Ireland’s independent courts, established 100 years ago this week, heard many cases down the decades exposing important episodes in Irish life. In the first of an occasional series on such cases, Mary Carolan looks at the involvement of fiery trade union leader “Big Jim” Larkin in the first case to come before the new Irish Supreme Court in 1924 – and his return there just a year later.
Home of the Year winner revealed: restored 1920s redbrick ‘full of style and bold design’ lands the big prize The court battle, sparked after Larkin and some relatives attempted to take over the union’s offices in June 1923, opened before the master of the rolls, Sir Charles Andrew O’Connor, in Dublin Castle in February 1924.
The plaintiffs were the legal trustees and officers of the union, and Larkin’s counter challenge, he ruled, was not justified. There was no dishonesty or secrecy about the past use of union funds for political purposes and its new rules, unanimously adopted by its conference, were intended to ensure compliance with the law in that regard, he held.
Ireland’s first chief justice, Hugh Kennedy, struck out the matter, with costs to the union side, which it was frustrated in recovering, as Larkin was made bankrupt in late 1924. Johnson, after referring to correspondence from demobilised soldiers seeking pensions, urged the government to take warning of the “rising tide of agitation and discontent”. It would have to deal with unemployment in a “much bigger manner” and raise a civil and industrial army to deal with it, he said.
“If I wrote it, there should be more bitterness and invective in it,” the clearly unrepentant editor said, declaring he approved of “every line”, that it was “perfectly true, well-founded and fair” and that he would repeat it even if all the juries of Dublin found against the defendants.When Serjeant Hanna KC, for Johnson, said: “These are the principles of Moscow,” The Irish Times reported that Larkin, “still shouting”, said: “Yes, these are the principles of Moscow.