What Are the Four Courts

In delving deeper into the issue, I was concerned that not only were the important details of the “Great Explosion” often misreported by historians, but that other inaccurate stories of crucial events that took place during the Battle of the Four Courts became what Professor Tom Garvin called “factoids,” that is: They have become accepted facts “that it is almost impossible to eradicate from historical archives and public consciousness.” The age-old nomadic character of the Irish courts ended with the 1775 decision to house the country`s legal system under one roof. Under English rule in Ireland, there had been two legal systems. Within the Pale, with Dublin in the centre, English law prevailed. Justice beyond pallor was administered under the ancient Brehon laws. The Brehon Laws, named after the wandering jurists of Ireland, were transmitted orally from the first century BC at the latest and first transmitted to the 7th century AD. Placed on parchment. Use of the newly developed Irish written language and continued its use until the early 17th century. Before the 17th century, the courtyards were located in different locations – but mostly in Dublin Castle. The North Block, used as headquarters by the anti-contract garrison, was a building that stood east of the public archives office and north of the famous Four Courts Block and stretched the entire length of the courts. It was built in the mid-19th century and housed divorce and district courts, offices for district judges, offices of the Incorporated Law Society, and the headquarters of the Honorable Benchers of King`s Inns. Under the Supreme Court of Justice (Ireland) Act 1877, these four courts were replaced by two – the Court of Appeal presided over by the Lord Chancellor and the High Court of Justice presided over by the Lord Chief Justice – but the building retained its historic name. [3] On April 14, 1922, the judicial complex was occupied by IRA forces opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, with Rory O`Connor as their spokesman.

On June 28, the new national army attacked the building to expel the “rebels” on the orders of Defense Minister Richard Mulcahy, authorized by Dáil Éireann President Arthur Griffith. [9] This attack provoked a week of fighting in Dublin. During the bombing, the historic building was destroyed. The west wing of the building was wiped out in a massive explosion and destroyed the Irish Public Archives office at the back of the building. Nearly a thousand years of archives were destroyed by this explosion, the next fire, and the water poured over the fire. [10] The four courts are so named because the building originally housed the four courts of chancery, king`s bench, exchequer and common pleas. When Cooley died in 1784, James Gandon, the customs architect, was commissioned to include the courts in the plan. In its final design, it integrated cooley`s building and added two squares and a central block. The places were given to the deposit and law firms, the center to the four courts of the Chancellery, the Exchequer, the Bench of Kings and the common pleas. You can visit courthouses across the country when the courts meet.

You are welcome to go to the courtrooms and watch most of the cases. (You cannot go to courtrooms where the case is heard in camera, which means it is heard in private.) Before visiting you, check the “Legal Journal” section of courts.ie to see which cases are listed for the hearing. The national army`s attack on an anti-treaty force entrenched in the Four Courts was one of the most important events in modern Irish history, if not the most important. The four courtyards have been an important physical presence along Dublin`s Liffey Quays since their completion in the early 19th century, and with fighting in the early hours of the Civil War mainly concentrated in the area that immediately surrounded the complex, the battle drew large crowds of spectators, and the action was largely recorded in newsprint. Photos and even news movies. Nevertheless, it is clear from some accounts of the battle that the authors had little or no knowledge about the physical nature of the four-course complex buildings, their exterior and interior floor plans, and in fact something as simple as the number of buildings in the courtyard complex. The four courts have been at the epicentre of the Irish legal system since the first case was heard in November 1796. Built on the original site of a 13th-century Dominican monastery garden that would later become the king`s former inns, today`s four courtyards were built over the twenty years between 1776 and 1796.

The work of architects Thomas Cooley and James Gandon, they were originally designed to bring together the various court offices and legal acts that until then had been scattered in a variety of houses between the river and the High Street. Over the next two hundred years, the life of the courts corresponded to that of the nation. In 1922, during the Civil War, the buildings were bombed. Later that year, the judicial system became part of the newly independent state and the building continued to house the successor courts established by or under the constitutions of 1922 and 1937. Some historians have been devastating in their accounts of what was seen as the national army`s inability to skillfully use the 18-pound QF field guns borrowed from the British army that were used during the siege. I carefully examined the challenges these men faced and sought the advice of a retired Irish Army artillery officer, who was involved in the operation of these field guns. After a thorough examination of contemporary photographs, I came to the conclusion that these inexperienced shooters, with the little experience they had and without practice, were very good and carried out the orders they had received to the letter. When, after more than 24 hours, it became clear that this tactic would not work, it was decided to attack the courts with infantry, and the crews received new orders. Two essential pauses were to be created to allow the infantry access to the interior of the buildings, one on the west façade of the West Pavilion of the Four Courtyards and the other on the west façade of the administrative offices of the Office of Public Archives. As for the first, it was not an easy task for an inexperienced crew. They had a narrow “window” in which to place their grenades: they had to make sure they “missed” a telegraph pole just across the street where they were shooting and not hit the block that included the Four Courts Hotel, the national army`s battle headquarters, and which was a few meters from the west wing in front of Morgan Place. In both cases, the necessary violations were committed in sufficient size in the right places in a short time.

In 1606 the court briefly moved across the river to its present location, but due to pressure from the Dublin Corporation to keep it within the boundaries of the Old Town, the courts returned to the other side of the Liffey in 1608 to a new house on the grounds of Christ Church and adjacent Christ Church Place. At the end of the 17th century, space proved insufficient and court offices and legal acts remained scattered. The courts were in a very dilapidated state and architect William Robinson was commissioned to rebuild them. Despite Robinson`s efforts, the Four Courts were again in ruins in 1775 and it was decided to build a new structure on the current site. To access the old four courtyards, visitors literally had to walk through “hell.” Christchurch was once surrounded by a tangle of narrow streets and alleys. One of these passages to the west of the cathedral, known as “hell”, is said to have taken its name from an underground cellar of the same name. A large wooden statue of the devil adorned the vaulted entrance to the driveway. In 1922, as today, the complex included four different buildings, the four courts, the Office of Public Records, the North Block and the Land Registry.

Dorothy McArdle, who was in Dublin at the time of the battle, alluded to her lack of understanding of the complex in her account of the battle by referring to the Four Courts as “the building”. Recent publications, including the prestigious Atlas of the Irish Revolution, have maps describing the complex and showing none of the site`s four buildings, the Land Register. .