Tales From The Courts West Cork 1900

The idea for this book originated while I was researching The Bantry Murder, a book I wrote last year about the case of Timothy Cadogan who was hanged for the murder of William Symms Bird, a Land Agent and Justice of the Peace, in Bantry in 1900. Researching that book I found myself reading various court reports from the newspapers of the time dealing with minor civil and criminal matters. The amount of stories were vast and covered all areas of West Cork. As I have also wrote about my home county, Wexford, at the turn of the Twentieth Century in two other books, I thought this book would be a good way of letting the reader experience what life was like in West Cork at the time. The precursor to what we know as the District and Circuit Courts were the Petty Sessions, Quarter Sessions and County Courts. At the Petty Sessions cases were heard before magistrates or justices of the peace that did not require any jury and were summarily dealt with. The Quarter Sessions, which were held four times a year in different locations, generally heard cases that could not be dealt with by magistrates or justices without a jury. These cases were sent forward on indictment to be heard by Quarter Sessions. However, these Sessions did not have jurisdiction to hear the most serious crimes, notably murder and rape, cases which may have been subject to capital punishment or life imprisonment. These cases were sent for trial at the periodic Assizes. The County Court dealt with civil cases alone. These Courts were in existence until 1924. As there are so many magistrates, solicitors etc. mentioned in the book I give a short bio on as many as possible before getting into the tales from the courts, in order to give the reader an idea of the people involved. With regard to the plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses etc, I tell their tales in their own words by constructing a narrative. It must not be forgotten that these people were real individuals and I am cognisant to the fact that many may have relatives alive today. Because of this I wish to emphasise that I have not fabricated anything, all the material in the book comes from the pages of the newspapers, the record of the day. Nor do I express any personal opinion in regard to any individual