DOCUMENTS LOST AT FOUR COURTS

Evening Star, Issue 18055, 24 August 1922, Page 6

DOCUMENTS LOST AT FOUR COURTS

HISTORY WIPED OUT. There is still a chance, though only a remote one, that, salvage operations at the Pour Courts will lead to the recovery of some of the valuable documents stored there (says the London ‘Daily Telegraph'). A certain number were in fire-resisting safes, and it is thought possible that the garrison may have removed others to the cellars in order to make room for the bomb factory that was established in the Record Office itself. Unfortunately most of the room in the cellars was taken up by 5,000 large deed boxes. What the destruction of this national storehouse means to Ireland was pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice. Much of the material for a complete history of Ireland, he said, even before an English King ever set foot here, must have been wiped out. Large numbers of the more ancient documents had never been scientifically examined. A few went as far back as the eleventh century, among them the grants from the Pope creating) the first chapter of Christ Church Cathedral, within a stone's throw of the Four Courts building. A loss of another kind is that of the old Exchequer reports. Their embossed leather bindings were' most magnificent examples of seventeenth and eighteenth century work in a style that is now a forgotten art. All the original wills of irishmen distinguished in history' are believed to have been destroyed. One of the most interesting was that of Dean Swift. Survey volumes on the lines of the English Domesday Book have vanished for over. There was the famous Down survey of the lands forfeited in the Rebellion of 164-1 and distributed among soldiers and adventurers, made a few years later by the founder of the Lansdowno family. Also a 1607 survey of the O’Neill confiscations

“Seldom less than a score of inquirers were to be seen delving into these old records, ” Chief Justice Maloney recalled. “ Irish-Ainericans wore always plentiful, and this catastrophe will bo a real blow to the American people, who are particularly keen about their historical connections. I remember being asked; by an American lady when I was Attorney-General to send her the names of all the Maloneys who emigrated between 1793 and 1797, with the names of the ships they sailed in.” A misfortune felt very keenly by the Lord Chief Justice personally is the destruction of the documents relating to the affairs of the 1,110 lunatics under his care as the King’s direct representative. In this category are included wills relating to three million pounds’ worth of property. The wills were in sealed envelopes, and nobody knew their contents. Diamonds and other jewellery belonging to lunatics were also in the safes. The destruction of purely legal documents in other parts of the Four Courts must lead to something approaching chaos in the administration of the law for somo time to conic.

As for tho burning of ail the contents of the Accountant-General's office, tho Lord Cliief Justice remarked: “ I have transactio is with over GOO limited companies, and tho sorting out of the small miscellaneous securities will be a gigantic and almost impossible task.” The famous Law Library, of which nothing but a pile of ashes now remains, contained about 40,000 volumes, many of them irreplaceable, iret editions.