Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (2 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
original depositions out of his own custody, and given them to a
reverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by the
evidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car on the
road upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the original
depositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped. The
depositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to the
police at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption of
the inquest. If the case stood alone there it was difficult to
understand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel to
resist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the very
door such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated. No doubt, he said,
he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange,
that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become of
them, and he complained now of not being told by the police of their
recovery--not told of his own misconduct. On the 1st September, Ellen
Gaffney applied by a solicitor--Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off the
Coroner permitted a gentleman named O'Kearney Whyte to appear--for whom?
Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin? No, but
for the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the local
branch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged as
the reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnesses
and address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counsel
was, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed by
Father Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him--that it
was he who had murdered the child. It was asserted that Father Bergin
sat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct of
the inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing's
version was certainly a most amusing one. He said it was the habit to
invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in
life--which, of course, a clergyman should be in--and that he asked
Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemma
the Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he had
previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be
represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or
accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so
situated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) did
not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was
the Coroner's allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter.
The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals
or the copies of the first day's depositions, it was on the evidence of
September 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in a
further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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