The Last Forty Years of the Irish Bar

Abstract

Forty years ago in my old country the legal world was in a state of transition. The old order was changing in a great number of ways. The Judicature Act had just got into swing and although four Courts still opened in the hall beside the Liffey they were soon to be fused into one. These were at that time the Court of Chancery, the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Common Pleas, and the doors of these four opened on the Central Hall and their names stood over them. The Court of Chancery stood by itself, but it was thought in those days that you had your choice of three Common Law Courts in which to have your case tried. If you had some merit on your side but thought that the law was against you, you issued your writ in the Queen's Bench, which was presided over by Mickey Morris, as he was invariably called although he was a lord, because Mickey had a good deal of common sense, a great deal of humanity, but his ideas of jurisprudence were peculiarly his own. On the other hand, if you were strongly of opinion that however iniquitous your client was, he had the law on his side, you issued your writ in the Court of Exchequer, presided over by Christopher Palles, the greatest judge before whom I have ever appeared. Christopher Palles decided according to what he believed to be the law, and would pay no attention to any other consideration that might be advanced before him.