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 The Hall of Four Courts.

THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN, IN 457 l800.

THE HALL OF FOUR COURTS.

BY DENNIS W. DOUTHWAITE. 1.

BEFORE the building of the Four Courts in 1796, justice was dispensed in а house within the precincts of the Cathedral of Holy Trinity, now called Christ Church. The Courts were brought thither in 1605 from Dublin Castle, where sittings had been held since 1401. In 1606 Lord Deputy Chichester, finding that their establishment in the Castle made it an object of attention to the rebels who swarmed on the Dublin hills, made application that the Courts be removed, since" they are over the store of munitions which, by the using of fire for burning of prisoners in the hand, and by other methods, maybe fired, to the exceeding detriment of the State," — not 58

to mention the personal inconvenience of the Lord Deputy, who had his dwelling in the immediate neighborhood. In the Cathedral precincts a habitation was found, though not before the good rulers of the Church had driven an exceeding hard bargain for the privilege; and here for over one hundred years the Courts remained. Among other trials for which the place is famous are those of Sir Phelin O'Neill, Ireland's arch-rebel in 1652, and Annesley v. Annesley, which gave to Sir Walter Scott the plot of his novel of "Guy Mannering;" while the last and perhaps the most memo rable was that in which Curran defended the Rev. William Jackson, indicted for projecting