where they will be exhibited for a short time previous to their final removal from this kingdom, and in order that all…

  • The Original Judges’ Car Park, 1852

    The annual State Trials for conspiracy and treason were a very exciting time at the nineteenth-century Four Courts. Many members of the public of all political persuasions attended to observe and comment.  All tried to put their best face forward.  None more so than the Judges.   The style of…